Turning a Specific Niche into a Successful Creative Business with Christen Glenn of Lunabeehive
Turning a Specific Niche into a Successful Creative Business with Christen Glenn of Lunabeehive
Etsy saw her talent…and now @Lunabeehive has almost 92,000 followers on Instagram! This girl’s got it down pat in the creative game. Her handcrafted felt goods and wood felt crafts are truly unique.
For Christen, it has always been extremely difficult for her to explain what she does to people because when they ask her, she tells us she kind of hopes that she can just say quickly that she runs a creative business and that she makes felt goods and sells wool felts and with a little chuckle she says that she hopes they will “ stop talking to me because it’s such a bizarre thing. I can’t quickly say “Oh I’m a Doctor, I am a therapist” or this or that. It’s intriguing and I’m not one of those people wiping out a business card”. - though she should because her work is incredible.
When Did Lunabeehive Begin?“This started back in 2015, so I have been doing this for about 4 years. I went to art school and went into the teaching profession and I taught elementary art and eventually moved into middle school art.
In my personal life, I started dating somebody and we were in a place where I was going to have to move to Utah, and I had to decide if I wanted to keep teaching and do this long distance or do if I want to move with him. We decided to move to Utah. We were living in Salt Lake City and I was trying to figure out if I wanted to go back into teaching or start something else. I wanted to try something else”.
The Lucky break - “I got noticed by the Etsy Instagram account and they reshared my post! We had gone camping and I had no service. I had posted something prior to that, and when we reached service again, I had 3,000 likes on my photo and I didn't have that many followers - I was blown away”.
“I need to kinda capitalize on this and I think back to the timing that they shared it and I was totally unprepared because I was kind of inundated with questions and emails and inquiries”.
What was your biggest learning curve?“There wasn't a learning curve when it came down to exactly what I was doing. My little process and me sitting at my desk making my stuff, cutting and sewing, beading and embroidering - that part is what I love . The learning curve is the entire business aspect”, (she giggles) “I think for me, It’s not something that comes easy to me. I’m not great with computers. I took studio art classes, I didn't invest my time into computer classes for learning any photoshop or illustrator and that is something that is such a huge void for me and I see the value in it and I have so many friends that can do this and create story graphics and have these amazing websites and mine is - basic.
We all know Christen is far from basic when it comes to her creative talent. She is such an inspiration to so many creatives out there. Follow your passion and the rest will follow you.
Listen to the full podcast! Follow along with Christen:
IG: @lunabeehive
Shop: Lunabeehive.com