Tell us a bit about yourself.

Hello all! I’m Betsy, the creator of O Bella Naturals, selling my wares here on Etsy. I launched my shop in October 2009 and have thoroughly enjoyed starting an independent business.

I’m 25 years old, wife to my soul mate, mama to an amazing little girl, passionate, musician, lover of nature, daughter, sister, Christ lover, back-to-basics kind of girl, dreamer. We live in a little rented cottage in West Palm, FL, until we can live out our dreams of moving northwest to the mountains and building a hand built cob house.

I went to college for Music Education at Palm Beach Atlantic University. During my junior year, I met my husband and married him just shy of dating for a year. Six months later, we found out we were having our first baby and that’s when our focus started to change. I put the rest of my degree on hold, though music will always be a big part of my soul, and we began to think of ways for me to be the mom I wanted to be and somehow contribute to our family income. That’s how my dreams of owning a business were born. My husband also changed his career path and is in the middle of Fire Academy.

Apart from creating things, what do you do?

I love nature, road tripping, hiking, camping, natural foods, organic farming, slow food and local businesses. I love to go on adventures, even in the smallest of forms. I love to listen to my husband play guitar and my daughter giggle. We love being outside and showing our little girl the wonders of nature. We collect stones, find new places, splash in the waves at the beach and spend time in the mountains (when we can get out there). She absolutely loves running and playing and finding new things. I love to read. I love tending to our little garden and bringing in fresh, organic produce. I love cooking, which I never thought I would. Music speaks to me like nothing else, so I’m often listening to it or playing music. My newest pastimes are sewing and photography. I love learning. I read about whatever interests me and right now, I’m really interested in natural building and permaculture.

What first made you want to become an artist?

I never truly embraced my creative side until I was pregnant with my little girl, Bella. Something inside me just clicked. It had been there all along. I had won a few awards in art when I was young and liked building with wood (I got a tool set when I was nine) but aren’t all kids this way — inherently creative and imaginative? When I was eleven, I got into music, which sits at the very heart of my soul. I dabbled in the visual arts, dance and music composition in high school. I played flute through school and into college, eventually learning many instruments.

But it wasn’t until recently, I guess I should say, something inside me exploded — knitting, sewing, making jewelry, soap making and lotion formulating. Some encouraged this side of me and some hindered it. But I think I had to truly embrace it. O Bella is me. My essence is at the very heart of it, which has been a liberating and painful process. I’ve realized and embraced my flaws as an artist and as a person. Its values are how I embrace the world — cooking, living and being.

Please describe your creative process.

My goal for O Bella was to work with natural materials, nothing synthetic. I feel like I’ve stayed pretty true to that. I feel more in tune with the earth when I work with these. I like my designs to be grounding, honest and organic. I more or less work and create wherever inspiration finds me. My studio is very small, a corner in our bedroom of our one-bedroom cottage. So creating comes where I am.

I will assemble necklaces in our front courtyard while watching my daughter play. All of my stones pendants were collected out west by lakes and in the mountains, so essentially I was creating long before I officially opened up shop. Each soap is dreamed up before it’s soaped up. I like to capture memories, places or feelings. Huckleberry Patch comes from the restaurant we visited each summer on our family road trips as kids. Xanadu is inspired by my favorite beach in Jupiter where I grew up and Mocha Creamcomes from my complete obsession with good coffee.

Part of my sewing binge has created a new aspect of my shop where I work with organic cotton and hemp, hand dyeing the fabric and creating beautiful head wraps. I’m also excited to be getting more into herbal infusions and balms. Each part is essentially part of me. O Bella feels like the outward essence of my soul.

What handmade possession do you most cherish?

Since I’ve starting making things by hand, I truly appreciate every handmade item I possess. I have little things: a quilt my mom passed on to me, made completely by hand, a bench I used to play on as a girl, a quilt an aunt made for my daughter, the quilt given to me by my mother-in-law that was my husband’s as a baby (that’s a lot of quilts). And of course, crayon drawings that my daughter makes. It’s her new obsession.

Name your top five books, movies, musicians, and websites besides Etsy.

Books:
The Dream Giver by Bruce Wilkinson
Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller
The Lord of The Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Revolution: A Manifesto by Ron Paul
The Hand-Sculpted House by Ianto Evans

Movies:
Braveheart
Legends of the Fall
The Lord of the Rings trilogy
Food, Inc.

Music:
Switchfoot
Pink Floyd
Muse
Death Cab for Cutie
Lucia Micarelli
Bela Fleck
Flyleaf

Websites:
Local Harvest
Cob Cottage Company
Craigslist
Design Sponge
Flickr

What advice would you give to artists who are new to Etsy?

Find your voice. Etsy is filled with so many awesome artists and I think the best way to stand out is to be yourself and do something that you love.

Connect! Don’t be an island. I’ve met some of my biggest supporters through my blog and consider them great friends. They are also the best kind of customer as well, always putting in a good word about my shop. That kind of connection is invaluable.

Always keep working on your pictures and descriptions. Remember that you are trying to create an “in-shop” experience on your virtual shop. Pictures are essentially your product and are the most important thing (in my opinion).

Ask for constructive criticism. Join a Team!

What are your favorite features on Etsy? What new features would you like to see?

I love Treasury East! I love how curations stay for an extended amount of time and cross-promote other people’s work. It’s a great place to find new-to-you shops. I also love the Forums. I spent hours and hours there when I was formulating a business plan and dreaming up my shop. I found such great advice and very knowledgeable people.

I would love to see an in-house shipping calculator! It’d be neat to have a place to put a photo of the artists in the “about me” section. It’d also be awesome if we could choose which section of the picture shows on the thumbnail image of our main shop page.

How do you promote your work?

I run a blog, where I talk about things I love, like photography, natural building, cooking, music, designing, other artists and my family. I use it more as an outlet rather than solely for promotion. I have met some incredible people through blogs, many of who are talented Etsy artists themselves - Violet Bella, Poor Pitiful Pearl, penny threads and Peace, Love and Leener. Sometimes, good friends are also the best customers!

I have a Facebook fan page and I use Twitter. I always carry my business cards around with me and I have a great system of family and friends who give my items as gifts to lots of people.

I’m also a member of the Indie Free Spirits Team! I think teams are a great way to cross-promote, meet new people and learn new things.

I’ll occasionally participate in a virtual market or buy ad space but most of my promoting comes from word of mouth. I plan on getting into some markets and fairs this fall, which I’m really excited about.

In ten years, where would you like to be?

In ten years, I’d like to be living in the mountains, in a house built with our hands, sharing life with lots of our kids, growing our own food, selling my wares out of a travel mobile shop and packing up the family every summer to do acoustic gigs with my husband.

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