Amber:  Hi welcome to The BusinessMakers, I’m Amber Ambrose sitting here with Keitha Moseley-Dendy of HomeMadeLuxe.com and we’re going to talk about the crafting business and I’m excited because I am not a crafter so who knows where this interview is going to go?  Welcome to the show Keitha.

Keitha:  Thank you.

Amber:  Thank you for joining us.  I’m just going to – now that we’ve shown it I’m going to put it down here for a minute just we can actually have a conversation.  So first of all tell me, what is HomeMadeLuxe?

Keitha:  So HomeMadeLuxe is Pinterest in a box.  Basically I deliver all the materials you need to make a gorgeous home décor project every single month.

Amber:  Okay, so it’s a subscription service?

Keitha:  It is; it’s a subscription box so when you sign up every month you get a new craft delivered to you.

Amber:  I see.  So once a month I can expect to have this box here.  And how do you pick the crafts?  How do you figure out the content for the box?

Keitha:  It comes from a range of things but I do have a home décor DYI blog so I get a lot of inspiration from obviously the craft that I’m doing there.  But also I would be going through Z Gallerie and I would see this gorgeous home décor piece and I’m thinking I can definitely make that for a whole lot less, so I get a lot of inspiration from that.

Amber:  That’s great, that is a thought I have never had.  I look at that and say oh. Let me check my bank account but I love the ingenuity of this because it is thrifty; it’s also something creative so you can have an outlet – an artistic outlet – and it’s a business now.

Keitha:  It is, yes.

Amber:  I’m really curious how you took it from just being a crafter and doing stuff on your own to bringing it to the worldwide web?

Keitha:  Well to me, I’m really passionate about women and our ability to take care of our self and self-care and the concept came a lot from this whole concept I have at home which is called Mommy Alone Time.  So on Friday nights I tell my husband and the – I have 5 year old twins – and I tell them you’re on your own, Mommy has to get some alone time to kind of decompress from the week.  So I just craft and I just like to do what I love to do.  And you know, as women we don’t really take the time to kind of just do what we love and that was just an important concept to me that I thought I should deliver to women every month; here is something that you can do to just kind of decompress and enjoy.

Amber:  And I know this is a side job right now.

Keitha:  It is.

Amber:  And that you have a day job as well.

Keitha:  I do.

Amber:  And it’s in that field where maybe the concept of self-care is important.  So tell me about sort of the balance you strike – what you do for your day job and maybe how it informs what you do in your side job.

Keitha:  So I do work in psychiatry so self-care is definitely something that I think about daily and it’s always something that we should strive for because we don’t really realize the effect of stress on our bodies; not just our mental bodies, but our physical bodies.  So it’s definitely something that we should all strive for.

Amber:  Absolutely.  And how do you think crafting fits into that?

Keitha:  Because it’s what you love to do.  When you find that thing that you love to do it just changes everything for your perspective on everything really.

Amber:  And well I would imagine with crafting it’s you’re taking something that’s just a thought in your head or a vision of something – an idea – and then you’re going through the whole process of planning it out and then actually sitting down and doing it.

Keitha:  Yeah, and a lot of people crafting is something that they actually like to do but they don’t know where to start, it’s overwhelming.

Amber:  Me!

Keitha:  Yeah, they go into Hobby Lobby and it’s like whoa, okay where do I go from here?  So that’s why the box is great because everything that you need is already included; you get a surprise, a new project and what I like about it, there are a lot of craft boxes out there but there was not one that was a home décor box.  And you get a lot of like little things you craft and then you don’t know what to do with them; you’re like this was awesome but now what?

Amber:  This cross soap holder is so wonderful, I’m going to throw it away now because I don’t have the space for it.

Keitha:  Exactly so what I wanted to do was just kind of have beautiful pieces that you can display in your home and just dream of your next Mommy Alone Time Moment.

Amber:  I like this whole Mommy Alone Time.  I’m going to use that tonight and maybe every night.  So I know before this you mentioned you had a do it yourself blog about things like this.

Keitha:  Right.

Amber:  How did you take the step from being a blogger to being an entrepreneur?

Keitha:  So I have a lot of readers on my blog and they just love the projects but they don’t – they want to do it with me but they don’t have the time to go to the craft store, they don’t necessarily know where to start.  So with this box they can just kind of craft with me and it’s kind of more interactive and of course it was a way to monetize my blog.  So it definitely worked out well.

Amber:  Because you had a built-in audience that you knew was interested in the things that you were doing.

Keitha:  Exactly.

Amber:  And so you took it and made it into a literal package.

Keitha:  A literal package; something that they can hold versus watching me on the internet.

Amber:  How do you decide what crafts you’re going to do for the month?

Keitha:  What I’m doing on the blog – and it’s actually kind of hard to source the projects because you have to find a project that will actually fit in the box.  So that’s the hardest part of the whole concept; there’s a lot of projects that I can do but if they don’t fit.

Amber:  Because everything has to fit in this exact box.

Keitha:  They have to fit in this box.

Amber:  Gotcha, okay, I wasn’t aware of that.  I didn’t know if it was different sizes.  Well, we have a box here, let’s open it up and see what’s inside as if I just received it.  I mean, we’re close to Christmas – it won’t air then but that’s okay.  Oh, and it’s right behind us.

Keitha:  Yeah, so this is what you end up with.  You kind of get…

Amber:  So explain it to me.

Keitha:  So when you get your box you have a kind of instruction sheet inside and it has what this is supposed to look like and of course there’s also a video tutorial – a lot of people are more visual.

Amber:  That’s what I need, to like watch someone do the actual process so I can mimic that.

Keitha:  Exactly.  So on the back I have step by step instructions but for those who are more visual I do have a video as well.

Amber:  Oh that’s great.

Keitha:  So everything they need is inside the box, from the wires that we use to form the wings for the starburst and the actual mirror, the paint, even the paintbrush.

Amber:  So you’ve already done all the shopping.

Keitha:  All the shopping is done.

Amber:  The planning, you’ve got a step-by-step tutorial on how to make it, there’s really no excuse.

Keitha:  There’s no excuse.

Amber:  This should not end up on the Pinterest fail blog.

Keitha:  All you need is wine.

Amber:  Or coffee depending on what time of the day.

Keitha:  And we do have a lot of women who kind of make it a girl’s night.  So they have a bunch of boxes and they all get together once a month.

Amber:  In a communal thing, I really like that.  And I know you have some guys that like to do this too.

Keitha:  We do, yes.

Amber:  That’s great.  So everybody is creative in their own way.  The inspiration is an Anthropology Queen Anne’s Lace Mirror that is $98.00.

Keitha:  Yes.

Amber:  How much does this box cost?

Keitha:  $29.00.

Amber:  Okay; so $29.00 plus the fun of getting to put it together.

Keitha:  Yes.

Amber:  So what are some projects that you’ve got coming up?

Keitha:  Well for Christmas we just did this gorgeous wreath that was a huge hit.

Amber:  And that could almost be an anytime wreath because it’s all kinds of stuff.

Keitha:  It is.  We try to make everything neutral, that can fit everyone’s décor, and I think you can kind of use this year-round.  You can put some hearts in there, you can put some pumpkins in there for fall; you can just kind of dress it up.  I’ve heard it’s kind of Hollywood Glam, so it’s kind of New Year’s too.

Amber:  I’m in to that, I like sparkly things.

Keitha:  Yes, so it works year-round.

Amber:  Okay, so Keitha tell me about some of your past projects.

Keitha:  So every month we have kind of a theme so like for fall we did a tired pumpkin stand, we have a Mason jar holder which you can use for so many different things.  Also the beauty of it is kind of figuring out how you’re going to use it in your home.  So like the Mason jar organizer you can use it for your makeup brushes, for cotton balls, just different things.  There’s a hexagon shelf, we’ve done marbled dishes; there’s a lot of metallics and marble, very contemporary type pieces.

Amber:  So whatever the trends are of the day you kind of work around that.

Keitha:  Exactly; we work around the trends and work around the time of the year.

Amber:  So you have all these projects – I’m going to go ahead and close this up because it’s making me want to craft and what I need to do is finish our interview.  So it’s a subscription service first and foremost, is that correct?

Keitha:  Right, that’s true.

Amber:  But are there other options for people that may not want to commit to a full monthly subscription?

Keitha:  Definitely, you can buy a one-time box just to try it out and a lot of people buy one-time boxes for gifts or they’ll buy a 3 month subscription or a 6 month subscription for a friend for a gift.

Amber:  So there are other options.

Keitha:  There are other options if you’re not – if you’re a commitment-phobe or you just want to try it out you know?

Amber:  Okay, well that makes a lot of sense.  Where do you see your business heading in the next 2 years?

Keitha:  I definitely want to make my side hustle my main hustle.  It’s a beautiful thing when you find that thing that you actually love to do and you figure out a way to monetize it, so I’m really excited about the future.

Amber:  So what advice do you have for people like me that really want to start crafting but maybe just – I don’t know, I’m too intimidated to start.

Keitha:  Just do it!  Crafting is so easy and you’ll find that thing that you love to do, you just go for it.  You can obviously try it out first with the HomeMadeLuxe box and kind of see some different techniques, you’ll learn a lot of different ways to craft, and then from there you can kind of find that one that you really love to do and just go for it from there.

Amber:  Well thank you Keitha, I think that’s a perfect way to end this interview; go forth and craft.

Keitha:  Yes, stop pinning and start making I say.

Amber:  Yeah, that’s a really good tag line by the way.  I’m appreciative of that marketing which is also part of business.  Speaking of, thank you so much for joining us today on The BusinessMakers, we appreciate it.

Keitha:  You’re welcome, thank you.

Amber:  I’m Amber Ambrose, this is The BusinessMakers.