A little business update

It will surprise none of you to find that my well intentioned promise of writing more frequently didn't happen. I thought quitting my job would free up a lot of my time. Oh how wrong I was!

In the 3 months since my last post I am happy to announce that I haven't given up on start up life- although I've definitely considered it more than once! I'm still here plugging away in my colourful little shop(I painted it bright yellow!)

Me outside my shop

I now have a bunch of followers who seem to really like the brand I'm creating and I have to keep reminding myself that quality outweighs quantity, both in products and in social media following. I am a little impatient for the future when I have a larger audience which, hopefully, brings in more sales, but until then I'm enjoying getting to know my customers and being able to reply to all of the comments and feedback I get.

I'm slowly learning which products people like the most and am starting to experiment with a few new design ideas, including some more delicate pieces. I've been trying to gauge what my target audience likes the most and having some more simple/minimal pieces is a popular request. So here is a little snapshot of some of the pieces in the new collection!

 The minimalist, contemporary recycled glass earrings.

The minimalist, contemporary recycled glass necklaces.

All of these, and many more, can be bought on my brand new website!!! You might have seen it to get to this page- if not you should definitely check it out: www.textilecandy.com . I've done it with shopify so that people can buy online, as much as I've tried to be a web designing genius(and i really have) my brain is just not wired that way.  One of the great things about shopify is that it automatically optimises your website for mobile viewing which, lets be honest, nowadays is how the majority of people view a website.  It makes my life a lot easier too as my website connects to my facebook shop and automatically updates itself instead of me having to list items on multiple platforms, if only Etsy were as simple. I've also listed a few items on ebay to see how that compares, but I'm not too convinced that ebay is the right platform for handmade mid-price products. It would be great if all you blog readers/followers could let me know which they use the most? Etsy, Ebay, Amazon or others?

Alongside the recycled glass jewellery I've also been working with some local seamstresses to start a collection of soft accessories; cushions, hairbands and fabric storage baskets, hopefully this will expand as time goes on.

Locally handmade African wax print cushions and handmade fabric stacking storage baskets.

Bohemian style locally made fabric turban headbands.

When I first opened the shop I only had a really small collection of jewellery that I'd made while living in Switzerland and just a few artworks to sell. I had to find some stock pretty quickly and, to avoid burning myself out by trying to make everything, I decided to start selling the work of other local makers. I now stock local photography, driftwood houses, chemical free soaps, hand knitted stuffed animals, handpainted cards, printed scarves, ceramic ornaments, glass stud earrings and fused glass coasters. Here are a few of the locally made things I have in the shop at the moment- you can also buy all of these online through my website/facebook/etsy/instagram!

Local makers currently in stock.

Oh and I have a new stockist!!!!!You can now pick up your own Textile Candy jewellery at Arteria in Lancaster and KittyBrown boutique in Carnforth.

So that is a concise version of the last 3 months :) I think doing smaller blog posts might be the way forward for me!

Thanks for reading! x

5 months later...

So what have I been doing in the 5 months of no posting?

I moved all my worldy belongings back to the UK, I celebrated Christmas, I started renovating the shop, I travelled to Ghana, I came back and then I OPENED THE SHOP :) So its been quite a busy few months....and what am I doing now?I'm processing all of that information while having sporadic mental breakdowns!

Seriously though I should probably introduce you to my shop and show you some photos of how I got there.....

At first I was really excited about getting my very own shop, the kind of excitement you get when you rent a new apartment. Then I moved home and started working on it and I LOVED that. I fancy myself as a bit of a DIY queen and, after watching far too many episodes of 'Grand Designs' and 'the Restoration man', special thanks to ma boyssssss George Clarke and Kevin McCloud, I was pretty convinced that 'doing up' an old shop space would be really fun and easy. I had ambitions of  moving all my stock(which I had not yet made) into the shop ready for a grand opening at Christmas where local newspaper journalists would come and marvel at my beautiful bohemian showroom leading to me being inundated with customers....*breathe*....needless to say it didn't happen quite like that... but I did have a lovely shop opening with lots of people attending and I have had some customers since so still pretty good!

Here are a few of the before photos...

As you can see the shop is cute, small and very basic. In its original state it was exactly what you would expect to get for just £35/week. Cheap laminated fake wood floor in quite a cold wood colour, dusty looking duck egg blue walls, damp EVERYWHERE! A basement so cold that you could literally see your own breath in front of you. It was pretty dingy to be honest.....but I had decided the basement would become my studio space... much to the amusement of my family.

This is the before shot, all I'd done in these photos was sweep the floor and clean away a few cobwebs. As you can see it doesn't even slightly resemble a studio space!

Post damp paint....this was my favourite bit as it actually starting looking like a potential workspace.

Getting the basement that white was no small feat. I had to cover up some holes, with the help of Daddy Burns, and coat EVERYTHING-floor, walls and stairs- with thick layers of damp paint.

I will share some photos of the current studio space in my next post as it's a little bit on the 'creative' side at the moment!

 Then I started on the upstairs.... painting the walls white only to come back the next day to find that the paint hadn't dried at all because the shop was so damp and cold. The windows were always so full of condensation that the paint around them constantly dripped and slid around instead of drying. Then I discovered an absolute miracle worker- damp bags. I attached one on each side of my shop door and within a few days all the condensation had gone and the bags had soaked up enough moisture for me to be able to coat the walls with damp paint. If you want to buy some here's a link: 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/i/171271771237?chn=ps&adgroupid=47842945425&rlsatarget=pla-380312377891&abcId=1129946&adtype=pla&merchantid=115019311&poi=&googleloc=9046578&device=c&campaignid=974959912&crdt=0

They really are amazing!

The shop floor before, during fitting and after OSB board. A definite improvement in my opinion!

Next on my shop list was the floor. I pretty much had my heart set on an OSB/chipboard floor. I love the rough, creative look and think it creates a really welcoming atmosphere in the shop so I purchased a few sections and asked my dad to help me lay them. Then came the exciting bit of the renovation(ish) project....making the furniture and fixtures!I had a very clear idea of what I wanted the interiors of the shop to be like, I've had a 'business:interiors' pinterest board for goodness knows how long. I wanted unfinished rough wood, rope, industrial piping and most importantly NO PLASTIC. I wanted everything to look quite rugged and natural, because that's reflected in the products I sell- handpainted wood and recycled glass.

You can see how happy I was doing my driftwood scavenger hunt!The bottom photo is a close up of the driftwood texture- isn't it beautiful!Then there's the ladder and scaffolding boards before and after sanding.

I made:

- a counter from two old palette boxes and some scaffolding board,

-  a shelving display from scaffolding board and old found rope,

- a hanging display from some patterned driftwood and old rope

- a necklace display from an old wooden scaffolding ladder

- earring displays using leftover OSB board from the floor

- another earring display using garden fence

- earring wall displays using frames bought in charity shops

- and a window display using repurposed apple crates.

None of the fixtures in my shop are new. Everything is either salvaged, repurposed or bought from a charity shop. It just goes to show that you don't need money for everything, you just need a bit of creativity and an electric sander ;) I'm not gonna pretend it was super easy and I don't think my hands will ever recover but it was so worth it to be able to sit in my shop with pride and say that I created everything inside.

My completed shop, inside and out!Quite a difference from the original photos dontcha think!?

I really did love turning the shop into my own- it felt a little bit like a fun DIY project that I was doing for someone else. I basically separated the reality of what I was doing from the actual doing of it- does that make sense? I tend to process information quite slowly, especially when its something I will no doubt have an emotional reaction to. I chose, instead, to completely ignore the fact that I had quit my job to become a shop owner despite having no knowledge/experience in setting up a business and with only 30 necklaces and 20 keyrings to sell. In fact, I ignored this until 2 hrs before the shop opening where my poor dad found me crying in a corner of the basement... because I couldn't get the windows clean.....I kid you not!The simple frustration of not being able to clean my windows properly overwhelmed me so much that it led to a downward spiral of doubt and panic. This culminated in me sobbing "I can't do this, this was a mistake, this is impossible, I can't run a business, what if it fails"(with intermingled sobs and sniffles).... it sounds ridiculous I know. Obviously it wasn't really the windows I was crying about ...more an overwhelming awareness of my incapability.

.....I told you this blog would be an honest one.....

Anyway I pulled myself together and the launch actually went well. There was prosecco, people bought my products and I felt, for the first time, like I had made the right decision.

Since the launch 3 weeks ago I have had a few customers and been to a stall in Manchester's Northern Quarter. I have a few more things in the pipeline as I want to start doing some workshops in April but need to make myself a flat pack trestle table first- obviously this will be made from scaffolding boards and old ladders once again ;)

So there's a little update of what's actually been going on with my shop. ALSO I promised myself I would keep providing tips on here so my tip of the day is:

Starting up a start up!

Today I realised how much I miss blogging. It's my only outlet that doesn't require me to make any money from it, which means I can fully enjoy it. Starting up my own business and spending so much time on my own is causing me to spend far too much time inside my own head.....so instead I'm going to get it out of my head and into virtual space for you lovely people to read instead.

 I actually considered starting a new blog to document my start up journey, I thought about calling it 'start up diary' or something painfully cliche but then I remembered this old thing. It seems fitting that I blog about my start up on the blog that started my start up!

Going forward my posts are going to be a bit more honest, personal, start up/business oriented and have very little to do with fashion and textiles so if you follow me for that reason you might wanna hit the unsubscribe button now haha- there's my disclaimer done!

If you are landing on my blog as a total newcomer then welcome :)

I've noticed that startup life, like anything, has its peaks and troughs.... unfortunately I'm finding that my peaks are Mt. Everest and the troughs are comparable to the Mariana trench. I'm constantly giving myself pep talks and advice and thought it could be useful to make a note of them...for other people in a similar situation and also for myself- as a much needed reminder.

The peaks and troughs of Startup life

I've always said to myself that 'if I had my own business I'd...' my life would be better/I would be happier/ I would spend all my time drawing in creative bliss...' and blah blah blah.

I don't know if that was naive, hopeful or just plain delusional. Quite honestly I have no idea what I'm doing half of the time and there are moments....oh so many moments.....that I think I've made a colossal mistake. 

This is not my illustration but depicts perfectly how I feel a lot of the time!I thought about doing all of my own illustrations for this post but simply typing in 'start up illustrations' on google images provided me with exactly the illustrations I was looking for- kinda reassuring to know I'm not the only one feeling like this

Until December last year I was earning a substantial amount of money as a Senior print designer, moving around Europe working for various companies. I had my own beautiful rented apartments full of my own things, my own fridge full of my own food,my own bathroom with my own candles and plants in and a lovely double bed. I also had enough money to go on weekend city breaks around Europe and permanently have nice new clothes in my wardrobe. Great life huh!?I would be a complete liar if I said I didn't miss all of these things. 

Now I'm living back at my parents house in a small overcrowded/messy space(that's what happens when you move an apartments worth of stuff back into your childhood room) with a single bed, relying on my parents for food and earning very little. My clothes are completely worn out, I have no financial independance and have yet to develop anything resembling a routine. 

Despite these complaints, most of which are materialistic and only temporary(fingers crossed),I am so SO grateful for having such amazing parents that have welcomed me home like the prodigal daughter. They're letting me live rent free and providing me with meals while wholeheartedly believing that I can make this business work and offering me endless necessary encouragement. Massive shout out to Mama and Papa Burns(if you're reading this) without you guys I wouldn't have the confidence to do any of this/I would be homeless haha! Also thank you so much to my Nan ho I know will definitely be reading this- providing me with endless takeaway coffee and advertising ideas!

One of the other things I'm finding SO VERY HARD is not comparing myself to other small businesses/instagram profiles that started around the same time as me.  I am not the most confident at social media. I find it difficult to post things that happened in a staged photoshoot I did weeks before while pretending they're from today(it feels like lying), I don't know what to say in captions and I'm not particularly engaging a lot of the time. I seriously don't understand how to get people to follow a business page or how people find the time to take and edit all of these perfectly lit photos. I am currently stuck at 350 followers and a little bit stumped about how to do the whole business instagram thing....but I'm working on a plan....again...haha!

I'm going to start using my blog to document how I'm finding starting up a start up. I'm going to let you know when good things happen and when things go wrong. Whoever reads this can be my accountability buddy, which I've heard is an essential thing for freelancers and start ups.  I'll be sharing tips I've found useful, podcasts I find inspirational and everything from my favourite background movies to my music playlists.

SO lets get started with 3 useful tips I have discovered for when you are feeling like you're never gonna get there:

No.1

Comparison is the thief of joy!

No.2

Look how far you've already come!

To quote the infinite wisdom of Drake:

No.3

Make a to do list every day!

Quite honestly one of the main things that keeps me going a lot is a bible verse.... for those of you who aren't familiar with the bible its just a really good piece of advice:

P.s This is not my artwork- I found it on pinterest.

It's so easy when near the beginning of a small business/start up journey to focus on how small the business is; how small an instagram following you have, how small an impact you're having on the people around you, how small your sales count is on Etsy  BUT, no matter how small your beginning is, at least you've begun!