We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sarah Barrah. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sarah below.

Sarah, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

suspend.it has been nothing short of a gift—birthed out of one of the most difficult phases of my life. Around Christmas of 2015, I was a new mom who also worked full time and was also pregnant with baby #2. During this time, I was also helping my husband battle through his mental health issues and encouraging him as switched careers and was going back to school….it was a rough time. We were truly in the thick of it. I was pouring into everyone else, but nobody was “filling my cup.” Hearing my exhaustion and frustration, our marriage therapist gave me permission to “Dream a bit and take a Risk.” Immediately, the concept of suspend.it was born! I don’t know why it took my therapist giving me permission to dream and take a risk, but I can’t explain how life-giving that moment was. Outside of being mom, wife and provider, there was still a very creative side of Sarah that could no longer be ignored and suppressed. In fact, that creative side could in fact co-exist with those other aspects of me and actually helped me and my family thrive. When I fed myself creatively, everyone benefitted. Nearly seven years later, I am filled with gratitude. This side hustle of mine got us though some hard times. It gave me an outlet to express myself. It gave us another stream of income and has allowed me to quit my day job to be home with my kids through some challenging years!

I will say however, being able to have the freedom to take risks involved sacrifice and careful planning to make sure we were financially free to make some of the moves and decisions in my creative journey. I sacrificed a lot of sleep and late nights with my family to plan, create and make my business a reality. My husband and I lived frugally and drove old cars and lived debt free so we didn’t have financial burdens and pressures hanging over our heads. I would say the absolute best thing you can do for yourself is to become financially free–debt free! This gives you the independence to take the risks.

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 believe art should also be functional. Yes, some art exists as beauty in it’s own right, but as a wife and mom of two busy boys living in a small house, practicality of function always wins over form and fashion. I’m drawn to quality items that traverse through life with me. My art often doubles to solving problems. I am inspired by repurposing broken or cast off items to make them useful again.

I am the dreamer, maker, inventor and creator of @suspend.it. I make what I call “jewelry for your walls” and have recently added “wearable art” to my offerings. While I make all sorts of doo-dads, my “baby” is the @suspend.it decorative screw / nail / tack cover. I patented my decorative wall hooks in 2021 and am thrilled that this dream has taken shape in the most unimaginable ways. This little home-based business continues to grow organically even though I don’t pay for advertising.

I love working with organic materials. Many of my suspend.it are made of minerals and crystals because who doesn’t want more sparkle, texture and color added to their walls? I also dabble in stained glass, and have recently taken blacksmithing workshops and discovered a new love for lapidary! Working with new materials and elements has challenged me in all the right ways and given me a respect for talented makers in these arenas. I’ve had the amazing opportunity to partner with the most talented artists and makers to blend our skillsets and create new offerings that neither of us would be able to make on our own, but the combining of our talents creates something new and magical! I’ve collaborated with over 15 artists during the life of my business and it has been such a joy! This little business sustains me creatively, and helps sustain my family and other artists financially.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Early in my entrepreneurial journey, as my brand started gaining traction and growing, I started seeing copycats of my work. While many ideas are not new, I did design something new to the marketplace! I developed a wall hook clasp uniquely my own, so when I started seeing other creatives copy my work–down to my listing images, copy description, etc, I realized the need to protect my invention. Etsy was my selling platform at the time and they would not back my claim at all unless I had a patent over my invention. Let me tell you, as a creative, imitation is NOT the best form of flattery. I can’t explain the level of frustration and hurt I felt that another creative would literally copy my work down to the exact styles and offerings I had in my shop and claim them as their own. Designs I dreamed up late at night when I could have been sleeping or spending time with my family. Designs I had financially invested in. The imitation will never be as good as the genuine offering.

I had no experience with patent filing, so this is where I highly recommend hiring a professional in the specific industry to help you do the tasks not in your wheelhouse of expertise. Hiring a patent attorney was one of the best investments I made in my entrepreneurial journey. It is such a highly specific knowledge-based skillset and for me, the stakes were high. I needed to have my patent approved in order to have any protection and claim over my invention. I secured a provisional patent and nearly 18 months later, filed for my actual patent and I am happy to say it was approved March 23, 2021! The day I secured my patent, I filed a claim with Etsy to finally have the copycat makers halted from selling copies of my goods! This process took almost three years start to finish and possibly held me back from opportunities since I had to keep my design kind of close to the vest until the patent was approved. For example, I made it through a few application rounds on the TV show “Shark Tank”, but thankfully, I wasn’t ultimately chosen to be on the show because I wasn’t emotionally prepared for what may have come from the exposure.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Through the pandemic, I learned the importance of “shopping small” and supporting locally made goods and small businesses. I hope that society would have learned this lesson too. If Americans would start supporting their fellow American businesses over overseas, I believe we would be in such a better economical state and less dependent on other countries. I have made it a personal goal to shop at local small businesses rather than big box stores. I try to support handmade makers as much as possible. Often times, goods are more expensive when you shop small, but the quality is unmatched and the money has a direct impact on the small business and money oftentimes gets poured right back into our local community.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.suspenditproducts.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/suspend.it/
• Other: https://suspendit.etsy.com

Image Credits
Courtney Smith