We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful April Westbrook. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with April below.

April, appreciate you joining us today. What’s the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?

As a small business owner there are a lot of out of pocket expenses, especially when you are just starting out. See, I create custom shirts along with other items that require that I use heat transfer vinyl. So when I use my Cricut to create these designs I did not have heat press machine to use so I would use my regular old household iron. Heat press machines can be expensive, especially if you want a good quality one. So a heat press machine has been on my list of things to purchase but I just did not have the money for it at the time. Then there was a blessing in disguise. My brother called me one day and said, “hey, what do you need to help your business?” And at first I could not think of anything and then the light came on, a HEAT PRESS machine! Then I thought to myself, I can’t ask him for that, is too expensive. Then he said to me, I know you have something in mind so just say it, Then he asked again, “what do you need?” I said I need a heat press machine. He simply ok. He told me to look up the one that I wanted and send him the information. I found what I wanted on Amazon and I sent him the information, within the hour he text me back and said simply said DONE and your heat press will be on the way within the week. Now it takes A LOT for me to cry but I cried for a couple of hours. He simply told me, “I just want to see your small business grow and I want to see you win.” This made me remember that it is nice just to be nice. As I was sharing this information with another good friend and telling her how I now need a table for the heat press to go on she said “Girl, find what you need and let me know, I will get it for you!” I started crying again! Lastly, I have a sister who always supports me, encourages me and actually buys items from me. And every time that she buys something from me she simply says, “I want to support what you are doing.” These are only a small group of people amongst the many that have shown me love and support,

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers?

Born and reared right here in Ft. Worth, TX, not Dallas, Nothing wrong with Dallas but a lot of times people will clump Dallas and Ft. Worth together so if you are not from here you think that it is one place because people will say Dallas/Ft. Worth and will turn around and forget all about Ft. Worth, so every time that I get the opportunity to give my hometown a shout out I will always do that. As for how my small business got started, I would say that I have always liked making things and one day I saw this cutting machine, a Cricut, and I bought it and I have been making things ever since, from custom t-shirts, decorative stainless steel tumblers, wreaths, custom signs and boards, creating custom invitations. name tags and anything that you could possibly thing of! Just to be able to make a one of a kind gift for someone is just great! I am proud of the customer service that I provide. When I interact with the customer I will tell them up front that I need all of their input so that they will LOVE what I create for them. I want to make sure that the customer is in LOVE with their purchase. I don’t want them to simply like it, I want them to LOVE it and to be excited to get what they have purchased from me. I have so many proud moments, but there are two moments that stand out. Last year, I was blessed with the opportunity to make some custom tumblers for some Alumni at the high school that I attended. I would say between March and April of 2021 , I made about 30 or more custom tumblers for various Bulldog Alumni of Trimble Tech High School. This just made me smile because so many people showed me so much love and support. The second proudest moment for me was when I was invited to my first vendor event, again, by Trimble Tech Alumni class of 1986. I was able to showcase my items and was able to network with a lot of people. What I would like most for people to know about my small business, is that I want to create custom items that people will absolutely love.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

A lot of my business comes by word of mouth. Believe me, word of mouth and good customer service goes a very long way. People can reach out to my on Facebook, Instagram, email or even text if they would like to order. I am looking expand to additional selling platforms in the future.

Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.

Creating custom items is my side hustle and my plan is to make this my full time business when I retire. When I got the Cricut and started creating things people would say to me, “you should sell this!” And as I said before, word of mouth is GOLDEN and people have been asking me to create things for them for the past 3 to 4 years. Within in the past year or so, I have been able to secure some business from other small business like a trucking, catering and a power washing business. My goal is to secure more businesses so that I work can become more ongoing and consistent.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Tennie2
• Facebook: @creativeminds74
• Other: Email: [email protected]

Image Credits
Picture of April Westbrook taken by Photograher Tony Hadnot, Jr. Make up for April Westbrook done by Makeup Artist Char’na Dixon