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

Cristal, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

As a single mom of three gorgeous and sweet girls money is always a struggle, me and as most people always dream and say and talk about wanting to be their own boss i had to think of something that would bring income to my household and help me breath a bit more on the financial side. So i came up with CE&J Creations as a side hustle, CE&J Creations is a Customizable Clothing and Accessories shop founded in my home in Rosemount, MN, We customize mugs,tumblers,cups and clothing, clothing such as shirts and sweaters with your business logo or sweaters with my most sellable item the Mexican escudo hoodie but also we are able to customize items with pictures of yourself or characters or whatever vision you have in mind. I Started in 2021 just when pandemic hit not really knowing where it would take me with such rough times going by but thankfully God always stood by my side and we made it through pandemic and all the struggles i had and here we are still standing tall and making progress day by day getting more clientele and coming up with new ideas.

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

I am a 26 year old single mom, Mexican American born and raised in the twin cities, i started CE&J Creations because i was struggling financially as a single mother, working 2 jobs and crazy hours so i created a side hustle of customizable items such as mugs,cups,tumblers and clothing. I provide the client the clothing they provide their vision and ideas and we make it happen in their clothing or accessories.

what i am most proud of i would say is my courage. i started my business not knowing how it would work out or where it would take me but here we are making it happen and that’s where i stop and think of all the fears i had when i first started, I’m not yet where i want to be but we are getting there day by day.

CE&J Creations is a warm family friend business environment that’s always open to new ideas from clients no matter how crazy or how cool or how hard your idea may seem we try our hardest to make it happen and most importantly to make you happy.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

There’s plenty of lessons i had to unlearn to be able to trust the process but one I’ve had to unlearn and learn is patience, no matter what trust the process things will come out and work their way just how you want or vision it or even better but it takes time, I’ve had to learn patience in this process, I’ve always been such an impatient person that wants everything to happen fast and or do it my way or no way and being that way always gave me a hard time on myself because if i didn’t see any results happening fast or having clients it would discourage me and negative thoughts about giving up or not wanting this anymore popped up in my mind. so always trust the process time can feel like an enemy but its really not, all good things take time.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Starting your business and not knowing anything about marketing can be such a struggle i remember when i first opened my Facebook business page i was so scared that no one would support or like or follow it but its always those that don’t even know you that support the most i was so shy and scared at first but words of advice don’t be shy to built an audience in your social media, promote your business in Facebook, Instagram, twitter or snapchat people are always watching 5/10 people will most likely be interested on what you are promoting/selling, at the beginning it will be hard and you probably wont be such a pro at marketing but don’t give up keep posting and promoting until you build an audience, google examples about how to promote your business and in no time you wont be needing google or any source you will become a pro.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.etsy.com/shop/CEandJcreationsShop?load_webview=1&bid=ZUC0s-f7wWzojXkoCiKPoMjxu88n
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ceandjcreationsshop/?igshid=ZDg1NjBiNjg%3D
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CEandJCreations1