We recently connected with Sara Parries and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Sara thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How do you feel about asking friends and family to support your business? What’s appropriate, what’s not? Where do you draw the line?

As a small business and a one-woman show, I find that I need help quite frequently. I find that asking questions and getting my family and friends involved with my business has made it what it is today. For example, my mom helps me with all of the company’s finances, my dad loans me his truck with I need to move my inventory for craft fairs, my sister helps me with social media and website photos. Along with my family, I have several close friends, as well as my fiancé, help with set up and tear down of all the craft fairs I participate in. Without support, I don’t think I would have survived the past year of running my business.

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?

I am Sara Parries and I own SP Handmade where I make handmade, lightweight polymer clay earrings. I am a middle school math teacher by day and a crafter at heart. I started my business when I decided that my creative abilities could be profitable. I started making custom shirts, cups, ornaments, classroom décor and storage solutions for friends and family. I finally found my passion in polymer clay and have been focusing on that for the past year. I am so proud of my growth. From selling to just friends and family, to participating in large-scale craft fairs, as well as an online store, I have come so far and sometimes cannot believe that I get to run this business. Everything I make is slow made, made with care and love, and I find pride in every piece of jewelry that I get to create. When people buy my products, I feel empowered and proud that something I created and crafted gets to be a part of that person’s wardrobe.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

There wasn’t a true plan when starting my business. All of the funding and start-up came from my own pocket. Since I was an avid crafter before starting my business, I was lucky to have the majority of my materials already and slowly start to assemble more products and materials as my business started growing. I am very thankful that I didn’t have to struggle with money at the start of my business because I have learned so much about balance and spending within my means from my mom. I work out of my home, so being able to use space I already had was beneficial in the beginning stages of starting my business. Once the business starting making money of it’s own, I was able to stop using “my money” to fund the business and now I am all about reinvesting into the company to make it better. Slowly I am learning about best practices with money and learning all about business along the way.

What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?

The best source of new customers for me is doing in-person craft fairs. I now have repeat customers that always look for me at these shows. I really like to frequent small town craft fairs because I am a unique vendor and that really draws people into my booth. I have been doing these shows for about a year and I recognize so many faces and get to have the best conversations with my customers. My advise to anyone who wants to get into selling at in-person shows such as craft fairs is to just do it! There are risks involved, as with any business venture, such as cost of the show, inventory management, start-up costs for displays, a canopy tent, etc., but it is so fun and so worth it.

Contact Info:

• Website: shopsphandmade.com
• Instagram: _sp_handmade
• Facebook: sp.handmade.14
• Youtube: sphandmade

Image Credits
(self)