thank you to Skillshare for sponsoring
this video yes I decided to start a
business as our economy is falling apart
so sue me
hello everyone it's when I can since
I've had a lot of time on my hands due
to quarantine we all know that feel we
we are probably tired of that
introduction by now I decided to do
something that I've been wanting to do
for so long and that's to start an Etsy
shop in case you don't know I love art I
have a creative gene in my body when I
was a little kid I wanted to become a
little artist until your Asian parents
tell you no you can't do that
granted art is still something I really
love to do and I really enjoy and
there's such a value in it especially
now when humanity loke falling apart
where we're kind of living in a semi
dystopian society we need art more than
so with the stationery business which I
am using the self stickers art prints
and hopefully enamel pins and patches in
the future for the past month I have
been slaving I have been grinding and
building up this shop and this brand
that is star fruit press today I'm going
to be showing you my process of creating
artwork and also printing and cutting
out stickers and pretty much how I
planned my shop financially
advertisements and social media and
granted I know I'm not finding the cure
to cancer I know I'm not ilan most but
nevertheless I had like a passion I had
a little Drive so now I have a little
small business I love the idea of
investing time and something that makes
you happy to help bring happiness to
people that's so cheesy yeah that's the
Gouda the parmesan so without further
ado let's jump into this whirlwind of a
video pew pew pew
let's go
[Music]
so you've decided to start a business
good for you but I hate to be don't want
to break it to you but unless your name
starts with a D and ends with Auto J
Trump no one's gonna give you a small
loan of a million dollars to start up
your venture
so before you pit your entire life
savings into this one idea here are a
few questions you should ask yourself
what are your ideas do they need to be
developed are they any good and will you
have an audience for them how are your
finances looking do you need to save up
and budget so we can afford an equipment
and time are you able to manage this
with your life and all of your other
responsibilities and lastly how is your
commitment looking do you think that
you'll be dedicated and passionate
enough to follow this through I keep
most of my ideas in this sketchbook and
here you'll find the original vision
board for starfruit press I also made a
digital one here is a mood board that
emulates all the cuteness and
wholesomeness vibes I want my business
to have as well I have sketches of art
prints and stickers I want to make and
prior to quarantine I had all of my
physical art work professionally scanned
into a digital format and of course I
have to calculate my start-up costs
figure out my finances and making a
budget for my investments is necessary
because if monopoly taught me anything
as a child is that families will be torn
apart by this game and that losing money
is bad to avoid becoming $19.99
coachella keeping track of your expenses
and how you're gonna price your products
is vital now let's dive straight on into
art I made most of my designs digitally
through procreate not making children
silly but bringing art to life I've been
using it for a while now and his
controls are really simple and easy to
get used to plus it has similar
capabilities creatively compared to
photoshop I do this all on my dad's
first gen iPad pro so it means it's all
that slow sometimes I'm responsive but
it works generally I start up by
choosing a color palette drawing out the
basic shapes and then going in with the
details with highlight mid-tones and
shadows and here are some smexy time
lapses of my artwork I am no van Gogh
nor money and I would not go as far to
say that my artwork or style is
ingenious and absolutely original and
revolutionary but if there's anything
you should take away from my artwork is
that it represents Who I am in my
personality you see a Spitfire a loud
colorful binamis woman a woman who
really likes making bad puns and enjoys
eating fruit and loves watching animes
and playing Animal Crossing i wanted to
create art that i could relate to that
other people could relate to
that was playful and fun and i think
that's kind of what i got after
finishing up and procreate i go straight
into photoshop on my laptop where i do
some fine-tuning add some text and do
any further editing as necessary I use
the Creative Cloud version of Photoshop
for literally everything for YouTube
Instagram school for photoshopping
myself unto the spouses of celebrities
and although it's a little bit more
techie and less user-friendly than
procreate it's worth it to invest a time
to learn especially if you want to get
into digital art and media here I'm
creating the design for my logo and my
business card due to the increased
amount of time you're spending indoors
have you tried to learn a new skill only
to hit learning roadblocks get
frustrated and return to binge watching
your current kdrama Hey well Skillshare
is here to help teach and encourage you
in your pursuit of creativity as a
thriving online community Skillshare is
a place where millions of creatives come
together to discover and develop new and
old skills alike what class is dedicated
to illustration graphic design
photography and much more you can find
one that sparks your interest I've loved
the illustration classes as it has a to
me in building my business such as this
one taught by Jairam Bogle digital
illustration learn to use procreate
which has taught me to utilize procreate
to its every capability with no ads in
less than $10 a month with an annual
subscription Skillshare is a great
learning environment that has always
launched new classes and here to help
you foster creativity the first 1000 of
you guys my subscribers to click the
link in this description will get a
two-month free trial of premium
membership so you can explore your
creativity
thank you to Skillshare for sponsoring
this video and now back to the regular
broadcast now for an unboxing of all the
supplies that we ordered off the
internet we have 110 pound cardstock and
it's thicker sister 120 pound cardstock
and then we have not one not two but
three packages of sticker sheets firstly
vinyl mat or weatherproof purposes and
regular mat stickers we have two sets of
ink cartridges some envelopes for
mailing and some flat paper bags copy
fold to my chest for packaging some
rather inexpensive tissue paper all of
the toilet paper hoarders are quaking
right now and leave for all why you
leaving me bro yeah get back here some
pretty leaf ribbon now for the big boy
machine this is a face of regret and
pain
[Music]
oh no I'm too big after figuring out
that in suitableness of the box to my
thickness I unwrapped a printer and set
it up and it's a wireless connection so
the Bluetooth synced up quite nicely and
I've never had access to a printer at
home in my life so this is quite a
luxury quite I also ordered big scissors
aka a paper trimmer and a silhouette
portrait which you can program to cut
out specific shape here's my final setup
in my little corner and since I had so
many cardboard boxes left over I decided
to make little organizers because
reusing is sick and then we're all
prepped for printing and cutting
[Music]
oh so if you reach the part where you're
gonna be printing and cutting or
essentially making your product come to
life now as exciting as it may seem
inking it up adding up that nice white
paper cutting it into the perfect shape
drop drop drop but are you ready for all
the noise Isak adhere those aren't
particularly pleasant sounds on the
eardrums and I had to listen to that for
hours on end let's return to nice
background music shall we let us jump
right in to printing which is actually a
little bit more complicated than I
thought because I have to learn to
adjust the colors and the brightness of
my art in order to compensate for
discrepancies in printing what you see
digitally on the screen isn't gonna
match up with what is printed in real
life so tomorrow the story is print a
test copy before printing final copies
and oh did I print many coffees I feel
like I was single-handedly responsible
for rising deforestation and for the
aggravation of Lorax is all over the
world now after getting over that
internalized guilt I started a cut-in
since I was too impatient to wait for my
Silhouette to arrive I did it all by
hand which I instantly learned to regret
as I got wrist pains I soon began to
worry that I was getting an onset of
carpal tunnel yes the thing that we make
fun of teenage boys were getting when
they masturbate too much I I was afraid
of getting that luckily my silhouette
came in to rescue but was still
frustrating to learn because I learned
that I cannot outline simple shapes a
lot of my stickers wore die cut meaning
that they wore unique shapes that I
needed to personally draw myself so I
spent ages free handing all the shapes
oh was the undo button used plentiful
the thing is I learned that if you
import it as a PNG and then Jenna
program would automatically detect it as
an outline there are also set shapes you
can use as for these Isabelle stickers I
used a rectangle with rounded corners
and that was much easier and then it was
time to put it into the machine
start by cutting this was my first
attempt oh it is grisly it is horrific
when you're placing your paper onto the
cutting mat it needs to be aligned
perfectly and I developed that precision
and accuracy over time and eventually I
got these lovely cutouts having the
silhouette definitely took a lot of
stress off of my hands and plus it was
very satisfying to peel back the border
paper and just see all the stickers
perfectly cut out on the cutting mat
although I did not stop making
imperfections they did become less
frequent over time I eventually figured
out a rhythm some of producing stickers
[Music]
for my art prints and cardstock items I
did a little bit of hand cutting what's
the paper cutter not going to lie use
the paper cutter really feel so powerful
1789 France I get it Robespierre I kind
of get it you see a paper cutter is a
little bit more tedious and I hope to
outsource one day but it's currently
cheaper for me to just do it all by hand
when I was cutting trees I was often
accompanied by YouTube videos and
Brooklyn nine-nine and it was really
easy to get lost in the monotony of the
task since it's not very complex so in a
way it was almost kind of soothing
sometimes I just get tired of doing big
brain things that stapling papers or
cutting things apart is really enjoyable
and relaxing for me and before I knew it
I had an entire inventory of products
that I had to sell
[Music]
oh great
you've reached a part where you need to
advertise your product in this case
judging a book by it's cover does matter
and it does happen tell me you haven't
bought a book because it had a beautiful
cover or bought something because it was
aesthetically pleasing because of its
wrapping I mean I can't be the only one
right the way you brand your product and
the company can leave a lasting
impression on the customer as you can
probably tell my job kind of entails
social media so I kind of know what I'm
talking about I think the best example
of a social media entrepreneur is
Wendy's I mean they went for roasting
people on Twitter and now their twitch
streaming animal crossing' like I I
cannot speak ill a Winnie's they're
spicy nuggets mmm their PR campaigns top
notch and we're going to start by taking
pictures of our products for social
media and for Etsy I'm using this plain
poster board some tissue paper for color
paint chips I wanted to create a simple
background so I wouldn't detract from
the product I did my best to match the
color scheme of the product and I got a
shoot and sometimes you got a hype your
subject up after I got shots of all my
products I imported it to Lightroom to
adjust any lighting and now that we have
instagram-worthy photos to post about
let's make our social media handles you
can use anything from Twitter the
Facebook to snapchat even I just use
Instagram because it's where my audience
is and it's what I'm the most familiar
with first I made an email for my
business and then I went straight into
setting up an Instagram account the cool
thing about Instagram is is that it has
a business feature that lets businesses
have access to insights making Instagram
ads and all that fancy Shaanxi chef it
acts as a way to communicate but also to
get a new audience so here you see I'm
posting a picture about my Isabel
stickers campaign for 2020 and I include
hashtags on my post in order to reach as
far as an audience as I can beyond the
people who follow me hashtags can tell
your posts show up in people's
recommended or their explore page I've
been doing Instagram and YouTube for
over five years now but it took me all
of those five years to build up the
audience I have and if you have the
patience and the diligence and you work
the algorithm you'll be able to see
growth
now let's go on to our Etsy I've been
using Etsy for a year now as I do sell
some presets on Lightroom Etsy is really
user friendly it's really easy to set up
a shop with a minute although the fees
they charge you to list items and use
their site can be a little bit hefty
sometimes but at the end of the day it's
easy to advertise on since your items
will show up in a search engine Here I
am making my listings
I am manually inputting all of my stock
items and quantities and adding
descriptions and photos for people to
see what it is the nice thing is that
Etsy does a lot of things for you and if
they don't they have little sidebar that
explain and guide you through what you
need to do and eventually I had my
entire shop put together like look how
cute look how cute and now for the
wrapping drop a beat yo okay I'm gonna
stop now that's really crazy what am i
doing there should be as much thought
that goes into way you package as the
actual product itself because it makes
it an experience for the customer to
unwrap we've all gone that one present
that was wrapped in Christmas wrapping
paper but it wasn't Christmas and it was
done loudly so it looks like a deformed
ball of scotch tape here I'm taking my
imperfect stickers and I'm using it to
decorate the envelopes to give them a
little bit more precise look how cute
and dolled up they are now and I have an
entire box dedicated to my packing items
you have my envelope some people's bags
stickers I custom made for sealing
packages and decorating them my business
cards and stamps when I get an order I
assemble the pieces that were listed
some things that were bought and sets
like my burb sticker I pre packaged I
personally use tissue paper because it's
cheaper and also easier on the
environment versus plastic and plus I
really like it because it's thin enough
that you can still see it a product
through it add a little freebie and a
business card and then we're ready to
seal the package and set it off to its
new home
[Music]
today is a day look I even put on real
people clothes like wow thank you thank
you the shop launches at 9 a.m. Pacific
Standard Time and we are currently 12
minutes away from that I feel like this
is the part of the video where I give a
really motivating inspiring speech that
gets you to get out of your freakin
pajamas and go do whatever and conquer
the world but honestly I'm tired y'all I
kind of almost got carpal tunnel from
doing this square a minute away okay
it's time it's time it's time I'm
pressing publish it's only been 5
minutes but there's a ton of orders
coming in so we're gonna start a packing
and then a ship in and then getting
these goodies out to y'all so let's get
home time for a sexy time-lapse ish
it was around this time that I became
overwhelmed not just by the sheer amount
of orders because we got 153 orders in
on opening day but just by the sheer
amount of support and love I felt from
you guys because I really had this
impostor syndrome going for me where I
was thinking what if no one buys
anything what if I'm just like a fake
noodle over here so the fact that almost
everything sold out within half an hour
was amazing it was way more than I could
have ever expected I am so happy that
what I've been working on what I've been
making for the past couple of months is
going to people like you guys to a
better home and I hope you guys love the
stickers the art prints the artwork as
much as I enjoyed creating them
[Music]
this was a wild journey I'm not sure
this was informational funny or none of
the above or both but I hope you guys
enjoyed watching this video and I'll see
you guys in the next one thank you for
supporting eleven by E
[Music]