I was pleased to be interviewed by Voyage Magazine about my paper flower business story.
This is an online magazine featuring creatives, artists, professionals, and local entrepreneurs, and their inspiring stories.
They interviewed me for their The Trailblazers series about my journey as an artist and the FancyBloom’s story.
As part of the interview, I also shared my advices for young women who are just starting their creative business.
It all started with a photo of the paper flower wall on the Internet that I stumbled upon in 2016. Back then, large paper flowers were just gaining momentum in the United States. I instantly fell in love with them and started to make my first flowers.
I remember how I searched Google and YouTube trying to find masterclasses or online courses about large paper flowers, but there was very little information at that time.
Now I am glad that this was so, because I started to design my own flowers from the very beginning. And today I get the biggest buzz when I come up with a new flower, this process is just my favorite!
So after a few months, when I gained a little experience, I opened my Etsy store and started an Instagram account @fancybloom_.
Then later I began making giant standing paper peonies as well as other giant standing flowers. And this is how FancyBloom was started.
After a couple of years of successful work, I’ve reached an important milestone in my paper flower business where I had to make a decision about further growth, development and optimization, as there were more and more orders, that I could no longer fulfill on my own.
In general, if you make paper flowers, you have several options on how to build and grow your business:
First, I was selling my flowers mainly through Instagram and Etsy. But over time, I started to notice that most of my Instagram audience was not my potential clients, but they were the same paper flower artists like me, who keep asking me to teach them to make my flowers.
On the other side, my clients from Etsy more and more often were asking me to decorate large events and there was a high demand for rentals as well.
And I had to make a choice:
or
It was not an easy decision for me, I felt like I was leaving money on the table, refusing big projects. But eventually I realized that in order for me to be a happy person, I need to be in a free, calm, and creative mode.
I love to scrupulously design new flowers, templates, tutorials, and techniques, and this is what I enjoy the most.
In 2020 I made my first online course, Giant Peony from FancyBloom, also I launched this website fancybloom.net where you can find free and helpful resources as well as my flower templates shop.
I have a lot of plans – I want to share my knowledge, I want to make new tutorials and build the best paper flower community. And I’ll be so delighted if my story inspires someone to start their own craft or paper flower business.
It may not be easy at first, but if you sincerely love what you do, all your efforts will pay off in full and your beautiful business can be the most rewarding adventures in your life. Just try it!
No, of course, it wasn’t a smooth path. It’s always not easy to starting something from scratch.
I was struggling to find my first customers, I was afraid to voice the price and generally didn’t know how to properly price my work.
I didn’t know many things, and this is a very normal course of events!
All the knowledge and skills will come with experience.
My main advice to the young women who’re just starting their business – don’t be afraid to make mistakes and continue to act.
Step-by-step and eventually you will succeed. I believe in you, and you have to believe in yourself!
At FancyBloom, I make paper flowers from cardstock for hanging on the wall as a composition, as well as giant stand-alone flowers from crepe paper. I also teach how to make flowers.
I designed all my flowers myself, so my templates are always unique. I also try to make all my works look very modern and as realistic as possible so that they can fit into even the most glamorous interior or event.
To read the interview on Voyage Magazine website click here.
Please don’t hesitate to ask me any questions you have about the paper flower business in the comments👇, I will be happy to answer all of them!
I’m Oksana and I love paper flowers and all things paper. Here at FancyBloom I design new flower templates, make paper flower tutorials, and share my ideas and inspiration for fancy and modern craft.
