Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Danielle Vinson. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Danielle, appreciate you joining us today. Risk taking is something we’re really interested in and we’d love to hear the story of a risk you’ve taken.
Opening a creative community studio in the midst of a pandemic was one of the biggest risks I have ever taken in my life. I always had this dream to open up an art and yoga studio, but that dream felt like just that – a dream, a fantasy, or at best, something perhaps, maybe, possibly I could do much later in life. After being laid off from my job in travel in April of 2020, followed by the craziest year of collective uncertainty, and coupled with the most jolting experience of losing my dad suddenly just a few short months prior, I found myself incredibly surprised at just how loud, big, and pressing this dream became. There were so many reasons not to pursue this… SO many. A global pandemic, for starters (people thought I was insane for wanting to open a physical business as so many businesses everywhere were closing their doors permanently), my inexperience around business ownership (no amount of research could have properly prepared me for what I was taking on), and personally, being a mother to two neurodivergent, young children (this one still gets me to this day), just to name a few. Yet somehow, someway, I trudged forward with this wild, crazy, loud dream and signed a lease to a little studio on Sunrise Boulevard.
I just celebrated the studio’s one year anniversary in November, and the whole month felt to the brim with nostalgia and reflection. I knew the first year of business was going to be a roller coaster, but living out the ride, the ups and downs, the unexpected loops, the breakdowns, the thrill and the joy and the excitement… it has certainly been an experience of a lifetime. A lot goes on at Heart Craft Studio – sometimes I can see people’s heads spinning when I try to tell them about what we do. In our first year, we hosted over 52 birthday parties, several team building events, countless creative classes and workshops, a handful of larger community events like pop up markets, a slam poetry, singing and dancing event, an all abilities craft fair for differently abled artists, an earth day fair, as well as a variety of different yoga classes, private art lessons, on top of a few virtual events, art kit production, shipping, and managing our locally curated shop at the studio. Is your head spinning yet? It makes me laugh a bit, because this is only brushing the surface of what I envision for this creative community space.
I would be lying if I said I didn’t question everything, often. What’s curious to me is that I expected the questioning to come in the low moments, only when the questioning started creeping into the high moments, too, I was caught way off guard. Things that on paper seem incredibly successful, but feel off in my heart, off in my vision – those moments throw me. One of the questions that lays heavy on my heart is the wonder of the cost of success. Being busy can mean good things financially – I remember back in my days as a waitress that the most insane double shifts that left my feet aching were usually the days I left with the highest tips. Being busy now as a business owner means that not only are my feet aching, so is my heart because I miss my family on those long, 13 hour days. There have been too many to count this year, and its something I want to keep in mind moving into year two – how can I find more balance and still make this work?
Professionally, I made the decision a long time ago that if I did this, that it would be a heart-centered business. It’s unconventional, and most business owners would likely scoff at it, but I am committed to running a business differently. It has led to some challenges this year, but I can honestly say that I am proud of how I have handled those situations. Firm boundaries, held with loving kindness, empathy, understanding is my general demeanor as a business owner facing a challenge. At the end of the day, it is crucially important to not take these experiences so personally that it clouds my judgement. There is something to learn in every experience, and when all is said and done, I turn my focus toward the lessons. I am a strong believer in rest, in taking breaks, in taking time off to live your life, and I strive to be as accommodating as possible with my team. I am also a huge proponent of collaboration and team work – my role is not to be the boss that delegates the operations… we are all working all of the jobs at the studio. We all clean, we all help guests at the studio, we all train and learn and grow together. I tell my team often that I am thankful for their hard work, and that I value their energy and presence at the studio. I want everyone here to feel like they are a big, important part of this community space – because they truly are. That extends to our studio renters, our artists, our customers, our greater community… all are welcome here, everyone is an artist here, and we are so incredibly grateful to share this space with everyone who steps through the door.
Financially, I have funded this entire business with my own money. A good portion of it came from some money I inherited when my dad passed, and that fact alone makes the risk so deeply personal for me. It also feels so deeply meaningful, too. I keep returning to a sense of gratitude – grateful to be able to do this, to create this space for others to create, to explore, to celebrate, to dance and sing and laugh and play and support other local artists…. My goodness. That feels SO incredibly special to me. In the months before my dad passed, we talked a lot about this dream of mine. He thought I was crazy, but eventually realized I was serious, at which point he started imparting these incredibly meaningful nuggets of entrepreneurial wisdom to me. Some of the things he told me in those conversations healed my heart in ways I didn’t know I needed… honest, soulful, humble conversations from a man who wasn’t really one to admit any type of flaw at all. When he died, I felt paralyzed in my timeline of opening the studio, utterly and completely unsure if I should even move forward at all with my plans, but there was something really profound that remained after the dust settled… If this dream of mine had that kind of effect on a man like my dad, it had to be worth pursuing.
Money has always been weird for me, and as a business owner I have had to tackle that weirdness because paying close attention to the numbers is pretty important in terms of growth. In the lower points of this year, I questioned my decision to ever do any of this, wondering if I would regret spending the money my dad left to me on this crazy dream. But I remind myself of how I felt when I was getting ready to sign my lease – the fear of never doing this and living out my life wishing I did but never trying became bigger than the fear of risking and losing this money. I would rather try and fail than live my life having never tried at all. Now, in this moment, I’ll fully admit that it was MUCH easier to say that before spending all this money, BUT, I will also say that, in this moment, that sentiment still rings true. I have no idea what the future holds, but I am looking forward to the experience, and forever grateful for the opportunity to do so.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Heart Craft Studio was founded on a lifetime of dreams, life experiences, and creativity. I have always found a home in the creative process. Writing was (and still is) my most cherished form of creative expression, but I have always love exploring different mediums, techniques, methods, creative projects, and crafts. I really love mixed media art, especially using recycled/upcycled materials. In school, I studied psychology, sociology, environmental science, and art. I decided to pursue work experience and found myself employed in a variety of different fields – I was a barista, a waitress, a real estate assistant, a telemarketer, a nanny, a day spa receptionist, a reservation specialist for Spain travel, and a yoga studio receptionist just to name a few positions I held. I took a yoga teacher training in 2011, and was actively pursuing that as my next career when I up and left Los Angeles (where I was born and raised) to get married and move away. I married a Marine, and we moved quite a bit over our 12 years together (7 times, but who’s counting!), we adopted two dogs, and had two sons together, but I always created art in my free time. Although I had some sparks of dreams about it, I never really thought I could (or would) make anything from it – it wasn’t until I started volunteering as an Art Docent in my son’s class that I started teaching art… and I absolutely fell in love with it. Pretty organically, our little community got to know me as the art mom, and I started getting requests to provide creative classes and lessons outside of school. I launched a business in 2019 doing just that, only a little more formally, and just as my little business was building momentum, the world shut down. It was always a side hustle for me, too – I worked in travel for many years, but when the world shut down, so did travel, and I was laid off. The silver lining, however, was that I had this dream that was only growing bigger and bigger, and I had an abundance of time to devote to researching how to pursue it.
A physical space was very much a next step in all of it, and I truly feel that having the studio absolutely amplified what I was doing and took it to new heights. I struggled as a mobile artist to find spaces to teach that were set up for creativity, so I created a space that not only I can use for these experiences, but other local mobile artists can use too to share their creative classes and workshops. The studio is also the perfect space for special events – our most popular is our kids birthday parties, in which we offer uniquely curated creative projects based on each of our guests of honor, as well as the option to not only create, but also provide movement and fun in our Glow Dance Parties in our back studio! Our team building events are a growing favorite as well, as well as bridal and baby showers!
I am most proud of creating such a versatile space and business model that can truly adapt to create special events that feel truly special to the guests attending them. We pour a lot of heart in our events at Heart Craft Studio, and I am so grateful to be able to share in these joyful celebrations with our community.
What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?
I have always found a home in the creative process. Writing was (and still is) my most cherished form of creative expression, but I have always love exploring different mediums, techniques, methods, creative projects, and crafts. I really love mixed media art, especially using recycled/upcycled materials. In school, I studied psychology, sociology, environmental science, and art. I decided to pursue work experience and found myself employed in a variety of different fields – I was a barista, a waitress, a real estate assistant, a telemarketer, a nanny, a day spa receptionist, a reservation specialist for Spain travel, and a yoga studio receptionist just to name a few positions I held. I took a yoga teacher training in 2011, and was actively pursuing that as my next career when I up and left Los Angeles (where I was born and raised) to get married and move away. I married a Marine, and we moved quite a bit over our 12 years together (7 times, but who’s counting!), we adopted two dogs, and had two sons together, but I always created art in my free time. Although I had some sparks of dreams about it, I never really thought I could (or would) make anything from it – it wasn’t until I started volunteering as an Art Docent in my son’s class that I started teaching art… and I absolutely fell in love with it. Pretty organically, our little community got to know me as the art mom, and I started getting requests to provide creative classes and lessons outside of school. I launched a business in 2019 doing just that, only a little more formally, and just as my little business was building momentum, the world shut down. It was always a side hustle for me, too – I worked in travel for many years, but when the world shut down, so did travel, and I was laid off. The silver lining, however, was that I had this dream that was only growing bigger and bigger, and I had an abundance of time to devote to researching how to pursue it.
A physical space was very much a next step in all of it, and I truly feel that having the studio absolutely amplified what I was doing and took it to new heights.
Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?
I am a strong believer in rest, in taking breaks, in taking time off to live your life, and I strive to be as accommodating as possible with my team. I am also a huge proponent of collaboration and team work – my role is not to be the boss that delegates the operations… we are all working all of the jobs at the studio. We all clean, we all help guests at the studio, we all train and learn and grow together. I tell my team often that I am thankful for their hard work, and that I value their energy and presence at the studio. I want everyone here to feel like they are a big, important part of this community space – because they truly are. That extends to our studio renters, our artists, our customers, our greater community… all are welcome here, everyone is an artist here, and we are so incredibly grateful to share this space with everyone who steps through the door.
We always encourage our artists to make their work their own – I often encourage our instructors to do the same. We all teach a little differently, and thats a beautiful thing! The variations and differences in our work is what makes art intriguing and wonderful, and it is so cool to see that process unfold in others. I am so grateful for the energy and creativity our team brings to the studio.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.heartcraftstudio.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heart.craft.studio/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theheartcraftstudio
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/heart-craft-studio-rancho-cordova
Image Credits
Morgan Potter Photography