E4: Chatting with Lyndsay Makes

She has merged her two worlds, which is graphic design, multimedia design with crafting. And I have loved this conversation.

I've looked up to her for a very long time, especially when I first started crafting. So enjoy this chat. We talk about all things from business through to making stuff, creativity, and everything in between. 

And she's just a hoot. I love her. Enjoy this and let me know what you think about this podcast.

If you like this kind of thing and these types of interviews, please do let me know. And if you have anybody that you would love to hear from and be interviewed on this podcast, please let me know as well. Thanks.

Debbie: Just a small edit here, I have to apologise twice. First, for my voice right now because I’m a little bit sick. But second, there was a little audio glitch on Lyndsay’s podcast.

So if you can push through though, it’s only for the first few minutes. But if not, no worries, just fast forward. So if the audio is too much, please do fast forward to about four minutes and thirty seconds where it does get a lot better.

So I’m really sorry about these technical issues. I am learning as we go. So definitely we’ll fix it for next time. Thanks.

Welcome, Lindsay. Oh my God, I'm so excited to have you here and I feel like I'm. I feel like the background, it looks fake if I'm honest.

Lyndsay: Oh it is, it’s so fake.

Debbie: Oh, your background is so famous. No, it's very real. I'm just getting my hands in it.

Lyndsay: Like very real. I know. Well, it's funny actually because it's one of the rare moments where it's all kind of looking orderly because my son comes in and he'll often just trail his hand along the stuff.

Debbie: As kids do

Lyndsay: As kids do. So, you know, I think in the early days when I started getting asked questions about my, the big thing was, oh, you must not have kids. And I'm like, dude, I have kids. I have kids. 

Debbie: Lemme show you 

Lyndsay: He certainly keeps me on my toes. 

Debbie: I love that though. Like my kid, my Christopher's his name, he'll just come to the warehouse when I'm like, oh my God, I need to get like 20 orders out and I need to do it now.

And he'll just be like, I'll just pick this up and put it over there. So when I go pack that order, it's like, where is it? And it's, it's stressful because I'm like, oh shit, sorry, I don't mean to swear, but did I oversell stock that I don’t have?

Lyndsay: Oh, absolutely. 

Debbie: And Christopher's just like, “oh, I'll just take that and, you know, I'll just take another one, and anyway, kids, hey.”

No, no, I would love to know more about everything. So like, tell me about everything, your whole crafting world, how it started, you know, how you manage with kids. Anyway, let's get into that in a second. 

Lyndsay: All right. 

Debbie: But tell me a little bit about, you know, Lyndsaymakes as a whole. 

Lyndsay: Okay, so I guess the first thing that I would wanna say is that Lyndsaymakes is my passion.

I love it, and it’s not my only source of income. So I'm very fortunate that I also work as a freelance graphic designer. 

I think it's really important to be transparent about that fact. ‘Cause I think when we look at people's Instagram, how can there be an income being generated from this stream?

A lot of what I post on my Instagram is a gift or something like that. I'm not saying that there aren’t opportunities to make money from Lyndsaymakes, the Instagram account. However, I'll be very honest and say that my work is very unglamorous. I would say.

Debbie: I would argue that it's very glamorous. But anyway.

Lyndsay: Sometimes, sometimes it's actually, I have some really great clients and and I love them and I feed off their awesome product and their creativity.

But any, any graph, I would probably tell you a lot of it is, you know, can we make the font bigger? Can we make it smaller? Can we move it over this way? 

Debbie: I'm a marketer. I know all about that. You know, all of that. I'm that annoying person that's like to just shift a little bit over or change that font of yours, spacing’s not even, and I'm that person, but anyway. 

Lyndsay: Does your eye twitch a little bit?

Debbie: It totally does, and it's not even a thing that I can help. 

Lyndsay: No. 

Debbie: And I notice this when I'm making, like in terms of crossover and all your world's meshing and all of that, right, there’s a reason why I have to fold a garment exactly in half and heat it so I know exactly where the centre is.

Because if I don't put the decal smack bang in the centre, it's like it's gone, and this is why I bought your guide, right? 

Like, and we'll get into that in a second, but it's stressful for me. It's stressful. 

Lyndsay: That was a masterful segue to get straight into my guide

Debbie: Totally unintentional. 

Lyndsay: Yeah, no, absolutely. I read this great quote from Jessica Hische.

She is a typographer and she's really great at what she does. She's beautiful, and she said, yeah, typographers are the type of people that will clean behind the fridge. 

And I guess alluding to the idea that they're detail-oriented into a fault, to a point where it's like nobody cares about that particular thing, but you know, that makes the design good.

Debbie: I really resonate with that quote. I mean, not that I clean behind the fridge. 

Lyndsay: I love it. 

Debbie: I don't.

Lyndsay: No, never. 

Debbie: But the details, right? Like in terms of when I'm giving in order to a customer and some of the videos that I post online, like everyone sees the timelapse and it's like a minute and, you know, that's been cut so much.

Lyndsay: Oh my gosh, yes.

Debbie: You don't see the whole, oh shit, what if I move it a little bit over? Have I got the right centimetres on each side? Like, have I, okay, no, that's, let me do it again. 

Like, you, you don't see that you know, so I really resonate.

Lyndsay: And so much about design, that's what's really interesting about design. So much of it is what you don't see, if that makes sense.

Like all the considerations that people put into design work and, you know, negative space and all those things. 

Like it's a lot of what makes a design great is, you know, all that small detail. And it's probably something that a lot of people don't realise. They're even thinking about when they're making their own products or they're making their own items.

Like sometimes it's just innate. It's almost like this thing that is just running in the background of your brain. Yeah.

Debbie: Totally. So, totally. When I watch other crafters and like, you know, you watch everyone, and you kind of pick and choose what techniques you take and that type of thing, right?

Lyndsay: Sure. 

Debbie: And, and I kind of like when I look at it and I'm like, oh, that's a really good idea. Like, she's really thought about that placement or putting it this way or changing a font this way, or, you know. 

Lindsay: Absolutely.

Debbie: And that’s, that's totally an innate thing. She probably doesn't even notice it, that she's doing it, but it's part of that crafting process.

It's, yeah, it's pretty crazy. 

Lyndsay: Absolutely. And I always say that to people that are so adamant that they don't have any design skills or any knowledge about this, blah, blah, blah. 

It's like you would be so surprised at what your brain is thinking about when you are doing what you do. I certainly believe everybody's got creativity in them.

It's just how crazy it gets.

Debbie: How crazy it gets, totally. It shows more, something more. Whether you let out that crafting or not. 

Lyndsay: That's right. 

Debbie: That definitely resonated with me.

And how did you start, like how did you find crafting, Cricuting all these, how did you find it all? 

Lyndsay:  Okay. So I have a funny, like, little funny pathway through university in terms of what I studied. So I'm not gonna tell you what year because it's actually scary.

But I studied visual arts and multimedia at a time where kind of web design was booming.

You know, like there was just this time where it’s just so exciting and like — if you knew how to use Dreamweaver or whatever, you could make a fortune.

Debbie: Oh my God, Dreamweaver. I remember Dreamweaver!

Lyndsay: Yeah. So much so that like, I think my third year, one of my major pieces was in Flash. Do you remember, Flash? 

Debbie: Flash? Oh my God. 

Lyndsay: I know.

Debbie: I remember and segue, I was in high school and the thing was to get like a — I won't say illegal, but I think it was illegal. 

Lyndsay: Yeah. 

Debbie: Like a copy of Photoshop or a copy of Flash or Dreamweaver whatever, and I put a website up then you could code it and stuff

Lyndsay: Absolutely.

Debbie: Maybe ‘cause I was a nerd, but anyway, it was totally good.

Lyndsay: Yeah, absolutely. And like that and it was a pretty exciting time to be across any of that stuff because yeah, there were so many people out there who were like, “Oh cool, you are good with computers. Can you build me a website?” And you'd be like, “Yeah, no worries.”

So I did study visual arts, but I was in this kind of weird offshoot, which is multimedia and it encompassed so many different things. So it was film and it was photography and all these other mediums. We were in the room adjacent to the graphic designers and I never really felt like I was a graphic designer, even though I was in the visual arts stream.

Because they'd be doing all these very like, impressive projects. Someone would be like mucking around with Slack and all this stuff. 

And I remember sitting in on one of their classes, ‘cause my girlfriend was in one of their classes and they're like, we need to show you - to all the graphic designers, this amazing new program, it's gonna blow your mind. And it was Photoshop and we're like, oh, we've been doing that.

So yeah, I guess from there, I mean another long boring story. I did my honours degree in Digital Illustrations, but I think at that point I acknowledged the fact that I never really felt like a graphic designer.

I never really felt like I fit in that particular, I don't know, that particular realm.

And that has sort of followed me throughout my life because it's a funny thing when you are interested in design like I love design, I always felt like I was a bit too crafty to be a designer and a bit too designer to be a crafter.

Debbie: I feel like that right now. 

Lyndsay: I know, I know. 

Debbie: I totally feel like that. 

Lyndsay: And, you know, I've listened to my friends who are actually like proper graphic designers and I'm like — I feel like they're speaking another language to me. I do kind of understand words here and there, but I don't think I'll ever be at that level.

And it kind of, sometimes, it was liberating, but sometimes it's also like you feel a bit lost. Where do you fit in in the world if you don't, you know, if you can't say with confidence, “I'm this.” 

I mean that has gone on for some time and then I was preparing for my son's first birthday and he is named after a character from Jaws and we were having at Jaws-Themed party.

Debbie: Oh, I remember.

Lyndsay: I had all these ideas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that party, oh my gosh. It’s just setting him up for disappointment for the rest of his life. ‘Cause it was never as elaborate as I ever.

Debbie: I know. I think what most first birthdays are, but then again, he won't know, so.

Lyndsay: Yay, and first birthdays are definitely for the parents, more so than the kids.

Debbie: Yeah totally.

Lindsay: It's like, yeah, we survived and he's still alive.

But I remember to give all these ideas like, you know, as you do Pinterest and Instagram and all that. 

And I was like, oh my gosh, I wanna do all this stuff and I'm not gonna be able to cut it out by hand. Maybe now's the time I look at getting a cutup.

And I've seen them, you know, in other contexts and with other people in very talented hands. And I'm like, you know, it could be fun, could be cool. 

And I literally, like, the first time I cut something out, it was my Cricut and I'm like, I remember having this feeling of like, this is gonna change everything.

About what I do and, and what I will always be grateful to Cricut and their machinery is that it made me feel like I had found a place and that place was designing for crafters. 

And it just so beautifully married those two things that I'm so passionate about. And then all of a sudden I was like, maybe this is what I was waiting for, maybe all those years that I was like, I'm not quite sure where I fit in, this is what I was waiting for.

And since then, it’s just kind of gone from strength to strength. I love what we can achieve with these machines and I love that you can have one, whatever you are interested in, whatever you, you know, you can just explore it and experiment annd you can start your home businesses and all that stuff too.

I think that's what's really exciting and obviously, that is such a huge component of your audience and mine is that, you know, these are people who are passionate about what they do, and they're seeing an avenue for, “Oh, this could actually also help our families.”, “This could be an income stream or whatnot.” 

It's been a really cool movement to observe and be part of, I think particularly the last couple of years of seeing how the home industry has just exploded with Cricut and the other brands, sorry, the other brands too. 

Sorry, sorry. Other brands. 

Debbie: All, all crafting, labelling machines.

Lyndsay: All cutting machines.

Debbie: Yes.

Lyndsay: That's right, exactly. 

Debbie: No, I was gonna ask, like, I, I really resonate with the whole not-fitting-in thing, especially because I'm not a designer. I'm also, like a lot of my marketing has… I didn't go to uni, I didn't go to uni for marketing, right.

I went to uni for an arts degree and my first year out of uni, I got a job in events and admin and that type of thing, working for a catering company. 

And that's when I realised, okay, my forte is in the communication. And I thought it was in events operations and like figuring out how to get people to events and what the event is about, you know? 

I didn't know at the time that it was marketing, right?

Lyndsay: Yeah.

Debbie: Then I kind of moved out of that and I've always been this kind of connector, I guess. I mean, I ran, so funny, I ran a dance competition, one of New South Wales's biggest street dance competitions on zero budget and all sports.

And I don't know how, but I got like 20 crews to come and compete, and they all paid a registration fee and they all sold tickets. 

And like I sold out one of the auditoriums at Sydney University, not auditorium, like it was a basketball or the sports centre or whatever it used to be. I don't even know if it’s still there.

Lyndsay: Yeah. 

Debbie: But again, at that time I was like, I don't know what marketing is, you know? So I totally resonate with what you said about being a graphic designer, but not really being a graphic designer, but then finding this crafting, you know, whatever this is, and joining the two and that's your niche. That’s your middle ground.

How did you, you know, did it just kind of happen and you had this kind of gut feel? Or like, how? I don't even know if there’s a question in that.

But you know, like how did that happen? Because I think a lot of people are looking for that, you know?

Lyndsay: Yeah and I think without sounding too, like hyperbolic or romantic. It really was literally like pieces of the puzzle falling into place for me understanding all of a sudden that — I guess all the skills that I'd acquired and collected over the years.  

Could actually come together and be really useful and bring me a massive amount of satisfaction in what I do and what I make and what I can achieve.

And yeah, it's definitely, it feels like even in hindsight, and it's not that long ago that it happened, but thinking back, it's incredibly pivotal for my life. 

Like how I feel like I've been able to develop myself and to a lesser extent, my business. By feeling like I have an identity now in this lovely niche that we have.

Debbie: Yeah. I love that. 

Lyndsay: Yeah. 

Debbie: And that's how the whole… How did you realise that there was a market or there was a gap in the tools-making and the guides and all of that? 

Like, I mean, again, that's a beautiful example of all the pieces falling together because I wouldn't know the first thing about making a guide, you know, and I know when I received it, I'm like, oh my God!

And I knew you make it with the Cricut, right? Because I know that I saw your videos and you’re hand-cutting it and then putting it in the Cricut.

And I'm like, but how did you even think about that? Like, mind blown. 

Lyndsay: I'm gonna probably like mispronounce this quote, but isn't there a quote, something like along the lines of “necessity breeds invention”?

I think for me, I was learning how to use my Cricut. This was definitely very early days in the process too, because I remember I got my first Cricut Explorer 2 in, I'm going to say probably, January. 

Then my first guide that I made would've been only months later, I think it was probably around the April, May timeline.

I should really go back and look, but it was just kind of all, it was just chaotic when it was happening. 

So the necessity part of what I was doing was that I was making a lot of t-shirts for my son and I was making some t-shirts for my husband and I was mucking around and I was having lots of fun.

But I was doing what a lot of my friends now refer to as classic Lyndsay, which is, I was over-engineering everything and I was doing things with layers and I was doing, you know, drop shadows and all this like, crazy stuff.

This is another sec, this is another tangent, sorry. My dad is a bit of a MacGyver. He has taught me pretty much every, he and my mom. 

Definitely taught me everything I know about just being like, I don't know, fearlessly creative, giving everything a go.

But I would remember him talking to me, we’d be measuring out water or something to build something. He was like, “Just make a template”, you know. “Just make something that you know it's that length and then we'll just use that from there and we'll cut and then everyone will be right, everyone will be the same.”

And I remember those words going through my head when I was thinking about making t-shirts and they're all the same size, ‘cause people were all size one or whatever, at that point.

I'm like, yeah, actually I could just mark out where the design goes because it's gonna be consistent on every t-shirt. 

This will save me a lot of time and wondering, and you know, when you do that thing, you hold the t-shirt up and you're like, “Oh, is it right?”

Debbie: I'm totally over.

Lyndsay: It's slightly lower than the other and, you know, and the eyeball starts to twitch.

Debbie: Yeah. 

Lyndsay: And then you're asking everybody and they're so bored with the question, “Is it straight?”, “Do you think if I put it here, is it straight?” 

So I made this very rudimentary guide to indicate where I was going to put each design on Hooper's t-shirt.

And then I thought, “Oh, well, okay, centre marketing that would be handy.” Like as you said, because you fold your garments in half. Okay, that'd be cool. 

Okay, so now thinking, if there is sort of a recommended size width for each transfer, which there is, you can see it's all over the internet, there's charts that say if you're doing this size t-shirt, you do this width design. 

Maybe I could indicate that on the guide too. So then I started putting like inches out from the centre mark. I thought it was incredibly basic and it was actually almost a little bit like embarrassing that I'd made this thing.

And I posted it online on my Instagram, which had approximately three followers at the time. And I said, “ I've made this thing and look, this is how it works.” 

And it was more like I was a little bit, yeah, I was a little bit embarrassed. And then I started getting messages, “Ah, are you going to sell this design?”

“Where can I download it?”, “Do you have it?”, “Can I have the file?” Blah, blah. 

And I'm like, “Really? Are you sure? Have you seen it? It's pretty messy.” 

Debbie: To you though. 

Lyndsay: Yeah. 

Debbie: To you, it’s like, what ifs? You know, like everybody else is like, “Whoa.” Because we don’t think it was funny.

Lyndsay:  I was flattered, definitely incredibly flooded by the attention that it got, considering, as I said, I thought it was pretty simplistic but then when I realised that people were not stopping asking, “Can I get the file?”, I'm like, “Yeah, right. I'll put a file up”  So I put an SVG up for download.

Then I probably had a little bit of time to think about the design of it, and I was like, oh, there's things that I'd probably like to add to make it a little bit better. 

I was also at that time getting a lot of emails from people saying, “I'm having trouble cutting this material. What setting are you using?” Blah, blah, blah. 

And I felt like I was doing more after-sales on the file than I was comfortable with because I just didn't have the time.

Yeah and for the price that I put the SVG up, I think the label was just definitely making it too difficult. So I was like, well probably I need to look at producing these myself.

I still wasn't really aware of what the popularity would be like, so I was sort of buying a plastic sheet to make a guide to sell, you know, to send off. 

I was doing a very piecemeal and then all of a sudden, I think it was Christmas of that year, it just went off, like it was just crazy.

I was not sleeping, I was making guides all through the night. I'd hear birds chirping and I'd be like, “Oh crap, it's morning.” Like, “How did that happen?”  

I was trying to do it all by myself and it was really stressing me out. And it was wonderful because, amazing, someone wants to buy a thing that you made, but it was also like I constantly felt like I was running to catch up on that whole how-it-all-happened.

I don't feel like I was able to launch my product properly in hindsight and there are things that I would've done so differently now but, it was just, as I said, it just sort of caught me by surprise. 

It was wonderful but it was a bit all over the shop, to be very honest. 

And then that Christmas was the bushfires in Australia and it was horrible trying to post anything anywhere — horrible for a multitude of other reasons, I should say. 

I don't wanna sound cavalier about the fact that it was an incredibly traumatic time for a lot of people but I then faced one of my first of many issues with shipping and I was like, “Oh gosh, this is just crazy.”

And then we went into the year, which was COVID.

Oh yeah, so that was I guess a huge learning curve for me and it actually was, it broke my business. 

COVID broke my business because I was shipping predominantly overseas, so I was shipping probably, say, nine or 10 guides to the US, to everyone in Australia.

When the planes stopped flying in and out of Australia, there was no chance and I was heartbroken, like with how, you know, how all of a sudden I couldn't ensure things were gonna be in places. 

And as you probably know, customers don't always understand how little a role you play in shipping. Really, at the end of the day, we put a label on a box and we really hope for the best and we can't retrieve it. Once it's in the system, we can't do anything about it. 

We can't make it move faster, trust me, I tried, I've considered going to the Melbourne airport and just say, can you just pass this over?

I should work on something. 

Debbie: Many times I've considered that. 

Lyndsay: Oh my gosh. 

Debbie: It's like knocking on the door like, please, I need this to go. I get that. 

Lyndsay: I know and the thing is too, like you as a solo business owner will reply to emails, but the shipping companies won't. So you become the contact, you become the, anyway.

And so it was breaking my heart, how difficult that was. Around that time, I closed my business. 

So I was like, “I couldn't do this.”  And that's actually when you purchased your guide? That was actually, that was my loop around. 

Debbie: Yeah. 

Lyndsay: You know, I was like, I can't, you know. I can't do this and it's devastating ‘cause I feel like I was just hitting my stride. 

I'd released, I think five at that point, five different guides from five different uses and I was so proud of it, and I was so proud of what I had invented. 

And I was so terrified that if I stepped out of the game that, you know, someone else had come up with something better and there would be all my hard work gone, you know, all that stuff.

So it was really difficult to do that part - acknowledge that something isn't working and it's failing. 

Debbie: And how, what was the tipping point there? Like, I don't wanna bring up any old feelings and I feel for you, honestly.

But I wanna know, because how do you know when enough is enough and you have to close that door? Because probably a lot of people are on that stage and they really wanna make it work, but how do you know?

Lyndsay: Yeah, and it's heartbreaking because it is literally like being in love with this perfect person and realising there's just no way that the relationship is gonna work. 

No matter how hard you try or what you do, and for me, like I was like sick to my stomach every morning. 

I'd check my emails and I'd be dreading what was going to be there in terms of “where is my order?”, “I've spent this large amount of money with you, blah, blah, blah.”, “Why can't you tell me exactly where it is?” Unfortunately, I had a run off that.

And then a customer got onto my Instagram account and started saying that I was a shady business because their order hadn't arrived. And that broke my heart again, because you put your everything into it, your own business, everything.

Debbie: I feel for you. 

Lyndsay: Yeah. 

Debbie: Yeah. Just some people, and then they don't understand that it's you doing, you are physically cutting everything, designing everything, shipping everything.

And I would love to be able to clone myself and have five of me. 

Lyndsay: I know, man. 

Debbie: It's not gonna happen. 

Lyndsay: That's the dream and one of us could be sleeping. 

Debbie: I know. Priorities. But I totally resonate with that. And how do you, how do you, again I understand because I know what it's like to be a customer as well, right?

And when you say you need something and it's not moving and you need it quickly, and you are getting, you know, questions from your customers trying to say, “Where is the item?”, I get that —  I get the frustration. 

Lyndsay: Yeah. 

Debbie: But how do you deal with someone that's shouting at you when you know that you literally can't do anything about it, especially in the situation control.

Like what techniques do you use? Like teach us, oh wise one. Because I’m at that stage.

Lyndsay: I know. Well, find a place to ugly cry. First of all, I think being on both sides of that scenario definitely helps. I've had a huge career of working retail and customer service and I understand it.

And I think the first thing is acknowledging that it's not necessarily you that they're angry with, it's the situation. 

And as soon as you make that a third thing, that's not you, it's not your heart. It's not your baby. It becomes a little bit easier to troubleshoot and try and solve the problem.

For me, when this was happening and it seemed to be more negative than positive, that was when I made the decision, this probably can't continue. 

And once I'd sort of decided that, in a way, it was a little bit easier, and then I just worked with each customer that was upset or angry, and I was, “Okay, let's work together and see if we can find a solution to this because I'm hearing you and I'm hearing what you're saying when you're disappointed because I get it.”

And I think particularly for people that are in industries like ours, like also people who are in scenarios like ours, where they're working from home.

And maybe this little startup is coming out of their home budget or it's coming out of their savings or whatever. And they've made a substantial investment in something that they've purchased from the other side of the world.

I mean, oh my gosh. And it's not showing up. Like I get that. So I think I was trying to relate to people on that level and say, “Look, I do actually genuinely understand why this is disappointing for you.

It's not comparative, but it's disappointing for me too, because I don't feel like we've had this transaction because you haven't got your item.

And you know, it's upsetting for me too.”, and very upsetting because I think if you can't help to fix the problem, you just feel doubly bad. Do you know what I mean? It's not, it's one thing to hear that, it’s another thing to not be able to help.

So I guess in a very long-winded way, COVID was awful, but it gave me this, a marvellous gift really, because I was able to take a step back from what I was doing.

Stop running to catch up with where the business was going and what was happening and actually think about what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go and did I want to keep making guides? 

Did I wanna do something else? It was a forced break, a forced reset, and I'm grateful for that now when I think about it. I mean, we were also in Melbourne where literally, we were like the city of lockdowns. 

Everything kind of came to a standstill and it was actually really lovely to stop for a while and think about that stuff because I think also it's probably the same with you.

I know that with small businesses, it's really hard to work in the business and on the business at the same time. 

I know that's a real cliche thing, but it's so true. 

Debbie: Yeah, totally. 

Lyndsay: It's like, if you're making a product, you are thinking about that and you are doing, you are physically doing that, and that's a completely different mindset to think about managing your business and forward planning and marketing and thinking about where you wanna go.

So having closed my business, I was able to then think about that stuff. Come up with something as a game plan and realise that what was really giving me joy and making me happy was creating things for people that they found useful to follow their dreams to, you know, make a business, make a name for themselves, you know, make things.

So I came out of COVID knowing that was definitely something I wanted to research, and that's what I've been able to do. 

So slowly and surely it was sort of starting to get back. Yeah. So I relaunched my store and made new guides, which was fun, new packaging, all that stuff. 

And yeah, I'm giving it another go.

Debbie: That's awesome. I was really — so it's funny because I found you through Amanda, through Cricutcult. 

Lyndsay: Yes, yes.

Debbie: And it was her video on the baby onesie with the pilot and I thought, “Oh my God. Mindblown. It’s the Top Gun.” The Top Gun? Top Gun theme?”

Lyndsay: Maverick. 

Debbie: Yeah, yeah. I'm not even that  — I don't even, I think I saw the third movie first. Does that make sense? The new one first, anyway. 

I think in that video, it was that one or something else. Anyway, I can't remember. 

I saw your guide being used in it. Of course, I went the stalking thing and I'm like, “Who is this?”, “What do you know?” And of course when I started following you, I— to be honest, I didn't realise that you made them a hand.

I did not realise, right? So I just thought, “Okay, it's a guide” and, you know, it's a — I mean, it's a great idea, but at the time I was like, “Oh okay, maybe I don't know where my business is going. I don't wanna invest in it, so I won't buy them yet.”, you know? And then of course, you had your sale. Now I’m like, “I want one.”

But I was actually a little bit sad because I'm like, “Okay, it's great, and what if I need more?” That's the business me, you know. 

Lyndsay: Yeah. Isn't it funny, I remember getting your message like, and even before, like I knew what you would become with your wonderful business.

Are you just like— and it's funny because Amanda and I have talked about you previously and we've gone

Debbie: Seriously, Oh my God!

Lyndsay: Yeah, she's just good people. You know what? She's just good people. I remember you saying, and you were so beautiful and you were so apologetic and you're like, “Look, I know you're not doing this anymore, but I'd really like to get it in a set of regards.

And I'm like, “You know what? I'll make you a set. It's okay. ‘Cause I think I've been selling out of all the stuff I already had. 

And you were just so beautiful and then I think for some reason, your name just stuck with me, and I think we talked again about something about envelopes or something. 

Debbie: I didn’t think you remembered.

Yes, we did talk about the envelope. We talked about a rigid envelope because I didn’t know where to get them.

Lyndsay: Rigid envelope.Yes. 

Debbie: I was selling stickers at the time. That's exactly why, but I didn't — you remember that? Oh my God. 

Lyndsay: Oh yeah, I remember. 

No, you're gorgeous. And it was, so shout out first of all to Amanda because she's just, oh my gosh.

Where do we even start?

Debbie: Where do we start? This should be

Lyndsay: Where do we start?

Debbie: Amanda Appreciation episode. 

Lyndsay: A fangirl of Amanda. 

Debbie: I know, and there's an episode coming for everybody that's listening, there’s going to be a fangirling, but yes, she's a celebrity. Anyway —

Lyndsay: Also she's just a force and she's like, oh, totally inspiring and hilarious and I love it a bit.

So when I was— oh, it was earlier than that, I think I approached Amanda and I said, “Would you like a set of my guides?” and she's like, “Yeah, sure.” 

You know, and I think she was sort of still, her account was still quite fledgling then. Like it's hard to remember what it was like before she had like a thousand, what is a hundred thousand followers 

Debbie: Hundred thousand.

Lyndsay: She was already creating like, consistently awesome content. And I was like, I know that she's going to go places, but I want to put my guides in her hands to see what she thinks and I think our relationship's always been like that.

I've always been very keen to hear what Amanda thinks because she's just insightful and she'll tell it like it is.

And I think in a way, she's always made me feel supported to do better and be better. So I was very excited to put — yeah, to get my guides to her. Anyway, I got them to her and she immediately put out this video and we joked about it. We call it the Cricutcult effect.

Like you wake up, you literally wake up and you have several hundred new followers. 

You're like, ah, Cricutcult effect, Amanda's posted a video, I know what's going on. 

And I owe so much of my exposure to her because as her brand was growing, she was showcasing mine, and it was just, you can't, you can't put a price on how beautiful and valuable that is as a small business. To have someone championing your product from a place of genuine like this, this is good.

And I think also in this day and age of, you know sponsored content and whatnot, it's actually really important to also identify that was the case with Amanda.

And everything that she does is incredibly genuine. Like I don't think she would ever — I know that she was so excited when you were starting your business and she was saying, this girl, she just gets it.

She just gets what people want.

Debbie: Oh my God. 

Lyndsay: And when she was using your product, she was genuinely loving it. And she was — and I think people feed off like, people recognise that, you know, they recognise our energy, and I'll be forever grateful for Amanda. 

Debbie: And it's so funny because it seems so obvious, and people ask me all the time, they think I'm a marketer, so I know all the tips and tricks, and all the code, and what trick, what tactic can I use. I'm literally — it's literally just me being me and being absolutely as transparent and as genuine as possible. Because —

Lyndsay: A hundred percent 

Debbie: People can spot a fake, a sponsored content. You know, people pay for followers, people can — you know, all of that.

You don't know what's real, what's not, right? So when someone is real, it's actually quite refreshing. There's such power in being yourself and being genuine and being you. 

Lyndsay: Oh my gosh. 

Debbie: Right? Because people buy from people, and I refer to this in the course and I always say, the first thing you do is figure out what your why is.

And when I say why, I mean, why are you doing this? What do you wanna be known for? Do you want this to be a business? Do you want this just to be a hobby? What do you want from this?

And for me, I mentioned before, I'm a connector and I always have been, I am always finding myself, like connecting people with people and you know, and people just can't help doing that, right?

So us, we are growing community, that's what I'm doing. Growing community is like the technical term, but literally all I'm doing is talking to people and banding them together. Right? 

Lyndsay: Yeah. 

Debbie: And when you say that about Amanda, and I will say that about all social channels and all businesses, if you're trying to do this social media thing and trying to grow your business, literally just go back to your roots and be you.

Lyndsay: Oh, a hundred percent. 

Debbie: It's so simple, right? But yeah.

Lyndsay: I think in this time, and once again, we're in just such an interesting time in terms of content creation and social media and all the — how all these things are coming together. I think the most valuable currency we're gonna have is authenticity.

You are talking to somebody and they're passionate and they're like driven and all that stuff. It just cuts through the noise. I think voices like Amanda's are incredibly important in that regard because I feel like there are so many people now doing Cricut crafts, they're doing all these different things and they're wonderful.

Each and every project is pretty cool when you're thinking about it ‘cause it didn't exist before you made it. 

But some voices just cut through that noise. I think people like Amanda staying true to that idea of, you know, it's gotta move me to talk about it. Yeah. I certainly hope that will never get lost.

Debbie: What you said before about everyone's starting to get a Cricut now, and or you know, everyone's getting into this crafting world and like I'm hearing a lot of negativity around it. 

Like, everyone's like everyone, you know, you go on Facebook Marketplace and you see, when you type in something personalised, there's probably like 10 people that can do a personalised bottle for you, right?

But I feel like you’re a perfect example of using this machine and using crafting and finding your niche and figuring out something that's a little bit different from the norm, right?

Lyndsay: So yeah. Oh, thank you. That's very nice for you to say.

Debbie: I mean, you’re a perfect example of it. Amanda is a perfect example of it. 

I'm an example of that too because I'm like —

Lyndsay: Absolutely.

Debbie: I tried the personalised thing and I had a newborn and I had this, and it just wasn't for me. I didn't have two hands to make stuff, and all the marketing experience — it kind of just meshed this way, right.

So, I guess, do you have any tips and tricks or advice for people that have the machine and they love what they're doing, but they don't know how to find their own thing? Like any advice, or any tips? 

Lyndsay: Well this is definitely more your strong suit than mine. I guess — I can only really talk about my own experience and I think first and foremost, what I had to acknowledge was that I wasn't probably going to get a lot of return customers. Generally, once people bought my guides, unless they were buying them one at a time.

That was sort of my one-and-done sale. So I was thinking to myself, “How can I make this sale into another sale?” And what I found was most successful for me was making a point of difference so that people wanted to talk about it afterwards. So first of all, I feel like there was a little bit of a niche for the guides.

So, you know, a lot of people were having trouble with alignment, and t-shirts are expensive and vinyl is expensive, and messing up a design and letting a client down, that sucks. So obviously that was a problem that needs to be solved. 

That was my initial why, I guess. But then I started to explore that more and I saw it.

Well, okay. What is exciting about getting a parcel on the mail when someone puts in a little bit of effort? So things like a handwritten note. A bit of ribbon around it, you know, things like that. 

Debbie: You guys still have that ribbon. The black ribbon that you use.

Lyndsay: The black ribbon, yeah.

I thought about that and I thought, if I can make this full enough that someone will wanna say, “Oh, I bought this guide, and not only does it do this, but it also came in this scrapping, you know, and blah, blah, blah.”

You are getting that genuine engagement and it's being passed on to say, a friend or a colleague or something like that, and they trust that opinion because that's your friend telling you or whatever. And they're doing the marketing for me. And that seems to be, for me, something that works.

But when you break that down, when you unpack that a little bit, it's like, I think if you're trying to work out how to have your own voice in the crafting world and how to be you, just think about what drives you. Actually, just really look inward and go, “Okay, what gets me excited about this particular thing?”

I know that there is a lot of merit in looking at what a demographic requires or what there's a demand for and all that stuff too. But I'm a firm believer that if you're going to do anything, you've gotta do it with your heart. 

You've gotta do it with your passion and your drive. So there, you could be making money, making something that people need, but you could just be so unjudged by it that you're just like, you know — or you could put all this, you know, this joy and happiness into this thing.

And I swear, I think that is, ugh, that's a product in itself. Getting excited about a product is a product in itself. I don’t know if that makes sense. I think with anything, if you're going to do any kind of product, you're gonna make any kind of product, get excited about it, you know, just love it and know that you love it because there's gonna be times where it's gonna be really hard to make it, and you're gonna have to have that love there, otherwise you won't do it. 

And there's gonna be orders in the middle of the night or there's gonna be social events that you can't go to ‘cause you've got to get things done or there's gotta be blah, blah, blah.

And if you are doing something so boring and something so — I mean, anxiety. You're like, “No, it's not worth it.” But if you're doing what you love, you're just like, “Eh, there'll be another barbecue. There’ll be another thing”, you know, blah blah blah.

I'm doing this, and it's making me so happy, and the end product hopefully is making someone else happy.

I think for you, Debbie, it's definitely, you are your brand. So your face, your voice, your personality is your brand. 

I think people would remember you when they see your business name. I think that's marvelous. So I think, if anything, that's something to take away. It’s thinking about how to sort of infuse yourself in your product.

And then I think you'll find that, just because we're all unique and individual people, that your product will be individual and unique because it's you.

Debbie: You want something that's, I guess, an imprint of whoever it is that made it, I'm a perfect example, right? Like, you could buy my can glass, or you could buy someone else's can glass and they're probably going to be really, really similar in the way that they come through, right?

But I guess my difference is, you know it's been tested, you know that you'll get it within a day or whatever. Of course, pending, shipping order, and all that stuff. 

Lyndsay: Yeah. 

Debbie: But if you have an after-sales question and you don't know how to cut the vinyl that goes on it, I know. I can help you with that.

It's really hard because a lot of people do say, especially when they get their Cricut machine, they're all excited, they make their first item, whatever, and then they're like, “Oh, someone else can do the exact same thing,” you know? And it's heartbreaking because they get to find it.

Lyndsay: Oh my gosh, yes.

Debbie: You know, and I'm here telling them that, you know, you can do it. You just got to find what you are passionate about and how do you imprint that little bit of you into whatever it is that you are selling, you know? 

Lyndsay: Yeah. 

Debbie: And I haven't cracked the secret of that yet, and if you have, please let me know.

Lyndsay: Yeah, I think you have. I think you probably have more than you give yourself credit for. I think there's, you know, definitely something very you about everything that you do and I love that about you. And I think that's probably why people keep coming back to you too, ‘cause they're like, you know, you feel like a friend. You feel like a buddy. 

Debbie: I totally am. ‘Cause I've been reading a lot of like CEO books and all this, trying to work all this stuff, right? And everyone's like, “Outsource everything.” And I'm like, “No!”. I know I need to because I can't glory myself, you know?

I haven't told this to my audience yet. But anyway, I'm looking at three PLs, right? So three PL is — logistics, because I physically cannot.

Lyndsay: Yes. 

Debbie: I cannot keep packing the orders, right? Like, I only have daycare Monday to Wednesday and in those, of course I can’t do it on a Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And I don't want them waiting, right?

I can't, I can't have them waiting. Especially if they're running businesses. Anyway — 

So I need to look at a third-party company that is shipping every day, that can get stuff out quickly, and there's a cost to that.

But also they are a well-oiled machine where an order comes in, they figure out what numbers what, SKU numbers, and all that tech whatever. They put it in, they pack it in, it goes, right. But I'm like, “What about a thank you card?” or, “what about writing the customer's name?” or “what about, I give a freebie, like it might be something really little key chain or stickers or something”, you know?

Lyndsay: Yeah. 

Debbie: But I do want every order and they're like, no, we can't do that. I'm like, “What?” 

Lyndsay: Oh, I know. 

Debbie: Or I know they say, they can, but it's going to be x delay or it's going to be x amount. I'm like, “seriously?!”

Lyndsay: I was doing that for free. 

Debbie: But it's also that's probably why I can't physically, because you know, if you think about it, it takes 30 seconds to put a thing in, but that times however many orders you have.

Okay. I get it. So CEO, you know, telling me, “Okay, I probably need to outsource that or do figure out something”, but I'm like, “It doesn't come across.” So something again, that's normal for me. It’s not for others, right?

Lyndsay: So I know, 

Debbie: I don't know. It's, yeah, I'm — if you have the answer for that, please let me know, but I'm figuring that out as we go. I'm like —

Lyndsay: Oh my gosh. I think, if you can, it doesn't matter if you're a one-person business or a 20-person or whatever, you probably need to look at every part of your process and go, “What needs from me in that?” 

You know, and I think if you can relinquish control over that packing thing, you think about it, it doesn't really require a Debbie, do you know what I mean?

Like the glass will still get in the box regardless of who holds it. But it's letting go because these things, like these businesses, are our babies. They're our another — they're our child. They're our far-more-demanding child than actually our own. 

I think we start businesses and we are micro-businesses because we wanna do that personalised little touch, you know, that little thing.

And often, as I said, that's a selling point. You know, like I would much rather spend my money with an artist or a creative person that I know that if they get that thing in their email and there's a sale that they go, “Yes!”, you know? “Awesome!”

Rather than the big box, you know, superstores that they really couldn't care less.

Doesn't really matter if you buy there or not but it's as I said, I don't have any answers. I think it's so difficult to relinquish control and I think a lot of that is about, I identify with that because I couldn't relinquish control out of over making my guides. 

Even though it is ridiculous and I do actually acknowledge that they don't require me to actually cut them all out, someone else could do that. 

That's not a uniquely Lyndsay thing that I'm bringing to the equation, but it is, as I said, it's just weighing it all out.

And I think also too, a lot of us don't build enough profit margin into our product to pay for a third party anything. I was always trying to price my products at a point where I didn't think it would discourage someone from buying, if that makes sense.

So I was, “I need to pay for my – a little bit of my time, and obviously all the material because the material is a significant amount of the product price.” And so I did that at the lowest price point that I possibly could, and that became a huge problem when I was approached for wholesale because it's like I literally did not have that margin built in, you know?

There's all these — and it's so funny, there's all these considerations every single day. If you're running your own business, you're thinking about this stuff all the time. 

People don't quite understand. What this mental load of running a business is like, you know. There's so many things. It's so difficult.

But I think that's where it's cool — if you can build a community like you have, like obviously, where we can reach out to each other with questions. 

I've got my beautiful crafting group that we're on WhatsApp, talking about craft, and we're also talking about, “How do we face this business problem? How do we solve these?”

I think we all have, we can all learn a lot from each other. 

Debbie: And you need that. 

Lyndsay: Yeah. 

Debbie: Because you need the people that have kind of walked that path before you. Even if they don't have that answer, they don't have the exact answer, they can at least point you in the right way for you to go and find that answer, you know? And —

Lyndsay: Absolutely

Debbie: When communities are grown, it's because you've taken that help from someone and you've brought it back and you've helped somebody else or whatever it is.

Lyndsay: Yeah. 

Debbie: And there's so much in that, that there's not enough of, with competing businesses and the amount of stuff that I see, just people tearing each other down.

Lyndsay: I think, and I think one thing that really resonates about you to me is how generous you are with your knowledge and you give it so freely. And I think that then motivates people around you to do the same.

I think it's almost like this weird pay-it-forward thing, but with information and knowledge, and experience.

My friend, Sarah, and I went to the Siser grand opening in Melbourne a couple of weeks ago.

Debbie: Siser, don’t “Siser” but anyway —

Lyndsay: Yeah, oh man, I have a story about that, about filming a video that went for an hour. We're pronouncing it in the interview.

No, Siser and as I said, do you remember it, you can either say Hail Siser or Siser salad. For some reason that an Italian kind of links in my strange neuro-divergent brain. So that's an easy way of remembering that. Yeah. Siser. Siser. 

We were talking to some of the people that were there. And it was amazing because you have this group of people that were interested in the same thing together.

And we are such a — it can be really lonely and isolating being a small business owner by yourself, operating out of your house or whatever. You don't get to get out there and talk. We don't get summits and conferences and things like that where we don't get Friday night drinks and all this stuff.

Debbie:  There are so many of my customers, like what you were saying before about friends, because my customers are my friends, literally. And Janine, who's  — she's from Flyjoyhomewares.

And honestly, it's getting to the point where I'm telling her, “Babe, I'm putting a ban on you. You can't buy anything from my store. I'm not, I'm not letting you, but what are you making?”

Lyndsay: I love it.  You're like the bartender cutting her off. So sorry. You've had too much. 

Debbie: I totally am, but I'm like, she's always sending me stuff and I'm always like,
“Oh, why don't you take a picture outside?”

Or like, “Why don't you try this font?” or — I'm always talking that, ‘cause I found my group, my people, and when they get it, it's like, “Okay, I'm not weird.” I mean I am, I am weird, but like they understand it.

Lyndsay: That's so good and I think, say, what's marvellous about being able to do that is that you are that one step away from that person and what they're making and what they're doing, and you can kind of see things a little tiny bit more clearly.

So you can see the tweaks that could possibly be made to you, to make something that's awesome even better. So like, that's cool.

And once again, and this is what I don't understand what we were talking about before, and people are negative rather than positive and someone’s like that to them.

Surely it takes so much more energy to be negative and to be closed than it is to be positive and share what you can. I mean, I don't know how you assign any kind of tangible hit to being a dick, you know, in terms of like 

Debbie: Totally. What's the benefit of it? 

Lyndsay: How do you say, “I lost money by being kind to someone”? Like where is that on a spreadsheet or whatever. I mean, oh gosh, life is short, man. Just be nice. Just be. Must be a good human. I don't think it's that difficult.

Debbie: It seems so simple like —

Lyndsay: I know.

Debbie: “There is another human on the other side of your message just saying.”

Lyndsay: Oh a hundred percent 

Debbie: And I'm gonna be a human back, right? Even though you’re angry and taking out on me and screaming, shouting, whatever. I'm still gonna be a human back. But sometimes it doesn't work both ways. 

Lyndsay: Isn't it funny, Debbie too, that that stuff resonates with you as a small business more so than say the hundred people that love you and they loved your product and it was such an easy breezy process and blah, blah. It's that one person that — they get a little bit angry and you're — you sleep, and you can't sleep.

And you're thinking about them and you're thinking about why they're so angry and it's like, “Why?”, I'm wishing that it wasn't — 

It just hits you, doesn't it? 

Debbie: Yeah. But I think I'm a classic overthinker, like I'm an overthinker and I get anxious about this stuff and my mind goes to, “Okay, this customer had this bad experience. What do I need to change?”

And it — change this, this, this, you know? And in a way, it's great because it improves everything, improves the business. But I'm that overthinker, right? So it would even be true. So, it means that I bring to light something that a customer didn't even notice. Like another one I'm talking about.

Lyndsay: Yes, yes, yes. Yeah. 

Debbie: Yeah. But it's also good because I've forward-preempted that problem or whatever it is. It's good. But it's also really exhausting, you know? 

Lyndsay: Oh my gosh. It's so exhausting ‘cause you just take it all on, don't you?  You just take it all on. 

I remember when I was in customer service, you know, there's sort of a three-prong approach.

So first of all, you're hearing that the customer has this issue. You're identifying, you're saying, “I am, I'm listening to you when you are saying that you're having this problem, and I understand that this is affecting you in a way, you know, that you are so motivated that you need to email me about it. So it's obviously significant to you.” 

And then being like, “Thank you for giving me the opportunity to make this right. Here's what I'm going to do.” I guess, in a way you can take that feedback and use it to make your product better. So maybe there is merit to be an overthinker, do you know what I mean? Because it is an opportunity then to —

And I actually — I think we were talking about this as well, that after the Siser event, that there is just so much, I don't know. I think it's so admirable. If a company comes out and says, “You know we love our product. We hope you do. It's not perfect, but we're gonna get there.”

Do you know what I mean? “And we're gonna work with you to make it better.” And the customer feeling like, “Okay, so there might have been part of the process I wasn't a hundred percent satisfied with.” But if I say something, at least it's gonna resonate with that person and it's gonna register, and they're going to try and make the process different for the next person and better, you know, I don't know.

What I'm saying is you've gotta kind of look for that silver lining in that stuff and go, “This is an opportunity to be better and do better.”

And I admire companies that are honest and transparent about that and saying that “We might not have all the answers right now.  We may not have launched a hundred percent completely perfect product, but we're committed to making it as good as we possibly can, and you are part of that. You as a customer, you are part of that.”

Debbie: I think there's real merit in you, as a business owner, taking on that feedback and showing your journey on how you're making it better. Because there's nothing worse than you shopping at Kmart or McDonald's or whatever, whatever.

Lyndsay: Yeah. 

Debbie: You know, you put in your feedback and being like, “Uh, second time around in, my order's still wrong and my whatever.”

Lyndsay: Absolutely. 

Debbie: You know, so when a customer can see that your journey in taking that feedback and making the product better for the next person, there's so much in that, that the customer will really appreciate.

Lyndsay: This brings humility, which is another amazing thing with authenticity in the world. Just showing that you acknowledge that you're not gonna have it completely right.

Debbie: Totally. Totally.

Lyndsay: You're doing your best. 

Debbie: Exactly.

I feel like there's another, there's a part two in this, so —

Lyndsay: Oh oh, anytime, anytime we'll just need a cocktail.

Debbie: I know, totally.

Lyndsay: It's such a pleasure. Thank you, Debbie. Thank you for this. It's awesome. 

Debbie: Oh, honestly, you are such a wealth of knowledge and I feel like a lot of people will learn from this, and probably everything that we've talked about, so many people are gonna be like yeah —

And like yeah. Want to hit their cars on the way to drop off kids. And you know, I really want that for this, right?

Lyndsay: I certainly hope so. 

Debbie: Trying to find their tribe, and know that they're not the only one that's going through this.

Lyndsay: Absolutely not. No, and also never, never assume that no one else is struggling with things that you are struggling with.

Sometimes, people don't talk about it. I think that's why it's really important to be forthright about the struggles. I mean, I could tell you all about all the glorious and wonderful things that happened. 

But I think it's more important to say, “Hey, look, some days it's not perfect. Some days it's really effing hard. Some days you will cry. Some days you'll be sucker punched. But we're all in it together. You know, we're all ready, ready to give everyone a virtual hug and say, ‘That's okay. I've been through the same thing, you know, blah, blah, blah.’”

So, and I think that's — this podcast is so great in that regard because it's like, “Ah!” — I was listening to one the other day and I'm like, “Yeah, actually that's the same thing as me.”

Debbie: Oh my God, you're listening to my podcast. Oh my gosh. 

Lyndsay: Yeah, I’m subscribed.

Debbie: You’re one of the — I think I worked one day and it was like 10 subscribers. I'm like — Because I hadn't even told anybody yet. I hadn't told anyone. I’m literally mentioning it on TikTok. It was that validation moment you made.

“Oh my God. Okay. I am doing the right thing, even though I'm taking absolutely, completely new, figuring out as I go. Adding on another thing to my task. I know I'm on the right way.” It's almost like I justify that to myself. Anyway — 

Lyndsay: And you're also giving people a gift to be able to talk like what we've been talking for however long.

Debbie: Oh, not too long. 

Lyndsay: I never, I never get a chance. I never get a chance to talk about this stuff, so I'm like, “Yay. Exciting!”

Debbie:  I'm so sorry. 

Lyndsay: Thank you so much, Deb. Appreciate it.

Debbie: Thank you so much for your time, and for sharing everything. I really, really appreciate it. 

Lyndsay: My pleasure.