We recently connected with Mary Smith and have shared our conversation below.

Mary, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

Malysia Designs was previously Craftythingsz LLC. We recently completed rebranding. Designing, decorating and making things pretty is in my DNA. When I was younger, I used to go home shopping with my mother, I would help her to decorate our home. I remember we did her entire living room in wallpaper LOL it was beautiful! Am I telling my age? lol. I loved it so much that I couldn’t wait until I purchased my first home. Which I did at the sweet age of 20 years old. Most of my friends were in college but I worked because I had a one year-old to take care of.
I remember, I enjoying decorating my bathroom and my kitchen. I love this so much I would spend my entire work check sometime on just decorating. I had gotten to the point that the iteam in the stores were not exactly how I wanted them, I would then order custom items.

My family suffered a hard tragedy almost 5 years ago. While trying to grieve, I knew I had to find something to do to keep my mind focused. One of the things that I would do is make customs door wreaths. I will buy deco, mesh, artificial flowers, and different trinkets to make different Door Wreaths. I would then post them on social media, and my friends would share as well as purchase them from me. It kept me busy and my mind focused on positivity. After doing a deeper dive into learning how to make more home decor I purchased more equipment to allow me to do custom cuts and engraving. From there Malaysia designs was birthed. What makes me more excited is seeing that I am able to do what I put my mind and heart to.. and although I’ve had bumps in the road, I still continue to learn as much as I can. My main focus now is having a workspace, but my biggest goal is to have my own home decor store front..

Mary, 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 would like for my viewers to know that I make my products with love. I work very hard to make sure my items are beautiful and well-crafted.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

My business was a side hustle when I started in 2019. How I turned into a full on business is once I started purchasing more business equipment out of pocket. I registered my Business name and business credentials, started doing workshops and taking classes. That was how I knew it was more serious and consistent. This was something that I loved to do.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to learn to just do. Simply do.. everyone talks about what they want to do or what they could do if they had this or that, what they want to do in the future and they haven’t even started. I had to learn to put some action into those words and goals. I also had to learn that it is OK to have setbacks. It is OK to change your business model. It is OK to take a break in this day and age. Appearance means a lot to everyone and sometimes some people don’t know to say I don’t know how to do this. I need help and then look for information to help them. This business has been open for three years and I have taken steps back multiple times whenever I am learning and figuring things out I will sometimes not take any orders until I get things figured out. And that’s perfectly fine. It’s not something I want to do consistently. I look to build a team in the near future.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.Malysiadesigns.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/malysiadesigns?igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA==
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/malysiadesigns?mibextid=LQQJ4d
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mary-smith-08306464
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@malysiadesigns