HYDROPONIC KITTY - CARTOON ART TURNS FASHIONABLE

Ten years ago, an idea sparked and a path was settled on. I was going to launch a clothing brand online and create a community for anyone struggling with their mental health and feeling misunderstood. If you are one of the little strange-lings roaming this cold world, you know exactly what I mean.

Mental health is a huge driver of mine because I have seen first hand the damage it does to relationships and lives when it’s not kept in check.

As an artist, being creative has always been my play time to escape from the sometimes unbearable mundaneness of day to day life. You know when you have to get yourself up to go to a job you really don't care about or want to be doing just so you can eat? Or the mindless small talk conversations you may have to have with other people just to get your errands done.....Yeah that stuff.

So the ideas have always been plentiful.

The only kicker was, I knew absolutely zilch about selling anything online let a lone how to create a product to sell. I also had no idea what kind of education was worth pouring money into. So with no mentor present, and no friends who had done anything remotely similar, I had to take the challenge as it was and just learn everything from the ground up. I started in what I thought the easiest space I could find which was Etsy and took what I thought was an easy product for the platform on as a first try. Wedding goods were really not my forte, but it seemed Etsy was the place people were searching for that, so that’s where I started.

Selling wedding garters and ring bearers pillows for about a year gave me great experience photographing products and listing them. Hand in hand, I was learning SEO and how to drive traffic to the shop as well. One day I decided to start making dogs tuxedos for the weddings and those seemed to be an instant hit. I sold many on Etsy and even had them placed in a few high end boutiques around Vancouver.

Since the pet industry worked better for me, I expanded and started creating silk harnesses with matching leashes for every day use. They did ok but not well enough to continue even online. By the following fall, I was really expended for ideas but I needed to stay active for the algorithm, so I did the logical thing and hopped on Christmas items. My black cat Christmas stocking yielded almost 80 orders in a matter of days which was actually a lot to take on considering it was November 20 and just me at the sewing machine. It was both exciting and exhausting, but three very successful Christmas seasons showed me the components I needed to press forward with my vision. Years were spent writing and creatively designing in my spare time which was extremely limited given the day to day responsibilities I had.

I figured over time, it’s the compounded actions we repeatedly do that will matter when you look back over ten years.

And now it's here being shared with you so all I can hope is that I touch your life in some kind of useful way whether it be helping you add some fun to your closet for self expression or maybe a piece of my art will lift your spirits through a difficult time. There is great love here for you.

Be well. Stay healthy. Stay high babies x