We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Claire Sexton a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Claire, thanks for joining us today. Parents play a huge role in our development as youngsters and sometimes that impact follows us into adulthood and into our lives and careers. Looking back, what’s something you think you parents did right?

One of the most valuable lessons my dad taught me was just to fiddle around and figure out how something works. When I was probably 9, he built our family a computer desk in the garage and I spent a lot of time with him out there. He showed me the basics of carpentry and let me mess around with scraps while he did the harder stuff. He’s pretty handy but he was actually an early computer guy, doing renderings and projections for a major oil company using a program called SAS. Once, for take your daughter to work day (this was the late 80s) I went along and he showed me a few things on the computer. The big one, the bit I still remember, was “here’s where the menus are, just go through all of those options and see what they do.” From that has become being usually the best computer and printer troubleshooter in any given office, and an early adopter of social media and other web tools. It’s affected me in so many little great ways, and that’s something I try to pass along to people I help with computer and phone technology. “Just see what it does, you won’t break anything.”
My mom made sure I went on that take your daughter to work day, and has always been my biggest champion and supporter.

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

From a young age, I’ve been an environmentalist. My mom took me to fun Earth Day celebrations at Hermann park in Houston when I was in late elementary school and I carefully studied “50 things kids can do to save the earth” After college and years of working in arts and other nonprofits, the COVID-19 pandemic came. Home with my son, I started gardening and taking my consumer habits much more seriously. Buying glass jars instead of plastic cartons, getting things in bulk instead of individually wrapped, etc. Something that especially caught my attention was houseplant & succulent planting in repurposed containers from around the house.
As I started shopping at thrift stores and estate sales for interesting containers, I realized that just about anything I might need, I could get used. It happened to be earth month and I decided I’d try a challenge – to only buy things used if it was safe to get that thing used. As I shopped for used items for my own house, I came across so much fun, beautiful stuff, old and new. Sometimes it was a deal I couldn’t resist even though it might not be the right thing for my home. So now I sell used, vintage,and antique goods along with plants in secondhand containers of all kinds. I sell at pop up markets in Waco Texas and have a booth at a local boutique antique mall. I still do other work, selling used furniture at one shop and furniture and other vintage at another, but it’s all in service of becoming more of an expert in the design items I come across and buy and sell.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

Still working on it, but progress is good!

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Good taste, excellent and personable customer service, expertise in the subject area. Working in other people’s businesses where I interact with colleagues/contemporaries.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @giftedthriftedgrown
• Facebook: Facebook.com/giftedthriftedgrown
• Linkedin: Claire Sexton
• Twitter: @Giftedthrifted

Image Credits
Photo by Cathyren Provine