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HOW IT ALL STARTED
A SIDE HUSTLE AND A DREAM
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It was 2016. Upon a lake trip with family, I (Emily) broke my right foot. Freshly engaged to Michael and returning to college... How we were we going to pay for a wedding and school was the question. ...Laid up with a broken foot, I was out of my day job and needed to quickly pivot. ...Just not on my feet!
Having a love for crafting, the thought of taking a stab at opening an Etsy shop sounded fun. I could work from home while healing, I thought. With my Cricut Cake and sewing machine as my sidekick, I was set up for success in the closet of our guest bedroom. That's when we opened up our first Etsy shop selling hand-sewn paper garland and other party decor. August 27, 2016 I heard my phone go "Cha-ching!" I received our first order for a hand painted candy corn pennant garland. With a goal of $500 the first month, I surprised myself by surpassing my goal by $222. ...With a little more effort, could this turn into something more?
Left: This was our second bedroom, which was our gym that transitoned into our "craft room" I had officially outgrownthe closet in the guest bedroom by Christmas 2016.
THINGS STARTED PICKING UP
In 2017 the orders were rolling in! We had three Silhouette machines cutting paper, and they simply couldn't keep up. Michael began exploring a faster method to our madness. That's when we bought our first laser... Insert PeeWee. A Boss 1416 joined us in the garage of our home. Looking back, it's comical how terrified we were of this thing. It sat for a few months due to pure intimidation. By the grace of courage and trial and error (heavy on the error part), we cut our production times into a tiny fraction. ...The laser, pictured on the right, opened the horizon for a lot of potential and growth we didn't quite see coming. It was at this time that Michael took a leap of faith, and stepped away from his job, as I wasn't able to meet the demands of our shop myself.
WE WERE BUSTING AT THE SEAMS!
Accompanying PeeWee in 2019 was a new addition, named Bertha... A 3655 Boss Laser. Our Etsy shop was booming and was slowly consuming us and our home. Literally. Pictured right, our garage was the personalized gift workshop, which also became our "packaging facility." Our living room housed inventory, our guest bedroom housed inventory, we squeeked in a few shelves of invetory next to the Harley in the garage, and we even had two offsite storage units for our gender reveal goods. Our home was consumed, our lives were consumed... Our business was growing, but so was my belly. It was time to seperate business and home, as we were preparing to welcoming our first child at the start of 2020.
THE SHOP WAS BUILT.
2020 - We were finally building a shop. A designated space that would allow us to spread our wings and practice a work-life balance. Practice, I use this word intentionally, because it required just that of us.
There's no doubt that 2020 was a weird one for all of us, but the construction of our shop allowed for valuable time together. It was a project built by father and son, Michael and his Dad side by side... Every outlet and air supply placement was met with such thought to work flow and detail representing time well-spent together. Michael and his Dad work together like a well-oiled machine. They even bid and won at an auction, a spiral staircase to connect the bottom floor to the mezanine.
This project wasn't simply that we were building a shop—it began with early morning Hardee's breakfasts and hot coffee, paired with a collection of lessons, grit, sweat equity, all of which could never be measured by the value of the building itself. Our shop has become a reminder of what can be accomplished when two generations work together and take pride in something made by our own hands. We often thank God for our able bodies and minds in reflection of what may have felt like chaos at the time. This space allowed for our ambitions to gro and begged the question, what new products could we offer in this space?
FAST FORWARD TO TODAY
I know that was a fast, 6+ year fast forward. But all the in between has been rooted in that practice, I mentioned earlier. Today, we proudly operate 9 commercial lasers, a 12-ton clicker press, hat and apparel presses, equipping us with the opportunity to permanently personalize, engrave, and cut a slew of products and raw substrates. More so than the machines themselves, we are equipped with able bodies and minds that we do not take for granted. So often we can find ourselvess overwhelmed as business owners, and quickly have to take a step back and remember that we once prayed for this very thing. For He has allowed our dream to become a reality, we owe Him all the glory. What felt like practice was really just God giving us the opportunity to show up everyday. Little did we know that the adversity I faced when breaking my foot would lead to the this practice of work-life balance, which allows us to find purpose in our work, but more so experience the joy of being present, intentional, and engaged in our children's lives.