CRAAUS, pronounced “cross”, is a clothing and apparel business my wife and I started. Actually my wife started the business under a different name and a different type of product but just recently we rebranded and refocused the business.
Three years ago my wife made a one year old birthday shirt for my daughter. It’s still posted on our Facebook page. We had been praying that God would give us a vision for a business, but never thought it would be related to sewing since my wife could not sew very well. My mom showed a picture of my daughter in her outfit to one of her co-workers and they asked if my wife if she could make one for their daughter. She was also asked to make another shirt centered around the most popular Disney character, first and last name starts with an M. She took on the challenge with very little knowledge of sewing. Her first customers loved them and the idea to make and sell them online became reality. There was no plan to have a big business, just to make a little extra money for savings and paying down some debt.
That first designs didn’t sell, but the popular Disney character shirts did. She began to get sales like crazy. At one point she was making 10 shirts a day through Etsy.
It was great! We were able to use the extra money to pay off debt, pay off our cars, save for a new house, and take vacations. She could have very easily stayed with that concept. We always sat and talked about her shop and how to make it better and we knew the designs she was using had limitations. You can only take your business so far when you using someone else’s characters and designs. We wanted the business to be more than just an Etsy shop that provides us a little extra money every month.
Three years later and we’ve decided to step out on faith and make something all our own. We wanted to build something that would last and could one day grow beyond Etsy. So we’ve taken on this adventure of rebranding her business. Stretching our creativity and coming up with our own designs and concepts; designs that are fun, inspiring and mark the special occasions in our lives. We are looking forward to the road ahead and all the challenges it may bring.