E5: Cricut Crafting and Business: Insights from Nat's Crafty Life

 

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Hey, crafters! Welcome back to the Crafting a Business podcast. Today, we have a very special guest, Nat from Nat’s Crafty Life. Nat is a passionate crafter and one of the administrators of the Cricut for Australians Facebook group, where she shares her knowledge, hacks, and tips with a vibrant crafting community.

In this episode, Nat sits down with us to share her journey as a crafter, including her experience running her own business before becoming a Cricut influencer. She also talks about her trip to the US to attend a crafting event and learn more about the world of Cricut.

Debbie, the host of this podcast, is thrilled to chat with Nat and learn from her expertise. So, grab your crafting supplies, sit back, and enjoy this episode of the Crafting a Business podcast with Nat from Nat’s Crafty Life. Don't forget to hit the subscribe button for more amazing content. Let's get crafting!

Debbie: Hey guys. Welcome to another episode of the Crafting a Business podcast. Today, I sit down with Nat from Nat’s Crafty Life.

Nat is one of the admins of the Cricut for Australians Facebook group. So this Facebook group has saved me so many times and it's such a hive of knowledge in there.

There's a whole lot of crafters in there, and there's all different variations of levels.

So what I'm talking about is there's people that have literally just got their Cricut and people who are experts and you know, Cricut for their businesses and for hobby and all of that, right?

But it's really, really helped me because every time I've ended up in a place where, “Oh my God, I don’t know what's wrong with this.”, “I don’t know what happened.”, I don't know how to fix this” when I made a mistake.

And a whole lot of hacks and stuff in there. I've just learnt from this group. So I really enjoyed this conversation with Nat and she's an OG crafter for me because when I first started crafting, she was one of the first pages that I followed.

So it was a real honour to speak to her. And she's — it's really interesting to hear her story because a lot of people don't know, but before she became this influencer for Cricut and all of this, she had her own business too.

So she talked me through that process of building that business enough to be pretty big, but then deciding to close it down, and she talks me through why and what she learnt, and also about her journey with Cricut.

She even went to the US, to one of the crafting events there just to learn about Cricut.

So I hope you love this conversation with Nat. If you like this type of content, please subscribe.

There's lots more coming. Enjoy!

Hey, Nat.

Nat: Hey, how are you?

Debbie: Good, thank you. I have been looking forward to this chat for a very long time, and it feels a bit weird because like we've been talking for ages, hey.

I think I was like this — even before I started the business, I was kind of like, “Oh I'm into this crafting thing and I literally — I think I just searched something on Instagram or Facebook, and as you do, you find the who's who, and here we are.

This is a bit of a moment for me. I should just take it in.

Nat: Bask in the ambience.

Debbie: Yes, totally. Take it in. No, totally take it in.

I would love for you to kind of tell us how you got to this place. Like what? 

Oh, where do I even start? Like, how did Nat become Nat and how did Nat start Nat's crafty life and, well, okay, let me start again.

So, for everyone that doesn't know, Nat is a Cricut community leader and she's one of the celebrities I'm gonna say, I'm talking about you like I’m a third person.

But anyway, she's one of the who's who of Cricut in Australia, and you look after the Cricut for Australians Facebook group, which has however many thousands of people in the group.

Nat: Over a hundred thousand, I don’t know.

Debbie: Oh my god.

Nat: It's probably like close to a 110,000 now.

Debbie: Yeah. Wow. And this group has saved me so many times when I stuff something up or I don’t know what setting to cut it on, or I don’t know what this material is, and I just search the group and I find the answer.

So how did that group come to be? Let's start there.

Nat: Okay. So how the — I didn't actually create the group, so it wasn't created by myself. I was actually brought on just after it was created.

So originally, back in the day, obviously I'm an old school Cricut crafter, not as old school as some women out there, but I'm definitely an old school Cricut crafter, and I had one of the original Cricut Expression 2 machines.

I joined one of the US pages, I don't know which page it was, but one of the US pages that, weirdly enough, I'm no longer a part of. I don't know if they're just not there anymore or I flicked them, I don't know.

But this lady came on into the page saying, “Hey, is there anyone from Australia? Would anyone be interested in joining a page if I created one?”

And of course, a heap of us, or I say heap, like 50 of us probably said yes, and she was like, “That's enough for a group.” And so she created the group, and obviously just called it Cricut for Australians and we've kept their name the whole way through.

Her name was Jules Williams, so she's the one who actually created the group. That was probably back in 2016, I would dare say, maybe 2015. I'm not quite a hundred percent sure exactly when the group started.

From there, we kind of just sort of did our thing. And you know, I was not super active in the group, but I was always there to answer people's questions. I was really good at iron on stuff.

It's quite funny because when I was in the group and Paul was in the group, I used to get really jealous of his card projects. I was like, I'm still jealous of this card projects. I was like, “How dare he be better at making card projects?”

‘Cause I used to make cards before I had Cricut, and so I was really jealous and I was, “Oh I don't like him.” and he knows this story.

Then he actually said he used to be jealous of my iron on projects. I was in awe of it. But one day in October 2017, the admin Julie, she had gone into labor to have her second son, and she was struggling with a few issues that were coming onto the page.

We probably only had --- I don't know, 500 to a thousand members if that at the time, and there were people complaining about stealing people's ideas and things like that. Which if you're going to share it in the group, you're sharing it in the group because, you know, it's an idea.

You don't — if it's an authentic thing. you're not gonna share it out in public if you don't want other people to use it as inspiration.

And so she was literally giving birth and had asked me to jump in and assist whilst she was busy. So she just made me an as an admin and it just kind of happened so organically because I was able to jump in and just resolve a problem that someone was having.

From there, it just sort of —- it just became like a friendship that Jules and I had. Back and forth, we decided to eventually catch up and meet up with each other.

The group sort of started from there. We didn't really have any strict rules or anything prior to that, other than the usual be-kind-to-each-other kind of rules.

But it was funny — I was out, drinking one night with my sister, and we got a request to join the group from Ashish Arora.

So that's the scene of Africa.

Debbie: Oh, so I know, I know.

Nat: I drunkenly added him to the group and did like a little post. It would've been at like three o'clock in the morning. I was like, “Welcome to the group!”, and tagged him in it. It was the most insane three o'clock in the morning post of anybody.

I was so drunk and I woke up the next morning, super hungover, and there was this big group chat between Ashish, Jules and myself that I clearly was added to the chat, but not taking part of it.

They were arranging a meeting for us all to essentially just catch up and talk about the group and how they can help the members of Australia.

Debbie: Wow.

Nat: So that's pretty much how we came to be. That was the start of the journey essentially.

Debbie: How many group members, were you at, at this stage when the CEO decided to join?

Nat: Maybe a thousand.

Debbie: Wow. So they — from a marketing point of view, ‘cause my mind always goes to that, right?

They obviously saw their potential and they obviously had pinpointed Australia as an untapped market, I guess.

And to have someone that high level, I know how it works in the corporate game, and that high level, if that person's on the tools as much as Ashish Aurora is, it looked like it just —

Often, I find that Aussies are forgotten a little bit. Like there's all these US pages, there’s all this like US, all the new fandangled crafting stuff and then we just can't get it.

So that tells me that Cricut really takes us as really, really important.

And from there, since that drunken kind-of-chat and, you know, to hundred thousand followers. Tell me about that journey.

Nat: So we arrange some Zoom meetings with a whole bunch of people in the US. Like I could probably name drop, but you guys wouldn't even know who they were. A lot of sales and marketing managers.

Because at that time, they didn't actually have a team on the ground here in Australia. So everything was happening overseas and this was just before the Easy Press was released - the original blue one.

So at this time, we've had some stock come to the country and was only stocked at Spotlight.

So I think we only had, at that time, the Explore Air 2 was in stock in stores. The Maker hadn't come out yet, and the Easy Press hadn't even come out yet, but I think it had just been released in the US but it hadn't come out to us.

So, they wanted some assistance with content – what's great for Aussies.

I know there's still a way to go to try and get the right content for Aussies because it's really hard, but they're doing with the Cricut. What is that – contributing artist? That really goes a long way.

Because then you've got a lot of Aussie artists in there now, putting their bits in. But we were helping in, back in the days with content. So we were trying to tell them things for Australia Day, things for Anzac Day, things for the right spelling. Can we get the right spellings on all our stuff?

So we were involved in a lot of meetings. Even some of the products that were being released to Australia, we were giving them ideas as to what would work for Australia and what wouldn't work for Australia.

So they had their Iron On, the already preprinted ones, kind of like the DTF ones. They had them, and they were asking our ideas on what would work in Australia, and so they knew what to pitch to their — the person in-charge of sales at Spotlight at that time.

So a lot of that was sort of based on what we were saying we wanted to see and in terms of products.

Then they didn't point a new marketing manager in Australia here at that time — she no longer works for Cricut. But she was really, really passionate about the product, but also about us as a group.

In 2018, she got approval from Cricut for us to go over to the Mountain Make-A-Thon in Utah, which was held at the end of July, beginning of August in 2018.

So we got to go over to the whole event — it's a three-day crafting event. Then we also, on the fourth day, got to go to Cricut’s head office, Jules and I — that was my first trip outside of the country.

Debbie: Wow! First trip outside of country and you get to go to Cricut head office. Oh my God.

Nat: Yeah. I never left Australia before that.

Debbie: Crafting heaven.

Nat: Exactly, and we got to meet Melody Lane and Ken from Ken's Creations and Carly Hall, who, at that time, works for Cricut. She wasn't an influencer at the time. We got to meet Leah Griffith and do a crepe paper flower class with her.

The whole reason is because our future at Cricut for Australians really stemmed from this Mountain Make-A-Thon. How we directed what we wanted to do with the country was really as a result of the classes that were taught at the Mountain Make-A-Thon. So we really wanted to give Australia something similar to that.

We obviously can't do it at the scale that they had it at ‘cause they had the crafty gentleman come over from the UK and they had a bespoke bride come over from the UK, as well.

They just had people coming from every country you can imagine. Some of these people were there to teach classes and other people were there just to experience the day like we were.

So when we came back from Utah, we really wanted to do something and — oh, whilst we were away, sorry, Paul joins the group whilst we were away. ‘Cause we needed someone to look after the Page while we were gone.

Debbie: Of course, someone's got to “Yep. I totally get that.”

Nat: Yeah, so he got stuck behind dealing with everything while we were like, “Oh Paul is having his high life.”

Debbie: I'm going to raise that when I have Paul on this podcast, which is planned, I'm going to raise that and see how he felt about that.

Nat: Yeah, that's pretty much where we kicked off. We had some meetings with Ashish Arora back then, as well. I think, at that time of being over there, we were probably maybe at three and a half thousand members.

And he kept telling us, “Ah, you're gonna be 20,000, you're gonna be 50,000 in no time.” And we were like, “you're dreaming, we're never gonna get there.”

But you know, we honestly never thought it would grow as big as it did. Like it was insane, and when it did grow, it grew really quickly.

But the three of us sat down later on in the year, and we decided, we liked the idea of potentially having a — we’re going to do a Christmas party.

It was literally just going to be — we were just going to have all catch up in Queensland, in Brisbane, because Jules was from Brisbane, I was from just south of Brisbane, in Northern New South Wales, and Paul's family was in Brisbane. So he was like, “I can go visit Mum, it's fine.”

Then, it turned into like “could we just invite people, just come in, as a meet-and-greet, kind of like, ‘let's catch up’, anyone in Brisbane who wants to come, just catch-up sort of thing. You buy your own food kind of thing

And that turned into us teaching a class each and formalising it to what became the first original CFA Craftathon.

Debbie: Amazing.

Nat: Which was a Christmas theme. We held it in person at the Indooroopilly Golf Club, and it was just an all-round amazing event. We had Spotlight there with our pop-up shop.

I don't even know how we made it work, but we made it work.

Debbie: I love how organic all of this is. Like I really resonate with this. Half the time I'm sitting here and I'm like, “how the hell did that just happen?” You know, when you post about my product, I'm like, “what? How did that happen?” I really resonate with that because the organicness of it just goes to show how authentic I guess it is, and everybody just loves to craft.

Nat: Yeah. It was never like a business goal or anything like that. I mean, it definitely wasn't for me. I don't have that mind in terms of being able to make a business plan and that doesn't work for me.

Everything just sort of has to feel natural and if it happens, it happens. But you know, you make decisions based on where you go, and it just all felt natural and then people really wanted it.

I'm talking, like on the day, it felt surreal. Like I know you said, “oh, I'm speaking with a celebrity.”, I'm not a celebrity. But it felt so surreal ‘cause people would come up and take your photo and and things like that.

And you'd be like, you know. It's funny because when we're in the US,  I was like standing in line to check in at the hotel and I have this photo that I'm taking a sneaky photo ‘cause Melody Lane's behind me. And I'm like, “Ehh!” you know.

Debbie: I love that.

Nat: We shared that in the Cricut for Australians group at that time, and I'm talking this back in 2018. Everyone's like, “that's funny because that's how we feel about you.” and we were like, “no”, but it was just such a natural, and I'm not saying that's how everybody feels, so that's just how some select people felt about us.

We always wanted to keep it sort of natural and organic in terms of what we did. So we saw that there was a need for people to learn a little bit more, and a lot of people were going to YouTube to get a lot of their answers. But the problem is that when you go to YouTube, they tell you a lot of American supplies that you can't get in Australia.

So we started doing a Thursday night live, which for the last two years probably hasn't been there. But we did do Thursday night lives, where we'd go live on a different subject each Thursday night.

I mean, I still can't catch up with Paul and his technology. But we started off, I'm talking, if you look at any of our old videos, and they're all still in the group.

We had iPhones and everything was like reverse mirrored because as soon as you spun the camera, it would reverse all the wordings. You'd be like, “here's my onesie. Trust me, it's not backwards.” You know?

Debbie: I think that’s great though, to show your growth. I mean, right now I'm sitting in my warehouse with a pair of AirPods and my husband's computer because we just make do.

And I remember those early videos because that's how I found you. I was figuring out how to make baubles one time. I think I searched that video —

Nat: So many videos of that. I think I’ve done five tutorials.

Debbie: Oh, and I can't even remember which one it was. But I remember you blew my mind when you put the baubles on the tape transfer. I think it was just to hold it right?

Nat: Yes.

Debbie: And to this day, people message me ‘cause I do that in my videos and I don't even think about it.

They're like, “oh my God, you blew my mind with that.” I'm like, “that's not me. That's Nat, you should go follow her.”

But it just goes to show, right?  Like what is news to you is news to other people too. So what, what you find as normal and what you say is lofi, I mean, words backwards, low camera, all that, is gold to some people, right?

Nat: Yeah.

Debbie: It all kind of depends on where you are in that journey, where you are to be able to take that in.

But I love that the whole group and the whole premise of it is learning and sharing something new and sharing something — every sub, every week in your Thursday night live, I know it hasn't happened with COVID and stuff like that, but every week is something new – new subject, and that's, I feel like, that's the best thing about crafting.

Anyway, that’s kind of my opinion. There's no question in there, that’s just a comment.

Nat: I totally agree, I totally agree. The only reason why really those lives kind of stopped was ‘cause you get to a point where — hang on, my food's coming.

You get to a point where — “he's like, I didn't know you were on the thing.”

Debbie: Hi husband. I should have said hi.

Nat: You get to a point where there's only so much you can repeat the same thing. Do you know what I mean?

Debbie: Yeah, I get that.

Nat: We then have had a lot of new products come out recently, but a lot of them are similar products to what is out on the market that we've already done demonstrations for in the past and things like that.

So I guess, because there's not as much fresh stuff to do, and I know that YouTube is out there, they do have a lot of fresh information and stuff that they can provide.

But a lot of them, you'll find, go over the same thing, just on a different medium or whatnot. So we wanted to try and avoid mixed information in terms of doubling up too much.

So if I'm going to do a new tutorial on something — so like I said, I've done five on the baubles. But I actually do them with a different supplier each time so that people can see — I've done one which had four different glues to use, and then I did another one, which was —

Debbie: That was the one I saw.

Nat: Yeah, that's the one that had the little cheek or a pole was up in the corner, and there was like a little cheeky comments on my applying of the vinyl on it. So if you go back, you'll see a little cheeky comment in there about the letter D.

Debbie: Oh, oh, I remember that! That was so funny ‘cause it was, at that time I think I was pregnant, and I was figuring out this Cricket machine and my husband had like — cause I was, you know, spewing all the time —

My husband put it up on the big TV and then the comment about the D came in. Anyway, that was hilarious.

Nat: And that's the thing, the lives are so great because they're natural, that's how we speak. We're not gonna be swearing at him, but if there's something cheeky that comes on, it is what it is.

We even had that in the crafty bootcamp that just happened on Sunday, just gone. We even had a little mishap that happened in that one of the lives on that day where I said something to Scott who was moderating and he came back at me with a not appropriate comment in the comments, and I was like, “no comment. Not saying anything.”

But it just happens because interpretation is such a huge thing when it comes to social media.

Debbie: And I wanna touch on that because you kind of mentioned before in the early stages of the group how there was an issue when – that's how you came on board and the issue was around, someone copying someone else, and as you say on social media, everything can be misinterpreted, misconstrued.

Like you can be one thing, but it's said another way. There's a lot of that. 

I think it's still an issue because I mean, let's be real. If I make a bottle and I use this font that I found off Dafont and I use this kind of vinyl, anyone can emulate that. Anyone can do the exact same thing, right?

Nat: Yeah.

Debbie: So how do you kind of, I mean, I don't know what I'm trying to ask. But the way I see it is that everyone wants to be creative, right? Everyone wants to add their own spin.

Also, everyone kind of knows that there's another Cricuter down the road that can do the exact same thing, right? I see this coming all the time in the group.

Like every man and their dog has their Cricut, so it's really competitive, so therefore you can't get it like it's oversaturated and all of that.

I guess that's my kind of way of asking, how do you differentiate? Yourself – you've obviously made a completely different pathway with the group and with your work with Cricut, still using the same kind of machine. See what I'm saying?

So it's not the normal path of “I'm gonna make a personalized gift and I'm gonna sell that.” How did you kind of realise that this was an opportunity? Or are you just kind of organically going with the flow?

Nat: I'm going with the flow organically. But not a lot of people realise is if they haven't been around for as long. But I did have a business.

I did do the Cricut business, selling personalised items and things like that. So I was known as NJB Creative Design, back in the day that was my Page and I was quite successful to the point that I could have given up my job. 

So it was very successful. I was pretty much the go-to in my area. In my town where I lived, a lot of people, if they were asking on Facebook pages, who makes personalised t-shirts, instead of going to your local embroidery shop, everyone would tag me.

Obviously I felt like the key to making things different is don't rely on Dafont in places like that, that offer free. Don't rely on anything that's a free image or a free font.

Because realistically, it's going to be used by somebody else. You should always be getting a — if you're going to sell, you should always be getting a commercial license for your fonts that you use anyway.

So I think that it's really important that you utilise those paid fonts. Find the ones that go nicely together and – ‘cause nine times out of 10, everyday crafter down the road who's just trying to make a quick buck is probably not going to pay for a paid font.

They'll get a free version, which is what you tend to see in the group. So that's something that always sort of set my stuff aside. I wasn't just using free fonts. I do have a wealth of knowledge of what those free fonts are out there which is always handy.

But I think that making sure that you use something unique in terms of your fonts, because like I said, someone who's just not in it to make a full business plan out of it is not going to put the effort in to buy their licenses. Pardon of me.

I think that’s something that people need to realise – those free fonts on Dafont aren't any licenses for you to sell, and that's the biggest misconception.

Debbie: Totally, and I think that a lot of people, they do rely on that. They, they put all their effort into making this amazing product. They put a lot of time, a lot of effort into thinking, into making that product.

And then they're like, “oh, but someone's copied me.” Well, no, unfortunately they haven't copied you. They've come to the same process as you. As in, they've gone to Dafont, they've gone to find the vinyl they've gone to — but unfortunately, of course, being in Australia as well, our supply is limited.

So there are certain types of vinyl network, there are certain types of font that work, this looks nice with this, et cetera.

So how, how did you – to be able to be at that point with your business where you could have left your job. Besides using things that are not readily available, do you have any other tips for crafters that can set themselves apart?

Nat: Persistence. So be okay with feedback that comes back to you. So if someone says that the vinyl is lifting, offer to repair it or replace it, don't assume that the customer has done something to it. 

I mean, to be honest, I was working full-time at the same time as running this business at the start. So long hours.

Packaging goes a long way, and you would know that from your business. You stand out from your packaging.

I guess don't sell yourself short. You don't have to undercut other people around you. You set your price because that's your worth. You will not succeed if you are running at a loss.

So that's the biggest thing is, is if you are running at a loss, don't sell yourself short, but don't be scared of taking on those big projects.

I remember early on in my business, I took on an order of 500 shirts for a preschool and amazing. The file was not given to me. I had to convert the file myself. It was half in glitter and half — and the image was literally like a stick figure drawing that some kid has done back 20 years ago, and that stayed as their logo.

So it was fine, jagged —

Debbie: Not clean cut vinyl.

Nat: Yeah. It was not, it was not easy. It had 10 different colours in it as well, but you know what, I stuck at it, kind of got a name for it because everyone was like, “where did you get your shirts done?” and then that process happens.

So if you're not scared of taking those risks and committing to big jobs, then your name's gonna get put out there in town as someone to go to. 

Debbie: Yeah, I love that, and it's really interesting because a lot of – and this is part of the course, right? When I sat down to plan this course, I had a lot of feedback from my own group, my blanks group, and people were like, "Debbie, how'd you start? How did you start this business?

How did you get bigger orders? All of that, right? And I was like, “okay, hold on. Let's go back to simple first”, right?

You have to know your worth, first of all, and you have to make a margin, right? So if it means that you sit there and I have a whole costing sheet, and I spent like a good half an hour explaining this because it’s like —

Say you buy a bottle from Kmart for six bucks and then you get another – I'm not saying use Kmart, but say you are starting out, and your vinyl costs another dollar, and then, you know, it takes you half an hour to cut, design, cut, weed, and then adhere it. So that's what, 40 minutes per bottle, right?

Then someone decides, “yeah, yeah. Okay. I want to get 10 bottles”, 40 minutes times, however many, 20 bottles is what? I don't even know that math, but you have to look at the time.

I don’t know that math, but you know, you have to look at the time, right? So if you are only charging five, $6, $7 for the bottle, right? And it costs you $6 plus one — you're not making anything and then you're working for free. 

So I always tell my community to make sure that you are looking at it like an hourly rate, right? If you know it takes you an hour, what can you do to bring that time down? Or what can you do to tell your customer, “okay, if you order 20, it's going to take me this.” Explain it.

I guess that's part of why my entire social media strategy (and I don't even know if you're going to call it a strategy), my entire social media is about showing my journey, right?

If it means that I just put a camera up and I show people packing and I show that I'm running around and — I'm not doing that just to do that.

I'm showing people my journey because then they're okay with my prices being my prices. I'm not the cheapest out there. I'm not the most expensive. I'm kind of in the middle, right?

But you know how much effort I'm going through to get that product to your door, right?

So I guess it's really interesting because from your standpoint, who has done the business thing, has got it to the point of being really, really successful. Your tip to other crafters is around knowing your worth and sticking to that, right?

But how do you compete against that? How do you compete against the Joe down the road who just got their Cricut —

Nat: But you don't, that's the thing. You don't compete against the others. That's where people too often get stuck into, and I did do this for this little portion of time in my business though.

There was this time where I'd just gotten Afterpay added to my website and I went onto the Afterpay Australia pages and things like that.

Every time someone said, “looking for someone who can do a shirt”, I would be one in there going, “I can do it for this price”, and trying to beat somebody else's price. ‘Cause you know, I was trying to build it.

But in the end, I realised that that was just putting some added stress onto the process, and I didn't need to do that.

Realistically, you start with your family and friends. That's where you should always totally. Don't start by having a business. Just start with your family and friends, your family and friends.

I mean, it might be different. I never lived in Brisbane at the time that I did this, but I had all my family and friends back home in Lismore. They all spoke, they all talked to each other. So anytime anybody wanted anyone, anything, my sister was the first one there, “my sister can do it!”

She was my guinea pig anyway, so she was getting all the baby onesies for my niece at the time and all of the t-shirts and matching outfits and things like that that I was doing.

So, you know, at the end of the day, you are practicing with your product first and foremost on somebody who is using it – that person doesn’t pay for it, like my sister definitely didn't pay for anything.

But she's washed it. She's worn it, she's worn it to death. She's let you know when — she's tried and tested it and she's vouching for you to everybody else in her community.

So it's not just you and who you are friends with. You know, I don't have a huge friend group face-on, especially back then, I didn't have a lot of people around me. I had my family.

But it grew because of your family knows someone. I put my brother's stepson's name on the back of the jersey one day, and then his mate was like, “where can I get a t-shirt done?” He's like, my sister can do it.

You know, like my brother would be the last person to be out there advertising for me, ‘cause he is just not that kind of guy. But he was like, “ah, yeah, I get my sister to do it.”

It's the word of mouth thing that really does get it, and stop comparing yourself to other people down the road because their goals, they’re not the same as yours.

You have a different goal, you've got a different family, you've got a different household, you've got different bills. You probably buy different supplies, depending on where you live and you want something different out of it.

No one goes into it wanting to just make a million ‘cause you're not going to, if that's the case.

I did it because I wanted to sell so I could keep crafting. I didn't want to sell so I could make money. I wanted to sell so I could keep crafting. I think that's probably a huge difference if you are going into it to sell, because you need to supplement an income because of rising interest rates and things like that, you may have to take a reality check to think, “well, hang on a minute, it's gonna take time.”

Debbie: Totally, and I think I started that way too. The first goal was, “okay, let's just pay off the machine.” Machine cost me $600, $700 plus all the parts and all that stuff.

Then the first Christmas where it's the same — family, friends, I started sharing what I was making and all of a sudden they were like, “Hey Debbie, I like that. Can you make me one?”, right.

At the time I didn't know it was marketing. The word of mouth and the community building, if you can build people around you, like your brother, they're not salespeople.

They're just answering their question. They're just answering a question when they see whatever product it is and if they like it, if somebody likes it, they will ask where it's from.

That's how communities are grown and that's how businesses are grown from that. It's really interesting because it seems so simple, right? Like everybody, if again, as you say, when you come into it and you — whatever added pressures you want to grow business, whatever it is, is that really the right frame of mind?

If we go back to the making and the creating, then maybe the sales will come, right?

Nat: Yeah, I truly believe it. I mean, I used to do market stalls and I'd have some market stalls where I'd sell nothing, right? I'd be standing there all day. People would be interested, but they just wouldn't buy.

But then, you know, I would have other market stalls where I would just sell out of everything because it was the right time.

But the thing is, I only held those market stalls so I could keep putting more stuff out. There's only so much I could hold in my house myself. Do you know what I mean?

I guess that comes to the journey where I am now, where I don't have the business. I create for content.

So I create for fun. So either I’m making something because I want to make something for content, or I'm making something because I want to make something for my family.

That's where it really comes down to now. I don’t – I mean, I do the occasional sale, I'm not gonna lie, people do contact me. I do have a lady that comes to me to get her cake toppers done because, even though she's got a Cricut, she just doesn't have the time and it's always last-minute.

Debbie: And she trusts you.

Nat:  So she does trust me and I do have some of my old customers from back home who do still come to me.

My mum still — my first big seller actually was birth cushions, those cushions with the birth details on them. That was my huge, my biggest seller back in the day. I made one for my niece and then everybody wanted one for their child.

I still have women who are now having like their third and fourth and fifth babies that are like, “can you make me one still?” and my mum still –

I know my mum messaged me the other day. I didn't even know what she wanted. She said, “cream cushion, mint-coloured vinyl, and this is all the details”, and I was like, “I'm guessing you want a birth detail cushion.”

So, you know, even still, that's my mum's go-to and she's somehow randomly selling them to people that she knows, because they have done them for their grandchildren for years now.

Debbie: So that goes to time, right? Like how long you are, however many years in this journey, and now you've started to get the recurring sales from people that have trusted you, right?

So that goes to time. So when people come into this and they buy their Cricut machine and they're like, “I'm going to build a business.” Can't expect it in a day. Rome wasn't built in a day. Whatever that saying is, right? 

It's just really interesting to reflect back on your journey and to see how you started.

But I want to know, what made you decide to stop?

Nat: Stop selling?

Debbie: Mm-hmm.

Nat: There's a few things. The first one was that I was exhausted, a hundred percent, I was exhausted. Personal reasons came into play, financially, where I didn't feel comfort just leaving my job. I had to make a decision.

But I pretty much stopped the business when I became what was the product expert program with Cricut. So they never asked me to stop it. I was definitely still allowed to continue a business and everything, but I guess it was just too much.

I was running the Page. I was running a business. I was working full-time. I was doing lives. We had the Craftathon that was a yearly occurrence in play. I just did not have time and my niece was — I think at the time, maybe my sister was living with me at the time, so I had my niece always around.

I couldn't keep doing it. I had to burn out at one point. I had to make a decision on what was the most economical for my future and keeping a nine-to-five job was probably the best choice at the time.

But it gave me creative freedom back again. So when you're crafting for orders, you don't always get to play.

You just make what they want.

Debbie: Yeah, and that's part of why I moved, ‘cause I’m like you, started as a personalised gift, Maker and it got to the point where I was –- I think one Christmas I got like three or four sports teams orders, and they all wanted coffee cups with their names on them.

It was great because I realised, “okay, maybe there's potential here. I have a business or something.” But burnout is real, pregnant at the time. I lost the joy. That's why I moved into blanks, because I'm like, “okay, what's next? What's next? What's trending?”

It's really important for me to still be a crafter first. I'm a crafter first because I want to know, if I like it and I have fun making it and making it my own and all that, then I know others will.

But if I'm getting stuff to come in and it's nothing different, then I've lost my kind of bearing.

So again, it goes back to making, creating, and seeing where that goes and going back to that rawness of — let's just put aside all the drama and the politics and all of that, and let's just make.

Nat: That’s really what it was. You know what, it's funny because I had such a passion for paper crafting. I really enjoyed it.

Obviously when I started selling, I was doing a lot more iron on and vinyl. But when I stopped selling, stopped the business, then I sold off a lot of my blanks, I just stashed so much.

I got to be able to go back to create those paper projects from time to time that you wouldn't — no, I wouldn't naturally get an order for spoiled card.

They're things that you just want to enjoy doing here and there, and trying something different. I hate trends. I know it's going to sound really — it's so not the way of crafting ‘cause everyone jumps onto a trend, but I hate it.

My pet peeve is I don't wanna make what everybody else is making ‘cause they're making it.

I'm definitely not a trend starter. I don't think that I'm a trend starter. I definitely —

Debbie: No, I think you are. I mean, you got me on baubles, so —

Nat: But I think baubles have been around for a while. I'm definitely not the person who's coming out there and showing them what can be done as a new technique.

I'm definitely not creating those new techniques and trends. But I will come back a year after something being done, and make it, and I'll make it again and make it my own and that will start it and influence it again.

But I'm not going to say I'm a trendsetter. Spiral Betties came out, I refused to do them when everybody was doing them.

I love to look at them, and they would be great on certain projects, but there was no way I was making a Spiral Betty, because everybody else was.

I have projects in mind in the future where I will use a Spiral Betty, but it’s not happening whilst it's still very prevalent in the page. I thought it had died down and then I saw a few more and I was like, “nope.”

But the same thing was reverse canvases. So reverse canvases were huge and then they died down, and then I did one in a tutorial and then a few people did them, and then it died down a bit.

Then I just did one recently in our crafty boot. So, you know, I definitely don't like to go with the grain.

Debbie: I think that's testament to how you were able to grow your business and have something that is — a lot of people called you their go-to, right?

Because you obviously had a point of difference and it goes back to my question around competing against everybody.

Yes, everybody's getting a Cricut, and yes, more people the better. We wanna have more crafters and more people making stuff because it helps us all in the long run. I wanna know what everybody else is making so that I can add my spin on it, and it's going back to that, I think.

I've loved hearing your story and I feel that we could learn a lot from you because you've done the business thing, and you're kind of on the other side of it now, and you're still crafting, and you're just going back to making stuff. I love that.

Nat: Having fun.

Debbie: And one last question, like where do you see this going? Where do you see Cricuting going? Where do you see Cricuting in Australia going? Where does the group go? Where do you see it going?

Nat: Well, I think Paul and I probably are both on the same plan I definitely want to keep doing what I'm doing now.

I don't have a lot of commitments, but I've just moved back to Brisbane. I get to see my friend, my best friend more. I get to see my sisters here and she's about to have a baby.

I definitely want to keep my personal life very prevalent, which is what I've done in the last few months since I've been up here.

Cricuting is not going anywhere for me. I'm still going to be content creating. I'm not changing, we're not changing anything the way we're doing with the group.

We do have plans to boot camp more often. I feel like that is a really great way, especially for the new people in the groups, that they can join to get sort of like an intensive class on different projects.

Like I said, everyone knows how to apply vinyl to a glass, but it's about putting a spin on each project that we do. So over the years, we've definitely done vinyl projects till they're coming at your ears. But there's always going to be someone new to the group. Someone that needs to learn.

So the boot camps are really good because there's a lot of prep work behind it and Paul and I have a lot of fun creating projects and getting designs in place.

I get a little bit more of that business mind, which I said I'm not quite into. And I do rely on Paul a lot for the business side of things. But you know, it also means that I get to have a play.

Sometimes we just pick random supplies and then say, “what can we make with this?” and that's sometimes how we get our ideas for the boot camps or the Craftathon.

We're currently in talks. We do have some future boot camp ideas for this year still. So we've just had one and we do plan to have another boot camp.

We are in talks with Cricut at the moment with our Craftathon as well. We'd love to see it go back to a point where we can be in person.

I've seen to her how successful online has been that I can't see in person being as successful. It's in-person is a lot of work, a lot more work.

We do all the cutting ourselves, so it doesn't, when you do an in-person craft upon. The person attending doesn't get to troubleshoot if their machine isn't working.

They might make something at the event and then go home to try to make it, and then it might not work for them ‘cause their settings are wrong or something.

So I definitely think that the online is going to ramp up for us. But the Page, it's only going to get bigger. We're just going to have to start. We just added a new mod.

Mods come and go and we're probably going to need more help in the future because it is a big job managing it and we use what we can with Facebook's assist, admin assist, and Scott is incredible and catches things that even I miss.

So we definitely can only see it growing, but we just wanna be able to provide more education, I guess, to the members – More prizes, more freebies, more everything.

That's essentially where we wanted to go is we wanted to — Paul and I have been absent for a little bit with personal things like our move and different things.

But we wanted to get back to being that real community feel. I know that community feel’s just there, but it's hard when there's like a mix between the old and the new.

So there's a lot of new members that have come in that probably don't know what it was like way back when, and I think we want to get it to start feeling like that community feel.

I've got plans with project sharing within the group. So that's project sharing within Design Space. I'd really love to see the group share more, people – when they share their project, share the design as well.

So instead of just sending a photo and saying, “this is what I made”, maybe share the file so somebody else can create it because that's what I — every project that I share in any of my Pages, the file is readily available if anybody wants it.

I really would like to have that community feel where it's helping one another. I understand businesses, people aren't going to want to share their ideas, but the people, like the everyday crafter that just wants to have fun, I think that you can't go wrong with that.

Debbie: I love that, I'm all about the community and all about helping each other. I would love to see more of that happening in a way that benefits everybody. If it means that somebody's learned about a new font, or someone's learned about a new technique, or how to share something. The more crafters, the better.

There are other problems in the world and everything's going to shit, if I'm honest, you know? Let's just get back to the making.

Nat: That's what we try to do in the group. It's really hard because in the world we live in this day and age, there are so many different people with so many different opinions and so many different beliefs.

And what we try to do in the group is keep politics out of it, keep religion out of it. Keep your personal beliefs out of, and just get back to crafting. Like that's what we're all there. That we, that's one thing we all have in common is crafting, right?

We need to all start seeing that side of the community instead of everyone's opinions on whether someone welded their font or — do you know what I mean?

There's so much bigger problems in the world that if we can just be a happy crafting community, sharing ideas, great. And if people don't want to share their ideas, then you don't have to either. You can still coexist in the group without sharing your content.

We're not just there for the people who share. We're there for the people who want to be Looki Loose, and I say that in the nicest way, but some people just want to be a looker and not a show up.

Debbie: Yep, and a lot of people just want to absorb everything, which is completely fine. Take everything in and use what they want to, and that's completely fine, too.

Nat: Take what they need and that's fine. That's what the group's there for. You don't have to be actively commenting in the group to be an active member.

We're never going to go through and go, “we're going to get rid of anyone who hasn't commented in the last”, we're not going to be one of those.

Never will we be, I will fight Paul if he tries, he won't, but like we'll get some 50 cups up if anybody wants to threaten that. That'll never happen in the group while I'm an admin.

Debbie: I love that. Thank you so much for your time and for sharing all of your knowledge. I think everybody learned so much from you.

You know what, I think we're going to do a part two later because I have so many more questions to ask.

Nat: I'm an open book. I'm always happy.

Debbie: Thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it.

Nat: Bye.