We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Chelsea Pike / Kim Grewing. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Chelsea / Kim below.

Chelsea / Kim, appreciate you joining us today. Can you take us back in time to the first dollar you earned as a creative – how did it happen? What’s the story?

The first dollar we earned was at the first vendor event we attended in Louisburg, KS at Louisburg High School. We had attended plenty of arts and craft fairs, but this was our first time as an exhibitor. We were primarily selling macrame earrings, but had a handful of other items including bracelets, purses, and other gift items. Leading up to the event we continued to question whether we would sell anything. The entry fee was $50, and we were hoping we didn’t waste what little money we had and a whole Saturday. Selling start time was 9 am. At approximately 845 am a woman walked up to our booth, snagged several items in less than a minute, and said she would take those. Our first sale was in the books. We were stunned that someone approached and made a purchase in less than a few minutes. Our adrenaline went through the roof. We were grinning from ear to ear. When she disappeared, we were high fiving and pumping our fists in celebration. We had a steady stream of traffic throughout the day, and ended up making enough money to give us the drive to keep going.

Chelsea / Kim, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Designed To Flaunt’s first business venture was making and selling graphic tees and was ultimately a failure as our clientele was only friends / family. We found a niche in making and selling macrame earrings. We ultimately began by buying already made earrings, and earring blanks / macrame cord from other small businesses. Our goal was to build a business by supporting other women owned businesses. The Etsy shops we purchased our items from are all women owned. Business picked up and got to the point we were waiting on supplies longer than we would like so we invested in a CO2 Laser to cut our own earrings. From there we have added several other laser cut / engraved personalized items to our store. Currently our products are in three local boutiques, we have a steady stream of online sales, and have garnered a following at local vendor events. We are keeping with our original plan of supporting other women owned businesses. The supplies we continue to order are from other women owned businesses just like us. Two of the three stores we are in are also women owned.

Our business success is a direct result of our hustle. Both Kim and I work full time “day jobs” and then commit anywhere from 20-30 hours a week after hours to Designed To Flaunt. In the busy season that easily turns into 40-50 additional hours. We have always been hustlers whether it be working an additional part time job, doing gig work like Uber Eats, or doing what our dad taught us to do in the buy low – sell high game by buying and reselling products. We have grown our business 100-fold in the past two years and business doesn’t seem to be slowing down.

Our goal is to be able to offer affordable and trendy items to our customer whether it be for themselves or a gift for their friends or family. We like to share the message that when you purchase from us you aren’t only supporting us, but also other women owned small business that we make purchases from. For example, our main product is earrings which we make and assemble in Chelsea’s basement, but a lot of time our best sellers are silicone wristlet keychains. Most of our wristlets as well as several of our wallets come from two small women-owned businesses in Texas. In addition to supporting other small businesses with purchases we also are an open book when it comes to sharing our knowledge. There have been many people who have helped us along the way. We would most likely not be seeing the successes that we have seen without the help of others. Our goal is to eventually own our own storefront where we can offer a retail space for other small businesses to get exposure.

Is there a mission driving your creative journey?

Ultimately our goal is the same as a lot of other artists. We dream of leaving our 9-5 behind and having more flexibility to do the things we love. For us a portion of that is creating and being able to offer products to our customers that they love. Items that make them feel beautiful, represent their personality, or can be customized to exactly what they want.

Owning a small business and setting our own hours would allow us freedom. Kim is passionate about traveling. Her dream is live in her RV and see the world. She jokes about taking Designed To Flaunt on the road and doing vendor events across the country full time. Kim’s son is also an excellent bowler. He competes in weekend tournaments throughout the Midwest and has qualified for a PBA Junior Gold tournament in Indianapolis next summer. Currently Designed To Flaunt offers some additional income to help fund those trips.

Chelsea currently fosters three children with her husband and will be adopting them soon. Designed to Flaunt has helped put extra money towards paying off bills to ultimately be debt free. Chelsea can bring her children with her to events and teach them business skills. Having freedom from a 9-5 job would ultimately give her more time to volunteer at her children’s schools, help coach their athletics, and give them more time to foster dogs.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Like I mentioned before our first business venture was drop shipping tee shirts. We are both plus size women and by designing and printing our own shirts we were able to get them at a lower price for ourselves and offer sizes up to 6X on our website. Not a lot of people offer over a 2X. We had plenty of friends and family make purchases initially, but once that wave of sales was over, we started to lose money by paying for our website that wasn’t generating any sales. We considered quitting and calling it a failed attempt. We had had some success selling earrings as add ons to our site, so we decided to go all in on earrings. Chelsea loves earrings and felt like she had an eye for what was trendy. Kim doesn’t have pierced ears and had no clue what she was doing, but her work ethic is unparalleled. We spent countless hours with the help from our families tying macrame earrings, assembling the hardware, and producing a finished product and now our work is starting to pay off.

It’s very easy to just give up when things get hard. Someone once told me that you should stick out your small business to at least year three because that is when things start to really take off and that statement is starting to prove true for us. We are thankful to those who have followed our journey to this point and look forward to a successful 2023. 

Contact Info:

• Website: www.designedtoflaunt.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/designed.to.flaunt
• Facebook: facebook.com/dtfdesigns