May I first say, welcome to this incredible journey we’ve been on; thank you for stopping by. And it has definitely been a journey.
Let’s travel back in time to when I picked the needles back up again…
I already had a plethora of hobbies monopolizing much of my craft space, but did that stop me. Not in the least. The more the merrier so I thought. Crafting and making had always been a part of my life and brought the most joy. And that fact that I could use my talents to bless others was huge. Jewelry and knitting became my biggest creative outlets, and the opportunity to make great gifts for friends and family. Gifts I knew they would cherish forever.
A couple years later, the dream of turning my hobbies into a business began to simmer. It was fueled by those same friends and family saying I should sell the items I make. I made a makeshift business card to have on hand for the couple craft fairs I was blessed to be a part of. The name came to me back then. As each item was handmade by me, Faith, and an original, created by me, the business name was obvious: A Faith Creation.
The dream grew and grew with each item that sold and the excitement on the faces of the folks who saw my products. I needed a real logo. My brother is a fantastic artist, and he was the first person I turned to for help. It had to incorporate jewelry and knitting somehow, and it had to be orange. The orange part was very important. (If you can’t tell, my favorite color is orange.) With a couple different renditions, the final decision became my very first official logo.
I had the logo, I made the business cards, but that’s about as far as it went. Yes, I did a random craft fair maybe once a year; that was it. However, the dream was still there. Yet so was fear. The dreaded fear of failure. The fear of my beloved hobbies not bringing me joy anymore and feeling too much like a job. And the thought of if I really had the time, already working a regular 9-5; that would be too much work. I didn’t want to lose the joy of making.
I grew to find that knitting became my way to relax after a stressful day. It was the way I could recharge from repeated social engagements. The calming, therapeutic nature of knitting catapulted it to the forefront of my hobbies. In fact, I found myself purging the supplies to crafts I no longer did, or at least paring down to the bare essentials, and my stash of yarn increased. That fear of losing the joy of knitting if I started the business for real hovered, and I kept putting it off and putting it off.
Until, my boyfriend at the time (now husband) gifted me with setting up this website, thus preserving the URL for A Faith Creation. The original plan was that this would be the shop itself along with the option of blogging. He was pushing me, in a good way, to follow my dream, encouraging me to pursue something that would ultimately bless others and something he would be by my side for every step of the way.
Needless to say, I moved at a snails pace to get started. What I did do was create more products to actually post in the shop. Which took time. (slow knitter) My wonderful husband did so much research and investigation into the best things to do and services to use in 2016. Out of that, the Etsy shop was born: www.etsy.com/shop/AFaithCreation
Items began to sell…slowly. We did a handful of craft fairs, bazaars and art markets. I joined social media. (Still shaking my head at that one; the one thing I was adamant I would never do.) The hope was/is the social media feeds, both Facebook and Instagram, would lead folks to the shop and drive sales. A Faith Creation was an official business!
Fast forward to 2021. What once had been a dream was now a business. Granted, it was merely a side business with incredibly slow growth, it was still a business. It didn’t really feel like it was going anywhere. I struggled with the disappointment of it not succeeding as I thought it would or expected. The fear of failure definitely crept back in. What did the shop need to give it boost? Did it need a refresh of some kind? Would a new logo help, since the focus was just knitting now?
I jumped on Canva to see what I could come up with. Searching through many of their graphics I came across one that seemed all too perfect. And thus, the new logo was born.
2022 will forever be marked as a year of new beginnings. We rolled out the new branding. I created brand new and exciting items to sell (hand knit plants…plants!). After 6 years of having the official shop, we hit 100 items sold on Etsy.
And more exciting things to come in 2023! Stick around for the fun! Also, you can find us on Facebook and Instagram.