I've been making functional pottery since 1985, but only recently began making hermit-crab-related products for sale. First, I simply made dishes and huts for my own crabs. I had the products and the skills and it made more sense than buying something plastic. The crabs seemed to thoroughly enjoy the natural texture of the clay as well as the discrete wells to separate their foods. Then I made a few dishes for a hermit crab Secret Santa event in a Facebook group I belong to (Land Hermit Crab Owners Society). The recipient of my dishes was delighted and posted pictures in the group. Other members wanted to know how they could get some, so I started offering them to this select group only, as a way to help fund my hermit crab breeding attempts (Instant Ocean, a special tank, feeding supplies, these all get expensive over time). Soon, demand became so great and had spread outside the group enough that it made sense for me to open an Etsy shop where buyers could see at a glance what stock I had on-hand and easily place their order.

Once I was offering dishes for sale, it made sense to include some of the dry mixes that I was already creating to feed my own happy hermits. There are lots of hermit crab mixes out there, but I try to make mine unique enough to warrant purchasing. My philosophy, when it comes to creating mixes, is to assemble ingredients that are varied enough to meet a range of nutritional needs, but that include ingredients that could be found together in the wild. So, my Meadow Mix, for example, has earthworms, wild strawberry leaves, crickets, dandelion leaves, wild rose petals, maple leaves, and the like, Our hermits are foragers and scavengers, and I like to have their food "make sense" to them. In the wild, crickets and krill and pomegranates wouldn't normally be found together (though they are all nutritious) so I try not to put them together in my mixes. It's just a thing I do that makes the process fun for me and that I like to think makes sense to the crabs as well.