How to Launch a Business

Serena Thompson ventured into the entrepreneurial world when she and a friend held a little antiques sale in a friend’s barn. The sale was a huge success and quickly grew into a big antiques show with vendors and shoppers from across the country. The Farm Chicks Show was soon discovered by Country Living magazine. Many Farm Chicks projects and stories have been featured in the magazine, and Serena continues her relationship with Country Living as a contributing editor. Read More

Laurie Lenfestey, designer and owner of Bittersweet Designs tells her story through collage. For eight years, she’s been tucking handmade cards into her children’s lunchboxes — a love letter of ribbons, photographs, and ephemera artfully pieced together. She started designing cards to sell in 2005 and expanded naturally into crafts journals, frames, and jewelry. Collage finds its way into each handmade piece. Her journals and frames are crafted with vintage wallpapers, flocked prints from India, silk ribbons, and rediscovered trims and findings. Her elegant jewelry line playfully combines sterling, vintage chains, sparkling semiprecious stones, Ethiopian crosses, and lengths of antique glass beads in pieces that are easy to wear to any event, from a child’s recital to an evening out. Read More

Amy Barickman built a business by anticipating popular trends. As founder and owner of Indygo Junction, she discovers and showcases the work of innovative fabric artists and designers (35+ to date). Her company has published 800 sewing pattern titles and over 80 books since 1990, and her craft kits and fabric lines are licensed with the nation’s top fabric, fashion, and novelty craft suppliers. Quick to spot the emerging vintage art movement and a savvy computer user herself, Amy launched The Vintage Workshop in 2002 to give crafters on-line access to vintage images that can be downloaded and printed on fabric. Amy is author of numerous books, including Hankie Style (2009). Her newest book, Amy Barickman’s Vintage Notions (coming in September 2010), is inspired by her personal collection of rare sewing and needle arts books, vintage home arts magazines and cookbooks, and sewing, textile, and handiwork projects found at antique stores and flea markets over the past 20 years.

Khristian has one mission in life – to spend each day doing what she loves. Right now that includes surface design and photography (and throw in a little salsa dancing here and there). Some would call her love of French culture an obsession – she prefers the word passion. She could (and will soon) live the rest of her life eating olives along the Mediterranean and riding the trains of Europe. Each day, each step in this adventure as a working artist gets better and better, and offers Khristian lessons about how she sees herself and the world. Some of the brands she is thrilled to call clients are Anthology Fabrics, Nordstrom, Robert Kaufman, and Landor Associates. Recently her work has been featured on two Eddie Bauer catalog covers. She is also featured in the recent book released by Laurence King Publishing, Print & Pattern by Bowie Style. On the heels of exhibiting at SURTEX this past spring, Khristian is excited to continue building her art licensing business. You can find samples of Khristian’s work on her site www.khristianahowell.com, and follow her on twitter – @surfacedivine.