Crafting a career: Meet three women who turned a hobby into a business

If you want to turn your hobby into a business, you'll need a true passion for your craft, along with plenty of research and planning. Here, three women share how they took their hobbies to the next level.

Noelie Schaefer ~ Smitten Polish

It's not unusual for Noelie Schaefer to order 5,000 nail polish bottles and $500 worth of glitter in one sitting. The Cape Girardeau woman has turned her longtime love of nail polish into a business where she makes and sells her own polish on Etsy.

"I've always been into nail polish. Because of that, I discovered that there is a relatively large online community of nail polish enthusiasts," says Schaefer. "Years ago a lot of us started doing 'frankening' -- we'd take two or three existing polishes, sometimes more, and mix them together. A couple of years ago some of the cosmetics supply companies started selling the lacquer base that polish is made of, and all these independent nail polish creators started to pop up."

Schaefer was one of them. She was already known for her nail polish blog, and she launched her business, Smitten Polish, about a year ago. She was shocked when her polishes started flying out of her Etsy store, she says.

"My husband said you should try this, even if it only gives you more money to buy more polish. I went into it with that sort of expectation -- that I would sell a few bottles a month and have a little extra cash," she says. The business quickly grew more than she and her husband, Bryan, ever expected. Schaefer, who worked as a travel agent for 20 years before switching to transcription work from home, eventually quit that job and began focusing on her nail polish full time. From her small spare bedroom, she ships worldwide and works with distributors in Colorado, Singapore, Sweden and Australia.

"It's still a mystery how it got so big. There are tons of tons of indie nail polish creators right now and they're not all successful," she says. "The only answer I have is that I work really hard on having a good formula, on having interesting colors and interesting combinations. I spent a ton of money on glitter and pigments to make sure I had the best ingredients. I think that shows in my products and people have really responded."

Schaefer has an artistic background and says her grasp on color theory has been "super, super helpful" to her business. She creates her polishes by collections -- so far, they've been inspired by Halloween, Christmas, Willy Wonka, "Wicked" and even food.

While most of Schaefer's orders come from Etsy, her Smitten Polish Facebook page is a big part of her customer service and marketing strategy.

"Part of what makes any of us successful is the ability to interact with customers, even when they live on the other side of the world. I found that it's really important to say what I'm working on, and everybody gets excited," she says.

In addition to the boxes of nail polish stashed in her spare bedroom, Schaefer says she has about 300 polishes in her personal collection. She paints her nails about twice a week, constantly testing her creations for wear -- and she's still not tired of nail polish.

"I think the biggest thing is, No. 1, that you do something you love and are passionate about. I really believe that, and it shows," says Schaefer. "Also, make sure that you are doing your research. That was a huge part for me. Before I ever started, I read about the different pigments and glitters to use. I felt like that was really important."

Schaefer has a steady stream of orders and is constantly testing new pigments and color combinations, but says there are still things she can do to up her production when she's ready.

"I'm just going where it takes me," she says. "The whole industry is so new that I have no idea how long it will last."

Stacey Peters ~ Brickhouse Soaps and Dos Vita Designs

Stacey Peters, owner and creator of Brickhouse Soaps (Photo by Laura Simon)

Stacey Peters is curious and creative by nature. It's why, in addition to working full time and mothering a 10-year-old boy and two dogs, she also runs two small businesses that bring out her crafty side: Brickhouse Soaps and Dos Vita Designs.

"My ideas come from failures or what-ifs ... my own curiosity," says Stacey. "I love being creative. I live my life for creativity, even in my marriage to my husband: We had in our vows that we would always share our life together in creativity, so we live a very creative, artful life."

Stacey and her husband, Bret, work together on Dos Vita Designs, where they make furniture, reupholster chairs and couches and upcycle reclaimed wood and old metal products into useful pieces for the home.

"'Dos Vita' is Italian for 'second life.' The concept behind the business is to give something a second life -- not to create from new, but to take older furniture and revamp it," Stacey says. The couple does everything themselves, from upholstering and sanding to welding and cutting, all from their Jackson home. They also do a lot of research, says Stacey, on the back story of different styles and how furniture was made in the past.

The couple has been making and selling furniture for a couple years, but Stacey has been making soaps as a hobby for more than 10 years. It started in a high school art class, when she was making candles and wondered if she could also make soaps.

"I started doing it along with sculpting and painting and different art things that I had done," says Stacey, who has also studied at the Missouri Fine Arts Academy. "About three or four years into that, my friends started really requesting me making different bars of soaps for them because they really liked them. It was getting to where it was becoming more and more, so finally a friend said, 'Stacey, with all the stuff you make, and so many people asking and requesting it, why don't you start selling it at craft fairs or something?'"

Stacey gave it some thought, did her research and started selling her soaps on Etsy. Not long after that, the business expanded again thanks to Stacey's own curiosity.

"I have sensitive skin. I thought if I'm doing this with soap, I'll see what I can do with other products," she says. "I have really dry, bad skin and I want to make my skin soft and supple and beautiful."

In addition to her all-natural soaps, Stacey began making bath scrubs, body wash, body butter, bath oil, milk baths and bath bombs. She gained a following of customers with sensitive skin and conditions like psoriasis, and they were helped by her gentle, natural products.

Stacey takes orders from her Brickhouse Soaps Facebook page and her website, brickhousesoaps.wordpress.com. The sites were actually a suggestion from her grandmother, she says: Her family lives far away but wanted to see what she was making. They began referring their friends from out of town, and Stacey has been shipping her products as far as Florida and Arizona. Locally, her business has grown from word-of-mouth and Facebook. She's working on a new website where customers can order online with PayPal, and hopes to start selling her products in small shops in Southeast Missouri.

"I probably dedicate about three hours to furniture every other day, and at least five to eight hours a week on soap," says Stacey. "We really very much enjoy it and we try to keep it as much a hobby as possible, but still run it like a business."

Rachel Bertrand ~ Forever Stamped

Rachel Bertrand of Forever Stamped Jewelry (Photo by Fred Lynch)

Rachel Bertrand didn't exactly set out to start a business. Several years ago, she was admiring a friend's silver necklace with her children's names stamped on it. It was a gift for being in a friend's wedding, so Bertrand wasn't sure where she could find one of her own. She searched the Internet, found lots of hand-stamped jewelry and was about to order a necklace, when she wondered if she could make one herself.

"I found several videos on YouTube and a great educational website with lots of online classes teaching all the different techniques," says Bertrand. "I purchased all the tools and gadgets needed to do just the basics, even stole a few tools from the hubby's toolbox, and started practicing. The more I did, the easier it got and the better my work looked."

The trouble was, she could only make so many necklaces with her own children's names on them -- so she took photos of her jewelry and started a Forever Stamped Facebook page to see if she could sell her sterling silver handiwork. Turns out, people loved it.

Bertrand works from the bonus room above her garage and continues to sell necklaces, rings, bracelets and more from her Facebook page. A mother of three young girls, she does most of her work while the kids are napping or at school or daycare. She also has a part-time job and does her Forever Stamped work on days off.

"What I love about small-town Cape Girardeau is just that -- that it's a small town," says Bertrand. "I'm always getting new customers that knew someone who was wearing something I had made. So basically, it's been word-of-mouth that has made my business grow. It's also an amazing thing about Facebook. I'll tag someone in a picture of something that I made for them and then all of their friends can see it. I end up getting quite a few new fans on my page that way."

For others who dream of crafting an at-home business, Bertrand emphasizes good customer service and faith in your product.

"A happy customer is a repeat customer. And if they aren't happy with something, I try my best to fix it," she says. "I'd also tell them have confidence in yourself and your product. I have a good friend who once gave me some good advice: don't undercut yourself, yet don't way overprice. You don't want to be spending lots of your time and not getting much out of it, or you'll end up not enjoying it. When business needs picking up, you can always run specials."