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Things have been decidedly creative in our house over the last few months.
I blame Christmas. Last year I went a bit over the top in the crafty stakes and made everyone homemade mulled wine and plum jam for Christmas, along with some Christmas pudding flavour vodka in those cute little glass bottles with the flip top lids. Belle made homemade labels on brown paper with swirly writing. It was a homemade Christmas sensation.
This year then we had a lot to live up to.
I went with candles this year. I bought an amazing silicon mould on Etsy in the shape of a woman’s torso and stocked up on soy wax from Amazon, and off I went. Every day for about a week was spent in a happy rhythm of melting and pouring, melting and pouring, until I had a whole shelf full of naked women. It was very satisfying.
Belle took the creativity up a massive notch though, by creating gifts AND wrapping in a Harry Potter theme. She got everyone in our family to take the sorting hat test to see which house they’re in and then she made each person their very own wand, from scratch, using kitchen roll, hot glue and determination. They really were beautiful.
Her wrapping was all Harry Potter themed, with colour coordinated string and wax seals and little boxes made from pages of The Philosopher’s Stone. Everyone also got a homemade potion.
Aren’t’ they gorgeous?
This one is Wolfsbane.
I actually thought they were so good that Belle should set up her own Etsy shop. She’s had a difficult couple of years since dropping out of college back in 2019, and then last summer working up to her ASD diagnosis, and I would love her to put her creative talents to good use and to get more of a sense of purpose. She has such amazing attention to detail, what she produces is amazing and I honestly think people would buy it.
She felt suitably enthused, and decided that perhaps she COULD set up an Etsy shop. The first thing to do though was to think about branding.
I think branding can be a bit daunting for a lot of people thinking about starting their own business, but there are actually so many tools about nowadays that it doesn’t have to be scary. Tools like Design Bundles.
Design Bundles has just about everything you could need for your next creative project, whether that’s a crafty school project or setting up a new business.
Take scrapbooking for instance, a very popular craft and only likely to become more popular over the next few months as we all find ourselves at home looking for things to do. In their scrapbooking section Design Bundles has everything you could possibly need to get started – a massive selection of interesting and unusual scrapbooking papers, alphabets, illustrations – they’ve really got all the scrapbooking bases covered.
Or maybe card making is more your thing? Design Bundles is all over that too, with a whole host of templates, invitations and different elements to help make your next creative card project really special.
Back to Belle’s Etsy shop though.
We started off with a brainstorm of potential shop names, narrowed our selection down based on what was already taken, and settled on Chamber of Potions. Belle had some great ideas for different potions she could create, and perhaps even sets of potions for each film, depending on which potions featured in them.
Next she needed to create a logo. Here Design Bundles proved its worth again as you can create a mockup logo and play around with all kinds of different branding options.
Looking through at the different products is easy as the presentation is very visually appealing and it’s easy to navigate through the various product options. When you imagine how much it would cost to employ the services of a professional designer to help with your branding, these prices are incredibly reasonable don’t you think? You’d be looking at hundreds of pounds to have a logo designed for you by a graphic designer.
Belle was buzzing with ideas for her Etsy shop, inspired by how easy she could see it was to create professional looking graphics and projects with Design Bundles. There was a really good variety too, meaning that whatever sort of logo or branding you’re looking to create, there is sure to be something to suit you.
Like this one – how cool would this be with a P for potions? I think it has a lovely spooky Harry Potter vibe to it doesn’t it?
I imagined getting one of Belle’s potions in the post and a business card like this being included in the parcel – I would definitely be impressed. You’d get a real sense of professionalism wouldn’t you? I think it’s little touches like that – a well designed business card or a branded sticker – that make the difference and make you more likely to think highly of a brand and buy from them again.
I think an Etsy shop could work really well for Belle, as she could combine the professional and design elements with a personal touch, so thank you cards perhaps, created using a Design Bundles card template, but then with a personal, handwritten message on the back to let me know how much she appreciates their order. Something like that would mean a lot.
What’s great about Design Bundles though in my opinion is that it really is a one stop shop for all things creative. If you’re a serial crafter, which I’m beginning to think is a term that applies to both Belle and I if the state of our house during December was anything to go by, then Design Bundles it well worth a browse for its huge range of products.
With all kinds of designs, themes, illustrations and motifs to choose from, you’re sure to feel inspired in your next creative venture after a visit to Design Bundles.