Even as a child, I had a passion to create and loved writing poetry, short stories & drawing. As I grew into adulthood, I was always looking for something to do usingmy creative side so would spend a lot of time at the craft stores. As a stay at home Mom,creative time was limited but I would find some spare time here and there and tried everything from sewing to beading to ceramics and painting. My kids had their own creative sides and also enjoyed a variety of crafts. They would pick out their own crafty projects such as modeling clay, painting by numbers and beading kits. My sister was crafty too and after our kids started school, we did tole painting, made earrings and other things and sold our items at craft fairs. Of course, we spent a lot more money on supplies than we ever made back but still had fun doing it! I became interested in ceramics at some point and purchased a small kiln, dabbled in clay, and used cookie cutters to cut out heart shapes and pressed them with lace and various other textures to create hanging banners. The hearts were strung together with ribbons and decorated with a variety of dried flowers. I began selling them to a local gift shop and found that the time I had to spend drying and baking the clay was overwhelming. I decided to move on to another passion which was painting. I learned about faux finishes and loved painting the walls in our house, using a variety of techniques and decorating my kid’s rooms was so much fun!
I soon began painting florals on pottery and furniture and a neighbor who owned a local gift shop would send me pieces to paint on a commission basis. It was so exciting to get paid for something I loved to do! I did this for a couple of years and decided to open an online business to try selling my furniture items. I soon discovered that it was too time consuming but wasn’t going to give up on using my creativity somehow. That’s when I discovered website design. I thought “wow”, I can learn how to do that! So, I scoured the internet and found lots of tutorials about building websites and taught myself the basics. In 2006, Dazzle Designz was born and I got my first sale after only a couple of weeks of
opening! The business grew quite steadily from there and I have lots of clients that I still do work for from several years ago. A majority of my clients come to me by “word of mouth” referrals from other clients which is the best and most satisfying way to grow…just knowing that my clients are truly happy and send more business my way is the best kind of compliment I could ever receive!
My creative and entrepreneurial spirit has driven me to try many things before finding my dream business and has taught me to never give up! Cindie's site is http://www.dazzledesignz.com
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