Meet Aaron and Nicole Wildasin, a husband and wife team of multi-talented artists and owners of The Wildasins shop on Etsy. Aaron & Nicole were kind enough to answer a few questions
for us AND they were also awesome enough to pass along a coupon code
just for you-my fabulous readers!Use code ADORNED15 for
15% off anything in their shop! You can also find The Wildasins- On their Website, their Photography Blog, their Food Blog and on Facebook
Please tell us a little bit about yourselves…
We are Aaron and Nicole Wildasin, a husband and wife team of photographers, designers, and artisans. We've known each other since 6th grade, went to college together, and now live with our two awesome cats in Denver, Colorado. We run our Etsy shop with the branding of Live Beautifully where we sell all natural handmade body products, fine art prints, and handmade antique brass jewelry.
You have multiple product lines-can you tell us what appeals to you about each of these mediums & if you have a favorite?
It's too hard to pick a favorite medium :) We both have a degree in graphic design and I suppose the artist in us enjoys photography the most. Being able to express yourself visually, blending and interacting with reality and how you can perceive it is one of the coolest things and our fine art photography helps satisfy that.
That being said, we absolutely adore our live beautifully body product line and want to see it grow exponentially! We didn't set out to be perfumers and body product artisans, it happened really organically and out of the blue and it hooked us right away. It was so much fun designing the overall look and feel of the brand, styling each scent's photo shoot to convey the smell and personality of each line… Not to mention, making and experimenting with scents!
The handmade jewelry that we feature on our site is the creative achievement of my (Nicole's) mother, Shoshana Drummer. She has such wonderful style and unique designs for her jewelry, when she asked us to help her sell them, we knew they would just fit in beautifully with the overall vintage french boutique look and feel of our store. Photographing and modeling her jewelry was amazing. We love the soft, feminine feel of every piece.
When/how did you make the decision to open a shop on Etsy?
There are so many amazing and talented artists and crafters on Etsy. It started with being super inspired, then growing slightly jealous of those out there who were able to just jump for it and put their work out there. Being successful doing what you love for yourself is the most rewarding thing in the world and it's worth working towards.
What is your favorite part of running a business with your spouse? What do you find most challenging?
The best thing about working with each other on our business is we both know that we have the same set of goals, principals, and aesthetic. We can rely on each other whole-heartedly and put our trust in each other. That, and having your best friend on hand at any time for a laugh, a critique, or a break is awesome!
The worst or hardest thing that we have found is knowing when to turn off the work and just be ourselves, husband and wife, again. We spend most of our day being partners and co-workers, it's hard to snap out of at the end of the day. It's super important to make sure you set aside time for yourselves to just be you not working, not thinking about the million little things you have to do.
How do you promote your work?
We're learning what works and what doesn't work right now. Unfortunately, being a smaller start up business, we don't necessarily have the funds for advertisements. We rely on our Facebook page, word of mouth, wonderful blog friends who help us promote, and Etsy's marketing tools. Renewing items on Etsy is super helpful. We've noticed the most views at our store after continual renewals. Now that spring is almost here, we will definitely be trying our hand at craft shows and art fairs in the Denver area.
Do you have any advice or tips for artists wanting to start their own business?
Know what you want to sell and be true to yourself and your artistic abilities and style. There are a LOT of sellers on Etsy and it can be hard to differentiate yourself. Be unique without copying other's work and ideas and take really good pictures of your work! There is a lot of poor photography on Etsy and it can hurt your chances of a sale. Also - have a plan in mind for your business! Know where you want your business to go, can it be sold in brick and mortar stores as well? How can you expand or handle large amounts of sales? Knowing the answers to these questions, or at least thinking about them, before you even begin is a great step.
Where do you want to be in five years?
Hopefully, we will be doing more of what we love but on an even grander scale! When you passionately believe in something as strongly as we do about our business and our products, failure is simply not an option. We see us growing our body product line and being in brick and mortar stores nation-wide. We see needing to hire on extra help down the road to keep up with demand. Hopefully, these all come true and we can keep living our dream and working together doing what we love!
Is there anything else you want people to know about you?
We love to cook together and try to make something super awesome and unique about once a week. We chronicle our cooking adventures with lovely food photography and printable recipe cards on our food blog, 'food, beautifully' which is here: foodbeautifully.blogspot.com/ We are avid hikers and love the mountains of Denver! We just moved here late last year from Cleveland, Ohio and we are just so unbelievably more inspired here. The sunshine, the fresh air, it really helps to be somewhere that you love to feel more at peace with yourself. Our cats think it's pretty awesome here, too!
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