"Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard." Guy Kawasaki

Starting your own business can be overwhelming. There’s the time it takes to thoroughly plan out every tiny detail of what your business will consist of, or the amount of money that goes into simply creating your first product, or the piles of products you will waste when a design doesn’t go as planned. But even still, starting my own business was the best thing I could have ever done.

My name is Jenny and I am the happy owner of Lovely JEN’s Designs, a small business that  specializes in customizing Starbucks Coffee Cups, Glass Mugs, and Stickers!

I started my small business, Lovely JEN’s Designs, in June of 2020. The world was in the midst of a pandemic, chaos happening in every corner. And I was a preschool teacher who had just gotten her hours cut. I was left at home with nothing to do for hours at a time while aching to make more money but lacking the ability to work more hours. For a few weeks, it was a constant cycle of watching Tiktoks in bed, hoping our world would go back to normal.

On one of my days full of scavenging through social media, a Cricut ad caught my eye. I figured, “I have so much time on my hands, why not get into crafting?”. And so I did. It started with a sticker for the back of my phone case, then a glass mug for my boyfriend, until finally, I decided to combine two of my favorite things: My newfound love for crafting and Starbucks. And I haven’t looked back since.

After posting to my personal social media platforms about how cute my newest Starbucks cup (that I designed) was, I started receiving responses from friends and family with desires to purchase their own. And thus began Lovely JEN’s. I quickly created an Etsy shop, started taking pictures of the one product I had created, and my business slowly started to grow. Before I knew it, I was surpassing my sales goals rather quickly and putting every second of free time into my business. Fast forward to February 2022 and I have been extremely fortunate to be able to make Lovely JEN’s my full time job and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.

I started my shop with the desire to make things that would make me happy and I soon realized that while making myself happy and doing something that I was passionate about, I was able to create products that make others happy as well. Almost two years later and I can easily say that starting Lovely JEN’s was the best thing I could have done. It has given me the opportunity to meet so many incredible people that I wouldn’t have met otherwise and has allowed me to provide for myself while doing something that I absolutely adore. 

I am continuously grateful for the opportunities that continue to cross my path as I continue to grow my business and I hope to be able to do this for a lifetime. And remember, every small purchase makes a big difference.