We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Graziela Ferrarese Montes a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Graziela thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Have you ever had an amazing boss, mentor or leader leading you? Can you us a story or anecdote that helps illustrate why this person was such a great leader and the impact they had on you or their team?

Years ago I went through a really rough time emotionally and financially and found my way to Gulf Shores, AL. My good friend Renata and her family took me in and help me get back up on my feet. She introduced me to Dr. G, a local podiatrist in town and I was hired as her front desk assistant. I remember felt good to work again in a fast pace office environment, it was a practice with all female professionals, and such a safe space to work at, where everyone got along well. Women in that office made such a positive impression on me. Dr. G, the amazing office manager Ms. K, who I could write a book about how much this incredible woman inspired me, and one of the assistants, Ms. S, who had the best momma hugs ever! So during that journey of rebuilding my life while working full time at Dr. G’s practice and working weekends at the local beach club I decided to pursue my Alabama Real Estate license. When I passed the test and started the process of activating my license I realized the fees were too high for me at the time and I couldn’t afford them. I was frustrated and sad that I had put in all that hard work studying and attending classes to not be able to pay the fees and activate my license right away. That’s when I was blessed with so much generosity! A good friend of mine, without hesitation, landed the money I needed to activate my license. Ms. K, the office manager, knew my priority was to pay my friend back as soon as possible. So a couple of weeks later to my surprise Dr. G gifted me a generous Christmas bonus. When I opened the envelop there was a check with the entire amount I needed to activate my license. I couldn’t believe it! I remember I was so touched not only about the generous bonus, but she extended me so much grace by doing something she had absolutely no obligation to, but she knew that would help me move forward with my life to a successful path and most likely leave her practice one day. It was such an act of kindness and generosity that I never experienced from a boss before and I keep this (and so many other good memories from that time) close to my heart. I hope one day if I ever grow my small business and have an employee who is struggling financially I can be in a position to do the same. Overall all those women in some way or another had such a positive impact in my life, exactly when I most needed.

Graziela, 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?

I was born and raised in south Brazil but now have lived in the USA for more than half of my life! I lived in different states and traveled a lot through this amazing country, but Texas has my heart and I call it home. Here in central Texas I met my husband who over 10 years ago took me to my first rodeo. At that time, I wanted a crossbody bag to wear and I couldn’t find one that I quite liked so I decided to make my own bag. I’ve been sewing since I was a child and learned with my mom almost every “handmade” skill I have. She thought me to be resourceful and use my imagination to get things done so in my mind it wasn’t a big deal to create from scratch and make myself a bag, until I began the project and learned pretty quickly how many details goes into it. Well, for that event I completed my “first bag” and even got a few compliments at the rodeo – which I am convinced those were given out of pure kindness and as a form of encouragement from friends because looking back, that little bag was not that great, but it was my first one and I was proud of it. After that my desire to make more accessories and later open a small business was born. Looking back that first year of making bags was really an intense workshop where I made so many mistakes, wasted so much material but learned a lot. I did a lot of researched and pretty quickly realized how much material waste goes into the fashion industry and I didn’t want to be part of this problem so I worked hard into finding new ways to upcycle materials and to use production techniques to reduce environmental waste as much as possible. Another approach is that I wanted my brand to be meaningful. I didn’t want to just make a product, sell it and that’s it. I wanted my creations and my brand to go beyond that. So, I decided that a small percentage of my annual sales would be donated to local animal shelters. This is something that I am very proud of because we have consistently donated even through the pandemic when I made and donated masks to our community and in return I asked our friends and family to instead of buying from us to donate to any animal shelter of their choice and the positive response was unbelievable!

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My products are created with affordability, durability and functionality in mind. It’s important to me to make products that are affordable to my customers, made with beeswax canvas, denim, leather, etc. You know, the everyday “grab-and-go” bag with lots of pockets and zippers. My bags are the kind of accessory you buy yourself or to gift someone without the guilt of spending a few paychecks on that purchase, and they know that accessory will last them quite a long time when well cared for. It is also important to me to give back to the community so a percentage of our annual sales is donated to local animal shelters. In addition, our goal is to expand our sewing studio at our family ranch where we have already implemented several beehives. So in the near future we will be able to wax our fabrics with our own organic beeswax.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

We can support all kinds of artists and small handmade business by making conscious purchases and shop local whenever possible. It can be any line of product you can image. Trust me, every little bit counts and helps not only a small business thrive but also that family and the community as a whole. Even when time gets out of hand and we end up online shopping because it’s sometimes faster or more affordable, then a good way to offset that is to engage with our local makers by helping advertise their business, or repost something on social media, or tag/refer their business when a friend is asking for a recommendation. These actions are so easy to do, costs zero dollars and in turn can help a local maker tremendously.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.creationsbygrazi.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/creationsbygrazi
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/creationsbygrazi