Meet Kristen from Marinade!

Well, I always loved arts and crafts in school. One of my earliest memories is melting crayons over a hot plate in Pre-school so I guess you could say I started young. 🙂 My mom is really crafty and we were always sewing, doing cross-stitch, scrap-booking, rubber-stamping, drawing, crocheting, you name it, we did it. She taught me how to knit when I was 8 but I didn’t really get into it seriously until I was in college, about 7 years ago. I haven’t stopped since! Now at 27, I am teaching knitting classes and designing my own knitting patterns–the first few of which will be published in the next couple of months. I still sew quite a bit though and am also dreaming up some new clothing designs to sell on my Etsy site in the future…

Probably pre-school, but of course all of that is highly supervised. I probably started creating stuff on my own when I was 7 or 8. I used to sew little clothes for my Barbie dolls and troll dolls. I loved making stuff up as I went along. My Barbies were by far the oddest dressed dolls in the neighborhood, but it was always a lot of fun to see what kinds of things I could create.

The first types of crafts I made were usually construction paper, glue, glitter, melted crayon confections… your typical pre-school-kindergarten stuff that my mom would proudly display on the refrigerator until she would tuck it away in a box somewhere for safe keeping. My parents recently moved from my childhood home and they still have boxes full of old art projects. I think it’s so cool that she never got rid of any of that stuff.

Marinade Handmade is my only business, but it’s really only a side business for me. I’d like to someday be able to design knitting patterns and knit full-time…someday… For now I am actually working at our local Reno knitting shop– Jimmy Beans Wool. We are not your typical neighborhood yarn shop. We do about 80% of our business through our website and we keep super busy. I am currently designing some patterns to sell in the shop under my name, Marinade Handmade, and I also teach knitting classes and private lessons. I am also considering going back to school to get my teaching license as I love working with kids.

I dream of making tons of other things! Working in a knitting shop, I am around amazing yarns every day and I am constantly being inspired by beautiful fibers. I love Neckies, but I don’t want to get stuck in a box, so I have been working on some other designs. I also just love to knit for myself and my friends and family. I get tired of making the same thing all the time. This is why I am transitioning into more pattern design as of late. I still get to knit tons of fabulous things but I get to be creative too! I’ll still be making Neckies and other things I design, but probably on a smaller scale.

I originally heard about Etsy from my friend Jena who writes at her blog, Modish. She had started blogging about indie-artists as a way to get the word out, and then Etsy started up and she suggested I sell my Neckies on there. I had mainly been making Neckies for friends and family but a few people had offered to pay me to make one for them. It just kind of took off from there. I decided not to bother with designing a website since Etsy makes it so easy to sell my stuff. So I just do that and I just started writing a blog this past summer which highlights many of my crafty adventures.

I would say, do what you love and if it ever becomes a chore, take a step back and see what you can do to make it fun again. Also, be true to yourself. Your craft should speak volumes about who you are, not what you think others will like. Lastly, jump at every opportunity to showcase your stuff. For example, if someone offers to interview you for their blog, do it! 🙂 Your business is what you put into it. The more your put into it, the more it will bloom.