Today I’m launching a 3.5 week series on home based business. For the first post, I’d like to tell my story and how it evolved into the 3 businesses I currrently run.
Ever since a child I’ve dreamed of ways to make money. I had a lemonade stand, participated in garage sales, and designed crafts that I hope to sell one day in my trinket store. During High School I worked as a paige and then a clerk at our Public Library and loved it! I also volunteered a few weeks out of the summer teaching at summer camps. My main job during that time was figuring out how to get scholarships. Piecing them from here and there, they added up to a full ride for my 4 year teacher education. While in college I also worked on campus as a Math Tutor and continued my library job in the summers, while adding a part time secretary position for the State of Kansas.
After graduation, I became a 5th grade math teacher. The first year of teaching I got married in December. The second year of teaching, my first daughter was born in January. I had always thought I would be a stay at home mother, but my husband was in graduate school and without my income, we were stuck. So I tearfully kissed my baby goodbye each morning and finished out the year. That was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do. While I was working, I was filled with guilt for leaving my baby behind and for burdening my family with her care. At the end of the year, I couldn’t think about doing it one more time, and resigned.
Thankfully, my husband graduated that May and found a job at a local tax firm. I quickly found out how hard it is to be a stay at home mom. It is hard but worth it and I hope to never go back.
The next year, a friend of mine started a historical bookstore in Nauvoo, Illinois and asked me if I would make some period crafts to sell in her shop. My mother designed the convertable apron/bonnet pattern that I still sell at www.blesseddesigns.net and I started sewing. I could work while my baby was asleep and enjoyed the craft. Though after about 200 bonnets, it was getting old fast. While the bookstore was open over the next decade I made about 1,000 bonnets and saved most of the money I earned in a “seed money” account to start my next business venture.
During my bonnet sewing period, I also taught music lessons–piano and voice. Sometimes I worked for cash, and sometimes traded for things like babysitting or raw milk. I also crocheted doilies and made other little crafts to sell. My childhood dream of owning a trinket shop was swirling in my mind and with the birth of the internet, a brick and mortor store wasn’t necessary. I had 2 children aged 2 and under and started to see my laundry and dishes pile up as I tried to work and spend time with the children each day. As I thought about my dreams for the future, I realized that trading my time for money wasn’t going to get me there. I simply didn’t have enough time in my day to care for my family and work the hours to meet our goals.
I decided to design and sell sewing patterns. I could create the item once, print it and sell it hundreds of times with no new time spent. My sewing skills were upper beginner level, I didn’t have any idea how to draft patterns or change them from one size to the other, and the printing options were expensive and mind boggling. Undaunted, I drove back to my old library and asked for university books on all the subjects I didn’t know anything about. They were able to borrow the books from universities free of charge to me and I built my own free home study course on pattern production while my children played at my feet.
It took 3 years for me to gain the knowledge I needed to design and print my first 3 patterns. McCalls pattern company printed the designs for me and I insisted on driving the package there personally to get a tour of the plant. They were very complimentary of my work and were gracious to give me the tour I craved, though were puzzled about my excitment. To them it was just a dark warehouse full of machines. To me it was the place where dreams were made.
I’ll finish my story tomorrow. Here’s the main point I want you to remember today:
While trading time for money is a fast way to get the cash flow going, build your long term business plan around trading knowledge for money.
I’m afraid I will never learn how to sew correctly. My machine is sitting out and I have no idea what the dials and switches mean. I have used it to sew a straight stitch, but not much else.
Don’t give up PharmGirl. I’ve sewed pants with two left legs, cut across all 4 fingers with a rotary cutter and sewed through my thumb on the sewing machine. I cut a hole in my nearly finished skirt while working with my serger and made several tops with the neck so stretched out of shape that I had to throw it in the trash. I’ve cut out t-shirts with the knit stretch going the wrong direction so it got stuck on my head and I couldnt’ pull it on. If the mistake can be made, I’ve probably made it. But now I can sew anything–or design it and grade it into all sizes. The only thing I did to get here is not give up. And all those mistakes make me a really great sewing teacher–which is worth money, lol.