A creative mompreneur’s journey (part 2)
All my stylish in town, Hi!
Now about my first cross-country move! From Toledo to Salt Lake City, UT! I moved there right after Brad and I got married in 2016 and my graduation. There, I started working as a stylist with Stella and Dot and learned a great deal about how to run an online business. I always felt I needed to put all the energy I was using into something that was mine. Like my own products… Through the confusion and not knowing what I wanted to do, I started reading about how to become a wardrobe stylist. One day, I put together a whole business plan, but it never took off from the ground. It got me excited but was not the plan for me.
Gorgeous Salt Lake city with its beautiful mountains, photo cred: https://unsplash.com/@aloyisius65
We usually took trips back to toledo for 4th of July. One day at a casual talk with my sister at a downtown Perrysburg Cafe, the idea of learning to sew came up. “Why don’t you get into learning how to sew?’, she said. We went back to SL I googled and I came upon The Fashion Sew School in SL and that was it!
Maddie & Bella Coffee Roasters in Downtown Perrysburg, Ohio
Me taking my beginner sewing class at Fashion Sew School in Salt Lake City, UT, Fall 2018
I was in my second trimester, pregnant with Miss Sophie Belle (my now almost-three-year-old daughter/ Tasmanian Devil). I started learning how to sew, slowly but surely. Painful, but when it feels right you can’t give up. And at this point in my life, I had tried enough things to know what felt right was right!
Then in 2019, another job offer for Brad and we moved to Fort Lauderdale, FL with a three-month-old Sophie. We did not know a soul in FL. The move itself is a New York Times-best-selling story. Maybe one day I write it. A long pause to get settled in FL. I almost forgot all the sewing I learned. Once ready (figuring mommyhood out with no support and many tears), I started looking for schools in the area. Fortunately, I was close to Miami, arguably, the 3rd fashion capital in the States!
While brushing up my sewing skills and learning pattern-making in the Fashion Institute of South Florida, I got to the exciting part of fashion design and sketching ideas. Illustrating my designs on croquis (models) took me back to my childhood. I was always good at drawing but never thought anything of it.
With all the joy sketching brought back to my life, I knew this was making more sense than anything else I had tried. It felt different. The passion level becomes too high to be easily forgotten or taken for granted. As I continued taking classes I got more serious about making a business out of it, I quickly realized I needed to do more than the oh-so-joyful creative, to start a fashion business.
find my designs here.
Then Covid hit! Besides all the confusion and panic, I found time to focus. We turned our wired-shaped storage room into somewhat of a design studio for me where I could get organized and allocate some time to planning and working while Sophie took her naps. I started planning and researching the heck outta the internet! Google can do wonders believe it or not!
Continue reading part 3 and how everything started to take off and the emotional ups and downs of starting up a fashion business…