CHELE B CREATIONS LLC
BELLE ISLE, FLORIDA

Hello everyone! Let me tell you a little bit about myself and my company. I am Michele Bischof and I am 31. I married my best friend, Tim, on May 15th, 2016 in Winterpark, Florida. We have known each other since middle school but did not start dating until 2012. He has an amazing job with ESPN, where he travels to sporting events and produces audio for the audience watching from home. As for me, I was a manager of a successful salon called Great Clips where I also cut hair. I worked for Great Clips for 15 years and I loved my job, coworkers, and clients but I became a mommy in November 2016 and my husband and I decided it was best for our family for me to leave my job and stay home with our son. It was a very difficult decision for me because I loved my job, however, with the night and weekend requirements that come with the cosmetology career and a husband who travels a lot, staying home was the only option for us. While enjoying staying home, I discovered a machine called Cricut that cuts everything! Paper, vinyl, foam, leather, you name it and it probably cuts it! I decided to start with paper because it was a cheap material. My motto was “If I mess up, it’s a cheap loss.” My first project was a bachelorette banner for my sister-in-law. Everyone loved it and encouraged me to start an Etsy business doing party decorations. I started my Etsy shop called Chele B Creations in March 2017 with the same banner I made for my sister in law. After 2 days on the market, I made my first sale and a sale every week after that! I started receiving 5 star reviews on my Etsy page with very encouraging compliments from my customers that said they loved my banner. The positive reviews gave me the motivation and confidence to fully invest into my Etsy business and create new banners for my shop. I am currently experimenting with new projects like wooden signs and shirts to add to my Etsy shop. I am excited to see how far I can go with my business and the cool new creations I create with help of my Cricut. In the meantime, I am sticking with custom party decorations as my main product until I gain knowledge and confidence in quality in my other projects. I created this blog to showcase my work and to help inspire others who are starting a crafting business. I love crafting and running a business so I thought I would start a blog in hopes of motivating and inspiring other crafters. I love helping others with their craft projects or starting a craft business so please feel free to contact me with any questions! I am glad to help. I also love receiving feedback on my posts and projects. It helps me develop and grow, therefore I am open to any suggestions or feedback you may have. You can email me at [email protected] What my friends did not know was that I have this creative mind but never was able to show my capabilities. I always volunteered to help create decorations for parties we threw but no one took me up on my offer. Maybe it was because they knew how much I worked so bringing a dish was easier on me. However, I felt I should have been involved in the decorating because I could have made the exact decorations they purchased. I would have saved my friends a lot time and money! Chelsea, with doubt, was the first to take me up on my offer to help make decorations for my sister in law’s bachelorette party. After we left the coffee shop, I went straight to the craft store to pick out supplies for the banner I was going to make. I rushed home and went straight to work. I traced out each letter on to card stock paper and cut each letter out by hand. I hole punched each letter at the top and hung them on a string. The process took two hours and my hands were sore from all the cutting. I was excited for the end result and sent a picture to Chelsea for approval. She loved it and began sending me pictures of other decorations she wanted for the party. One day, Chelsea and I were chatting about life and money. I expressed to her my concerns of being a new stay at home mom and the guilt of not providing financially for our family. She suggested that I open my own Etsy shop and sell my banners. I quickly shot the idea down. A couple of hours worth of work, soreness from the long use of scissors, cost of supplies, none of it was worth the price that the banners were selling for on Etsy. I saw an ad on my community Facebook page for a Cricut machine. I had no idea what this machine was used for, but it looked craft related which instantly grab my attention. Through research I figured out it was a machine to cut materials into any shape I wanted out of many types of material. I wish I had this machine when I was making decorations for my sister’s bachelorette party! I had to have it for making decorations in the future. To my luck, Joann’s had the newest model of the Cricut machine on sale and I became a proud owner of the amazing Cricut machine. I opened an Etsy account and within two days I got my first sale. I am currently selling two to three banners a week. Although it is not enough to support a family, it is enough to support my retail therapy. Thank you Chelsea for your support and encouraging me to open my Etsy shop.