I am so pleased to share an interview today with Lisa Zuraw of Sweetbeets. You might also know her blog ModEcoKids (if you don’t, I highly recommend it). Lisa also will be launching an online handmade marketplace called Gift Gush soon.

Besides loving her letterpress designs (and her newer printables), I admire the way Lisa lives her eco-conscious values, and I look forward to days when she writes about what she’s doing to move toward a more minimalist way of living. It’s personally inspiring to me, and as such, I wanted to know more about her thoughts on sustainability and how that impacts her decision making as a small business owner.

I also asked her to share a little bit about what it’s like to own a business, not having any firsthand experience with it myself. I’m especially fascinated to hear about the challenges.

I hope you enjoy the photos of her gorgeous work and that you find her answers to my questions and her insight as interesting as I did – I learned a lot.

First, can you give me some basic background: Did you go to school for design? How did you learn to letterpress? What led to Sweetbeets?

My education background is completely unrelated to design (I used to work in the field of medical research), but probably my attention to detail is a common thread. Before my first son was born, I was looking online for ideas for birth announcements, and I think that’s what first planted the idea of a stationery business in my head. I fell in love with the look and feel of letterpress printing after learning about it through design blogs and researching stationery companies. I taught myself how to use Adobe Illustrator so I could create my own designs, and I dreamed of owning my own press. I signed up for a letterpress class, but when it was cancelled I realized that it would be better to have my designs printed by an experienced letterpress printer so that I could just focus on designing and all the other tasks involved in running one’s own business.

You don’t have an art/design background, but surely you can’t just get on Illustrator, learn the tools and crank out the pretty things you make without having some artistic ability, right?! So were you the kind of person who liked to draw/doodle as a kid?

The truth is that I cannot draw by hand! I didn’t draw or doodle as a child but I was always interested in design, especially decorating and rearranging my bedroom as a young child and attempting (unsuccessfully) to sew my own clothes as a teenager. I never think of myself as a “real” illustrator or even artist really. But I do like to figure out how things are made. When I first started using Illustrator I’d look at a geometric flower, for example, and figure out how to make one. I like using Illustrator because it basically uses lines and shapes with all these little points along them that I can manipulate. When I started working on my own designs I took tons of profile photos of my kids (my poor children!) and basically traced their outlines like a silhouette. Making these alien-looking creature drawings into something that would pass as a baby or young child took tons of trial and error. I c-r-i-n-g-e at my early designs (for some I had expensive custom printing plates made — foolishly investing $1000+ on them to “save” on a bulk order of plates — and later trashed them in the garbage without ever using them!) and even some current designs that I think look a little bit off. What’s that saying about us being our own worst critic? I could really relate to this post at MakeunderMyLife where Jess talks about her early jewelry designs and and her learning process, and how we all have to start somewhere.

Do you do other design work, or do you only work for yourself?

I think because I’m self-taught, I feel more comfortable only working for myself, so that’s what I do.

What are your design influences and what tools do you use to create your designs/cards/prints?

Simple and minimalist designs appeal to me. Luckily that style is a good fit for my relatively limited skills at using Adobe Illustrator.

I’d like to explore your decision not to wholesale Sweetbeets anymore, which you mentioned on your blog earlier this year – can you elaborate on that? What advice might you give to other handmade artists who are struggling with wholesale? I have to admit that I don’t get the economics of wholesale. I have heard handmade artists who have their own online shops complain that they “can’t compete with wholesale” in reference to selling their goods through other online (or bricks and mortar) shops. Can you explain this for those of us who don’t own small businesses?

When I sold my cards wholesale, the wholesale price was 50% off regular prices in my Etsy shop. This discount is typical and often there is a minimum order in terms of a dollar amount or number of pieces of the same design. When a handmade artist prices their product so that they only cover their materials and perhaps a little time spend creating it, then they find it isn’t feasible to cut the price in half for wholesale and still make a profit. The retail (bricks and mortar) shop may put the price higher than in the designer’s own online shop because they need to cover shipping the product from the designer to the store, rent, staff etc.

At the beginning of 2010 I closed down the wholesale side of my business that I had started in November 2007. It was definitely a thrill (particularly as a self-taught designer) to know that a shop owner thinks what you’ve created is good enough to sell in their shop, and I’m very proud that my cards were carried in over 90 shops across Canada and the USA and even as far away as the UK, Australia and Japan.

But at some point the initial excitement had worn off. I was running low on stock and the thought of investing a lot of money in inventory filled me with dread. With letterpress printing much of the cost is in the time-consuming set up of the press. I work closely with my letterpress printer and learned about all the fiddling that’s involved to get the impression just right and beautiful. With each new design (or reprint) I needed to buy 500-1000 prints of each card design to get the manufacturing costs low enough to be able to sell wholesale and still make a small profit. To keep going with wholesale I figured I’d need to get a network of sales reps (that I’d have to pay commissions of 15-20% on each order) who could bring in more sales for faster turn-over in inventory. I envisioned pressure from sales reps to have frequent releases of new designs (I heard that sometimes they just show the new designs to stores) which of course means more inventory. I decided that going down that route was not a good fit for me. Selling wholesale helped me figure out what I want from my business, and I realized that it’s perfectly ok to just have my little shop on Etsy.

Ok, that was a really helpful explanation! Will you continue to sell your letterpress through Etsy, or are you moving away from letterpress altogether?

Although I won’t be having any more card designs letterpress printed (so once they’re sold, they’re gone!), I may create some more letterpress art prints in the future.

I’m a really big fan of printables, which I think is a clever business model, so I’m glad you’re adding that dimension to your shop. Do you have bigger plans for printables in the coming months?

Thanks Molly! My plans are to add many more printable party invitations and baby announcements. I’d like add some seasonal designs but so far the holidays have a habit of sneaking up on me (Easter!) before I have time to create a new design. A new printable 2011 calendar is also on my to-do list.

How does living consciously impact how you go about your design work? I’m thinking of this thoughtful blog post by Sarah at The Small Object about consumption and her thoughts on producing “things.” I’m wondering if you have had these same struggles.

I have been trying to live more intentionally, and I’m still figuring out exactly what that means to me! There are some more obvious connections like choosing eco-friendly materials for my cards such as 100% post-consumer recycled paper and envelopes and biodegradable sleeves. One of my recent “aha” moments was realizing that having a business that requires inventory is not a good fit for my minimalist aspirations.

I do have the same struggles as Sarah at The Small Object about my role in encouraging consumption. I think that issue has also influenced my shift to print-at-home invitations because this business model minimizes waste (I invest design time but there’s no inventory if it doesn’t sell, and party hosts only print what they need). I do love how Sarah describes the personal connectedness that comes from being a part of the handmade community. I’m so grateful for people who choose to spend their hard-earned money at Sweetbeets, and I’m touched by the stories they sometimes share with me. For example, I’ll always remember the woman who told me she had just given birth to twins (she was a surrogate parent) and she was buying one of my cards to write a note to the parents of the babies.

Can you give me your vision for how ModEcoKids, Gift Gush and Sweetbeets all fit together as a part of a whole (or maybe they don’t?) How do you most want to be known – what work is most important to you?

I started ModEcoKids with the idea that writing about eco-friendly kids design would hopefully attract the same type of people who might be interested in Sweetbeets. Gift Gush is the curated online marketplace where people can easily find beautiful gifts for babies and kids that are created by independent artists and designers (like me) who exhibit at the site. While I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished with Sweetbeets, I think ultimately that Gift Gush will be my most important work (if I ever get the site launched!) because I’ll be providing a valuable service to people within the handmade community who feel that the site will benefit them.

What would you like to accomplish with your entrepreneurial efforts that you haven’t yet? Do you have big projects coming up that you’re excited about and want to share?

On a practical level, I’d like to be able to contribute more to our family finances. It feels good when I can buy groceries with “Sweetbeets money”! On a personal level, I’m really excited about exploring the lifestyle of mindfulness / living in the moment. I tend to have a lot of busyness going on with all my various projects and long to-do lists that results in lots of distractions. I’m starting to let go of things that are not sustainable for me (like wholesale) and trying to put into action the ideas in this blog post. ♥

A very heartfelt thanks to Lisa for this interview. Please do check out her shop and her blog, and stay tuned for Gift Gush. You can also follow her on Twitter.

And if you have children, you might also find her free (and really pretty) chore chart helpful – we use it in my house.

UPDATE: The chore chart is no longer available online to download, but I have a copy of it and Lisa has given me permission to email it to anyone who requests it. If you want a copy, please email me: charlottesfancy [at] gmail [dot] com