Turning a Hobby into a Living

All my life I have been creative. All my life I have wanted to help people. As young as a kindergartener, I was the one who everyone went to for advice. As I grew up my choice of profession morphed and changed over time, but it always had one element in common. In some way it was providing a service to others, helping them become the best version of themselves. I have spent the majority of my professional career thus far in a counseling/consultative space within Secondary and Higher Ed and Early Career Talent Acquisition. A few years ago, I took a brave step and purchased a Cricut Explore Air machine. I was extremely intimidated by it initially, but I had a friend who was there to show me the ropes and answer a lot of annoying questions. I was fascinated by everything that it could do and how my creative mind was unleashing so many new possibilities.

I started off slowly, making t-shirts and gifts for family, friends, teachers etc. here and there, but soon I felt myself being drawn to the computer more and more. I wanted to create my own designs. I had little familiarity with Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop or InDesign, but they were programs that I always wanted to learn. So, I finally decided to get the Adobe Creative Suite and I began teaching myself these very complicated programs (thank God for YouTube). Once I became familiar with Illustrator and its power to create vector images, I was hooked and I began to formulate a plan on how to take this hobby and turn it into something more.

Creating and designing is not easy, but it is fun, and even a bit addictive. There is a sound going around on TikTok right now about people who run their own business will never work a day in their life, but then it goes on to say, actually, you will work harder than you ever have in your life, longer days and later nights. That is 100% true, but the caveat is that it doesn’t feel like work. There are many nights I sit down at my laptop to begin working after finishing my day job, feeding the kids, running them to whatever activity and getting all three of them settled for bed at 9 PM. As a single parent, I am exhausted, but when I sit down at the computer and start working on an order, or on this website, or just creating or researching, I get this second wind and the next thing I know, it is 2 am. I’m not saying that is healthy, or sustainable, but what I am saying is that I genuinely love doing this. I love the fire that it ignites inside me. I love how my friends and family send me text messages all the time asking me if I can make this or that for them. I love how it doesn’t feel like work, more like play. But most of all, I love making people happy and exceeding their expectations.

So, that is why I decided to start Beautifully Blended Design Company. It’s starting with apparel and other merchandise, but truly is so much more, but we will get into that later. I wanted this first blog post to answer the question, why, for all of you that might be wondering. I know there are a lot of people out there doing what I do; I believe there is room for all of us. I believe that we all provide something unique to the way we work, our process, and our reason for doing this. My ultimate goal is your satisfaction. I am a bit of a perfectionist that way. I look forward to serving you and I thank you for taking the time to stop by. If you have any questions, feel free to drop them in the comment section below.