From doodles to a career: Molly Young runs a successful Etsy shop and has placed in national competitions

Mollie Young, a Cape Girardeau native and creator of the Etsy shop 1921, first found her inspiration after being hired for a part-time baby-sitting position.

She started working in 2010 for Carrie Tracy, former owner of Bloom Studio & Gifts, who encouraged her to hone her skills for calligraphy and other decorative creations.

"I started baby-sitting for the owner of Bloom, and she was a graphic designer and she did invitations, and she had just gorgeous handwriting by itself, and so seeing her handwriting really inspired me to delve into that whole world a little bit more, and that kind of introduced me to the world of calligraphy and hand lettering, so that kind of stuff through Instagram and Pinterest and things like that is what opened those doors," Young says.

Young says she has always been interested in art and designing, but says meeting Tracy was the push she needed to further her passion.

Mollie Young, owner of 1921 in Cape Girardeau. (Laura Simon)

"Always going through school, I've always been doodling in my margins and not really, you know, focusing on what I should have been," Young says with a laugh. "So I guess it kind of started through that, but [Tracy] was the one who helped me pursue that, and she's been so great."

Mollie Young, owner of 1921 in Cape Girardeau. (Laura Simon)

Young says even though 1921 isn't officially launched on a national scale yet, she will continue to run the Etsy shop and do custom orders. Her main focus at the moment, though, is on designing and preparing her line for exposure next summer.

"I'm officially launching it next summer, so I haven't exactly launched the full business," she says. "I've just been prepping and designing, because next summer I'm hoping to go to the Dallas wholesale market and sell little things ... as kind of a paper shop, if you want to call it a papery, and launch a wholesale line in Dallas. So that's what I'm working on right now."

Young says the Dallas wholesale market is like "a crazy enlarged craft fair" where retail shops or boutique vendors take their products and try to sell them to other retailers, ranging from small businesses like Bloom to large-scale retailers like Nordstrom.

"Instead of just putting my products in shops, I'll be designing a line that they can purchase. Hopefully it will blow up. Fingers crossed," she says with a smile.

Meanwhile, Young is a student at Southeast Missouri State University, where she is pursuing degrees in art and business online.

Mollie Young, owner of 1921 in Cape Girardeau. (Laura Simon)

"Just through college, I've done canvasses and things like that and sold them locally and in Bloom, but it's kind of just blown up, so that's pushed into more of the graphic design and invitation design and paper design," she says.

Young says the idea for 1921 stemmed from her love for creative mediums and calligraphy and encompasses many areas of design, but her four main areas of focus are graphic design, marketing design, weddings and calligraphy.

One of her favorite things to work on is styling designs for weddings, but she says the process can be unpredictable.

"The whole wedding thing is kind of complicated, because one day I'll be doing flowers for it, one day I'll be doing signage for it or invitations, you know, whatever. In the whole wedding realm, it's kind of mismatched, just whatever job people are like, 'OK, can you do this?'" she says.

The best part of the job, Young says, is getting to work on projects she feels passionate about.

Mollie Young, owner of 1921 in Cape Girardeau. (Laura Simon)

"I'm happy. I'm happy going to work every day. I look forward to it every single day and I'm excited about it. It's crazy sometimes, but it's like a new adventure every day because some days you might be helping with a wedding and doing shoots with my friend Shannon [Duggan], and we collaborate all the time, so it might be one day doing that, it might be one day coming in here and painting, so it's just fun. I love it," she says.

Young says social media is her main form of promotion, and reaches the majority of followers through her Instagram account @mavyoung.

"A lot of people heard about what I did from stuff in Bloom, so that kind of got my name out with several people, and then friends on Facebook, things like that. I do a lot of social media, but mainly Instagram is where I like to focus all of my advertising," she says.

Beyond designing and working in her studio, Young enjoys volunteering for her church.

Mollie Young, owner of 1921 in Cape Girardeau. (Laura Simon)

"I feel like I do a lot with my church and I lead worship there, and that's kind of how I get my music outlet still in there, because I love doing that, too ... Helping with youth group -- I always go on mission trips with them," she says.

By line:Mollie Young, owner of 1921 in Cape Girardeau. (Laura Simon)

In August, Young went to the Fine Arts Festival in Orlando, Florida. The competition is sponsored by the Assemblies of God, and she has attended since she was 13.

"You can preach a sermon, you can do an art piece, you can do photography, anything that involves arts like acting, short skits, things like that," she says. "It's just this huge competition nationwide, and there's districts, and then you compete, they weed people out. Nationals were in Florida this year, and then you go and compete, and it's so fun."

Young says this year her graphic design and T-shirt design both got second place and she was given the Award of Merit for her three-dimensional visual art submission.

When it comes to pursuing a career in art, Young says Tracy has been her biggest mentor.

"Probably somebody that I really would love to be like is the lady that got me into this, Carrie Tracy," she says. "She's just always been my role model through it, she's always been such a positive person and really, I guess, wanted me to pursue art and encouraged that. She kind of set the precedent, because not everyone thinks that you can make art a career, and she did that, so I really love that."