Today marks the one year anniversary of ‘the day I decided to do this’. And I pulled out my notebook to have a look at my brainstorm from that day. It was the day I was trying to work out what my product would be… here are some of the things I wrote… ‘brings people joy, something I’m proud of, doesn’t feel like work, creative, fits into my lifestyle, plants (!!), personalisation, scalable.'
I probably should have, but I haven’t looked at this page since so it might be pure luck that on the whole I feel like I’ve ticked most of those boxes! The ‘doesn’t feel like work’ one is interesting though because although making my products doesn’t feel like work (as I intended), everything else most definitely does - the website building, accounting, ordering, marketing, relentless social media posting (to what can often feel like an empty room) - that’s all much harder and time consuming than I imagined. On the whole I enjoy it, and I’ve learned so much and met so many amazing people in the small business community - but… I’ve had to learn to make sure I dedicate plenty of time to actually ‘making’ alongside the time I’m spending doing all the rest of it - to help me stay motivated on what drove me in the first place.
Along the way I’ve been keeping track of all the milestones that have mattered to me. So here’s a bit of a rundown of those over the past year… (grab a cup of tea, this isn’t a short one!)
At the beginning of February I drew my first leaf and made my first plant - the Anthurium Clarinervium with it's pretty heart shaped leaves. And two days later I’d made two more (now there’s 12!) and by the end of the month I'd opened my Etsy shop.
In March, my first orders were from friends and family (ever grateful for their support), but the most exciting moment was my first order from someone I didn’t know. I remember wondering how they found me and I wanted to know everything about them! Later that month I bought my website domain - then sat on it for 2 months and did nothing with it.🤦🏼♀️
In May I finally chose my website provider and started building. There’s another (much shorter) blog on that here.
In July I had my first custom request - to ‘supersize’ my miniatures and make trio of paper stems to fill a propagation station that someone had been gifted and didn’t want to use for real plants.
I really enjoyed this and actually had the same propagation station myself (empty as the novelty had worn off) so made myself a set too!
In October I had my first reel blow up on Instagram. I say blow up… it reached 38k views but for my account that was huge! Needless to say things went back to ‘normal’ immediately and it’s not happened since - but we live in hope!
November… a big month! After 5 long months, I finally launched the website and celebrated with a giveaway. I teamed up with a wonderful local maker - Mica Peet. Mica makes beautiful jewellery, pins and keychains for plant lovers and felt like the perfect match. Check out her website to see her lovely products. The two winners each bagged some stickers, a paper plant and a treat from Mica. Interestingly (to me), both winners chose the same plant - the Caladium Rosebud. Here's one of the winners holding her prize.
I had my first website sale and a custom commission through the website… all in the first day. It felt amazing to finally get it launched and to actually see people on the site!
Also in November I had my first return… although I was truly disappointed (to say the least) - it turned out to be a great learning experience. I made a reel about it here.
Lastly I started making my small business goals for 2023. One of which was to secure 3 independent retail shops to stock my plants… one-off boutique type places, real treasure troves of planty things was what I was imagining. 💭🌿
December was a big month too. My shop was featured in a small business directory (full transparency… I self-submitted - but still!) and my products were featured in a gift guide! But the big thing that happened (and after writing my goals just a few weeks before) was... the day before Christmas Eve I received a message in my Insta DM’s from a beautiful shop asking to stock my plants! Did I manifest this by writing it down? Maybe… but I also know it happened because another wonderful small business owner shared what I do on their Insta stories. I made a reel (obvs) about it here. 
January has been a month of planning, and getting ready to stock that first wonderful shop. It’s not local to me so it was a near on 7 hour round trip to drop off the order but I really wanted to see the shop and meet the owner and shop manager so it was totally worth it. Here we are together (me on the left, Janet - the owner in the middle and Anna - the shop manager on the right). If you live in Cambridge or are visiting, they’re called Small and Green and you’ll find them on Mill Road. Check out their website too.
And here we are… up to date! I’ve got lots planned for the year ahead and maybe will try not to leave it so long before the next blog that I have to fit an entire year in it (but no promises!). If you’ve made it this far, thanks for sharing my first year of business with me - and if you’ve bought from me this year, follow me on socials, or done anything at all to support me, I am beyond appreciative - thank you.
And of course I’d love to hear from you… if you’ve got any feedback about the website, shops you’d recommend I approach to stock my products or ideas for plants you’d like to see me make!
30/01/23