It was purely by chance that I met Molly – the luck of the draw, really. It was a beautiful late fall day and I needed to take the kids somewhere. A handful of parks, a variety of options. I chose one park – and so did Molly. We talked, at first, of our kids, as most Park Moms do. Then we led into our hobbies, and I quickly learned that Molly had recently quit her full-time job to be a stay-at-home mom….and run a business. She was a Mompreneur. Hmm. That sounds familiar, I thought. We exchanged information, and I kept her in the back of my mind.

A few weeks later, and I’m busy preparing the final touches for my styled shoot. I really wanted to add something personal to their swag bags. Something meaningful, something outside of myself but also outside of photography. Something to inspire. And that’s when Molly came to mind. I reached out to her, and she printed 20+ copies of a gorgeous hand-lettered print for me and my attendees. It was the perfect final touch to my styled shoot.

Both above images are from Nichole Meredith Photography, a delightful attendee of the December M Rose Styled Shoot.

Today she is telling us her story – and it’s incredible one of risk, sacrifice, determination, and late nights – all in the nittty-gritty of motherhood. A tale that sounds all too similar, but is unique on its own. This is Molly. This is Poppy & Mint Design.

How did you get started in your business?

In the Spring of 2014, I was holding down a few important jobs – full-time wife, full-time new mom to our 7-month-old daughter, and finally, the one that took up the majority of my time like most careers do, full-time civil engineer.  

I’m not sure how this all came about but I started to find myself at our dining room table every single night with a stack of computer paper, a mechanical pencil and a Sharpie marker.  

With those minimal tools, I started churning out quotes that I wanted to put in our daughter’s nursery.  I would research different typography blogs, study different accounts in the hand-lettering Instagram community and use these as inspiration to play around with the typefaces I was creating, the shapes of my letters and how they affected the layout.  For every quote, I tried to come up with at least 2, sometimes 3, different layouts in a pencil sketch before I would choose the one I would “ink” with the Sharpie.

Professional Engineer by day…Suppressed Creative by night, eh?  (and by night, I mean very late night. 2am is a normal functioning hour, right?)

After I finally got the courage to share my prints on my personal Instagram and Facebook page, I was happily shocked to hear that my friends and family wanted to purchase them.  Saaaaaay what?

I made my way over to Etsy.com to research how to start a shop, I tackled the awfulness that is figuring out business and sales tax licensure and then I just needed to name my shop!

…Oy.

I (finally) landed on “Poppy & Mint Design” because those were the colors that I intended to paint the nursery and it was her nursery that pushed me to start creating in the first place.

That was almost 2 years ago now.

My daughter doesn’t sleep in a nursery anymore and I am now a Stay-At-Home Mom and Full Time Owner of this lettering shop.  I feel so blessed to be able to type that and it’s so amazing to learn and grown alongside this small business, as my hand-lettering skills and style evolve.

How would you describe your style?

 

Poppy & Mint Design specializes in hand-lettering and modern calligraphy for home décor, stationery and weddings.  My style and my social media presence have grown immensely over the (2) years since I started this small business of mine.  My focus has more recently shifted to brush lettering/calligraphy with brush pens, watercolor, gouache and acrylic. However, the pointed pen (nib with dipped ink) still pops up in my workflow for a number of my brides and their wedding envelopes.

 

I’m fairly well known in the (amazingly supportive) Instagram hand-lettering community for my creative custom designs and layouts and for integrating crafty techniques and tutorials into my work.  I love to incorporate pops of color into my product lines but find that more often than not, nothing beats the elegance of black ink on white cardstock.

What is your favorite type of work to do?
Nothing makes me happier than sitting with a stack of beautiful envelopes and a pen or brush and using my hands to create eye-catching lettered addresses for my brides.  Not only is it fun for me to conceptualize the layouts and see which ones they choose, but the actual lettering of 100+ envelopes at a time is therapeutic.  (I swear!)

(Above Photo credit: Melissa Nyman Photography)

 

 

What is your favorite part of your work?
Aside from the lettered love and attention I put into each piece of work that I create, I love the #calligrafriends I’ve made within the hand-lettering community on Instagram.  Everyone is so supportive and interactive…and TALENTED.  There is no shortage of inspiration and I love that that transforms itself into daily motivation as well.

 

How do you love to serve your clients?

While this is my business, I also make it a personal goal of mine to create happy and memorable moments for my clients and/or the recipients of my lettering.  

Just as any wedding vendor would agree, I hope that my work accentuates the magic of the big day  and that after all of the couple’s hard work and planning has gotten them to the altar, that the details of their wedding weekend come together in the most beautiful way.  I love that my lettering and design provides brides with a handmade touch to their special weekend and I think this really stands out to the guests.

With the nature of my shop’s products, I’m also able to create gifts and commemorative pieces for events much smaller than weddings and sometimes, these are the events where the handmade touch is that much more appreciated.

For example, In a sea of baby shower gifts, the expectant mom may open a Poppy & Mint Design print that has been customized with her baby’s name and nursery colors (and ready to be updated with a date and stats!) and that alone makes her start bawling (true story!) It will be a gift that she’ll love every time she passes it hung in the nursery.

 

Or when I’m commissioned to create a piece for a mom whose infant baby is still in the hospital 5 months after she was born with a rare pulmonary condition. I create those kinds of prints with tears in my eyes, partly because my heart breaks for any family who has to endure that type of pain, but also for the beautiful spirit of that little fighter who redefines strength in my book.

Or when a client sends me a photo of handwritten letter that her grandmother had written to be read as a eulogy at her own funeral. It’s such a privilege to be asked to letter those words for the whole family to have in their homes as a beautiful tribute to the matriarch of their family.

 

If you had one tip for a bride, what would it be?
I’m probably supposed to answer this question with something that concerns my creative business and the details that I pull together for the brides, right?  Like…don’t forget to spellcheck your address list 6 times before you hand it off to me?  Or consider having a rubber stamp created of your return address to not only have some cost savings but to add that distressed hand-lettered look to each envelope?

I think instead I’ll pull from my own experiences and tell them that you need to let your Type A/Planner Mode tendencies slip away and just ENJOY yourself. That it is overwhelming.  So make it a point to steal a moment away with your spouse…to hold their hand, and to just sit in silence and really absorb the magical quality of being surrounded completely by the people you love and care for.

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