Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Emily O’Brien. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Emily , appreciate you joining us today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

Yes, I went full time with my creative work in August of 2022. I have always had a creative business on the side of my day job work of small business creative marketing, but it was usually a business that involved me hand crafting art that was too time consuming to go full time with. A big part of why I was able to become my own full time boss is that I am super lucky that my first Kickstarter campaign for enamel pins went amazingly well and had great support. I had been wanting to make enamel pins for a while and was considering trying Kickstarter for years. Sometimes I find myself wishing I had jumped in and created a Kickstarter campaign sooner, but I have been creating content and podcasting for several years leading up to this so if I did it sooner my audience would have been smaller and it might not have taken off like it did! I keep reminding myself that it’s going well now because I put in all this foundational work while it was a part time business, so it’s okay it took a little longer to go full time!

Emily , 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?

It can be hard to describe my job to people! I’m an artist, but the main bulk of what I do is create illustrations and then design products utilizing those illustrations. Most of the products I design are enamel pins, stickers, and charms, but I have also gotten into earrings, necklaces, keychains, bags, and even shoe charms for Crocs! My illustration style features cartoony lines and nostalgic pastel and neon color palettes. An overwhelming majority of what I create is witchy or spooky inspired items that blend creepy and cute! I’m a practicing witch, and a lot of people who have only been exposed to witchcraft by media find it to be this scary thing. I try and show that witchcraft is a fun and playful practice that doesn’t have to be scary!

Because I love a pastel rainbow and am Queer myself, I find that a lot of my customer base is well, super gay. I am absolutely thrilled about this, so I recently worked really hard on designing a new collection of pins called Pronoun Pals. It’s a fully interchangeable pin set of cute little animal and mythical critter pins that can hold Pronoun Plaques, Pride Plaques, and Personality Plaques. You can create your own little pin set with your pronouns, a pride flag, and maybe some bonus fun flair like bookshelf, all being held by a little Opossum to nonverbally share a bunch of information about yourself! I think it’s really fun and I’ve tried to make it very inclusive. I even have a little builder tool on my website so you can preview what your personal set will look like! This collection is up on Pre-Order on Kickstarter through July 13th but it will be up on my regular website sometime around December.

I like to design things that I personally enjoy so it makes me really happy when other people also enjoy my work, I feel like kindred spirits with a huge amount of the people who buy my art!

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

I’ve grown my audience really gradually over time and the most effective thing for me has been finding my specific niche and going all in on that. I help a lot of other artists with their social media presence because of my marketing background. One of the biggest hurdles is getting started and keeping up with posting. It can feel a lot like you’re screaming into the void some days but seriously every bit of work you do on social media is like a tiny building block to grow your audience. It can be helpful to look at some artists’ accounts that are larger than yours and see what hashtags they are using and what type of posts they are creating. Obviously don’t copy anyone, but grab a journal and take notes. What is it about their post that draws your attention? Do they have great photos? Are they initiating interesting conversations with their followers? How often are they posting? Then look at what you’ve written down and decide some reachable goals you can set for your own social media posting! Also, I can’t say this enough to artists: Get an email newsletter if you don’t already have one! Social media platforms come and go, but when one you have dedicated a ton of time to goes it can be a lot less painful knowing you have your own newsletter squared away.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I had this ingrained lesson that artists had to be perfect at art before they could make a living. I went to “Art School”, a college with all arts majors, which as a wonderful creative incubator but it did tend to create a setting where only the most “gifted” or “talented” students stood out. I would say that I am naturally creative but not naturally talented at drawing, illustration, and painting. I can’t render a perfect human figure in any pose on the spot and don’t think I could conjure a realistic still life painting. You don’t have to be a technical master to have a career as a visual artist. I think for a long time I was scared to sell my art because it wasn’t “the best”, but if I have created something that I like, there is a good chance someone else will like it too! I definitely undervalued my creativity for coming up with unique concepts of illustrations for a long time. Now I understand that no one can create exactly what I create because no one else is me! Confidence and a good idea are often more important than mastery of any one medium or style.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://kittywithacupcake.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kittywithacupcake/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kittywithacupcake
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-o-brien-0135bb44/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/KittyNCupcake
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrKqM8FG1eMgEbLqs0J-Iow
• Other: Pronoun Pals Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kittywithacupcake/pronoun-pals-a-pride-pin-collection Podcast: https://www.fibercoven.com

Image Credits
They are all my images