We were lucky to catch up with Cody Bauchman recently and have shared our conversation below.

Cody, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Are you able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen?

15 years ago, I had just moved into a little one bedroom basement apartment with my three year old child as a single parent. Storage was very limited, and I needed a toy storage solution that didn’t take up any our limited floor space.

I drafted a design and created a toy bag shaped like a monster for my child, that they could “feed” their toys to to make clean up fun and exciting – and left my “normal” job in retail to pursue monster making full time. My business Lu & Ed was born and I’ve been a master monster maker ever since. It’s the best decision I ever made!

I didn’t create that first toy bag with the intention of it becoming a full blown career. I posted photos of the finished monster bag to a parenting forum and to Facebook, and within a couple of weeks had a notebook full of custom orders from friends for those innovative little monster bags!

I’ve learned so much along the way, and now run a small group on Facebook to help others get started and learn to market their creative ideas, art and products!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

As a single parent, I know how important functional, easy to use storage is to a parent/caregiver’s sanity! Clutter from toys, books, and children’s clothes can be so overwhelming & mentally exhausting, and teaching kids to pick up can be even more of a chore than picking the mess up yourself.

That is why I created that first Mon-stor Toy Storage Bag for my then three year old. Zero floor space lost to bins, baskets and toy chests. Easy for children to access and since they hang over a hook or door knob, they can easily be moved into a closet to completely remove visible toy clutter from a room in just seconds!

Since Mon-stors are storage containers shaped like monsters that kids “feed” their messes to, they make cleaning up quick, easy and FUN, turning what used to be a nightmare of a chore into a fun game, creating sweet memories for parents/caregivers and the kids in their lives!

Beyond the functional aspect of Mon-stors, I want to leave a legacy for the next generation.

That’s why I run a fully sustainable business – not only do I only source fabric that is otherwise headed to the landfill, I use a closed loop production process to divert several tons of textiles from landfills annually.

The scraps from the Mon-stor storage bags get used to make sensory friendly stuffed monster toys & other products, and the scraps from those are used until they’re so tiny, they become stuffing! Those stuffed monster toys are sewn with love and integrity, made to be played with daily, taken to the park, given rides on sleds, slides and bikes, buried in the sand box and thrown across the room – err, flown through space to escape the dinosaurs invading the space ship, of course. And if they get dirty? They’re totally machine washable, then lay them out to “sun bathe”. Once they’ve air dried and had a nap, they’re ready to play again!

Since all of my monsters are made from textile discards, they are all one of a kind – each one as unique as the child who adopts them!

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

When I first started Lu & Ed, I had a lot of support. 7 years later, I went through a divorce and moved halfway across the country to take care of my sick mom, with no support network and limited resources. It was my first time ever relying solely on the money from Lu & Ed to cover 100% of all of the living expenses without any padding, and I had to jump in with both feet. It was terrifying, but I was able to stay with my brother and his family for a few months to save money and apply to rentals, and managed to scrape by living in a little 500 square foot house for a few years. My second child was born while I lived in that tiny house, and it TOUGH to make running a business and raising two kids work in such a small space.

With lots of dedication, 10-12 hour work days, doing marketing gigs on the side and so much hard work despite many ups and downs in life, I was able to move out of survival mode in that teeny little house and secure my little family a beautiful home for rent in the next town over. It had plenty of room to spread out and an amazing yard for the kiddos – and delightfully, it had a dedicated work space for myself to really build Lu & Ed into something amazing! I looooooved the home the second I saw it from the road as we drove up for the walk through, and knew then that it was my dream home.

The landlord ideally wanted to sell instead of rent. After some discussion, we had hoped to go straight into a lease to own arrangement to make my dream of home ownership and building a secure home environment for my children a reality, but the landlord being in another state made it difficult to complete the paper work before my current lease was up – and we signed the lease on the first day of the COVID-19 lockdowns to ensure we weren’t without a home during the lockdowns.

Four years later, we are still renting this amazing home, and I still hope to be able to buy it soon! I recently set up my Ko-fi site so all artist tips and subscriptions funnel straight into a savings account for the down payment. Every extra penny my monster making business makes goes into that same savings account. Knowing where I was 8 years ago, in that tiny little 500 square foot home, scrambling to make enough for rent and bills after a transition period for both myself and my business, and how far I’ve come since then, gives me the confidence to keep pushing to make my dream of buying my dream home as a self employed single mom a reality!

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I have built a successful and connected social media following with over 35,000 followers between Tiktok, Facebook, Instagram. Threads, my newsletter and SMS marketing lists. I have always strove to create an authentic social media presence for my business. I am a parent, I homeschool my kiddos, I struggle to keep spaces clean, and I know what it’s like to be a busy working single parent of kids with sensory needs. I try to use my life experiences and the ways I’m similar to people who enjoy my business model and products, to create my content for social media. My first goal is always connection and community, followed by conversions (because this is my only income, that must be a focus).

I always use a method I created about a decade ago, maybe a dozen years ago (wow, that’s a wild thought!!). It doesn’t have a formal name, but I call it the who, what, when, where, how, why method. I really recommend to people new to marketing and social media content for a small business. It not only gives you endless content, it helps you create what is known as evergreen content, which is content that is not time sensitive and can be recycled easily with new images and verbiage tweaks.

It makes creating content quick, easy and relatable, and answers every question *I* have when I find a new business, artist or person on social media I want to follow. Here are a few examples of how I frame these questions:

– Who are they, and who do they cater to
– What do they do/create, what is is made from, what is the purpose
– When would I need their advice, content or products, when would I be able to share it with a family or friend
– Where are they from or where are the products made, where would I use these in my house or where could I take this product, where can I buy this product
– How does this person or product improve my life, how is it used, how is it made
– Why should I follow this person or sign up for their content, why should I buy from them, why do they do what they do

Then I use those questions I frame out above using the who, what, when, where, how, why method and answer them with my posts on social media, in ways like this:

– Who am I – I post photos of myself or me with my work, me in my studio, something with my face in it, and expand on me, my interests, my life as a mother and home educator
– What are my products for – I typically post this type of content with a video of me dumping out a Mon-stor toy bag or photos of one full then with the contents on the floor in front of them – and explain how they are convenient and easy toy storage options
– When would you use it – for this type of content I could post a video of me loading a Small Mon-stors with snacks for a road trip, how hang them on the mantle to show them being used as stockings.

I hope these examples were helpful! If any of your readers would like more info or tips for how to implement this method, they can message me via Facebook or Instagram, or email me at [email protected]

Contact Info:

• Website: luanded.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/lu_and_ed
• Facebook: facebook.com/monstors
• Other: tiktok.com/@lu_and_ed