Today is the first day of my new website, and new blog. I am not exactly the best at blogging, in fact, I have never done it before. When I asked others, what to write about, and how to write it, I received generally the same answer from most people. “Just tell a story”. So that is what I will do, and this is my story.
I am from St. Louis Missouri and am a proud stay at home Mom of two BEAUTIFUL little girls, Etta (19 months) and Ella (5 months). My little girls are my inspiation….They are my everything. Without them, I would forget how to do everything and like a computer go back to my default. Everything I do, I do for my girls… This company was started because f them. Like I said, they are my real inspiration and of course, my Little E’s.
I have always been a crafty person. In-fact, I don’t ever remember not being crafty. I don’t remember a time where I didn’t know how to sew or perfectly wrap a birthday or Christmas gift. I think that being crafty is in my blood. I have been told that I am a lot like my great grandma who I never got the privilege of meeting. She was a very crafty woman who could look at a dress in the store, and go home and make the same thing with no pattern and no machine. (I’m not quite THAT good yet?) I believe that I got the ability to craft from my grandma, (my great grandma’s daughter). She would make beautiful Christmas displays and decorations and find the perfect way to wrap a gift so that without even opening it you knew that it was special.
My Mom still has the first thing that I ever made (hand sewed). It as a checkered pillow yellow on one side green on the other. I hand stitched “happy Mother’s Day, the date, and Love Emma” on the pillow along with cutting a rose out of another patterned material and hand sewed that on the bottom right hand corner of the pillow. That checkered pillow still politely sits propped up on the living room chair in their house until this day. My fascination with making things started at a young age. Playing in the basement of my house growing up, in a box on the second shelf of closet, sat a singer sewing machine, but not just any sewing machine, a children’s beginner sewing machine. It was my Mom’s growing up. I saw it there for years, untouched and never moved. One day I remember asking my Mom to teach me how to work and use it. I remember my mom and my Grandma sitting down with me one Sunday afternoon teaching me how to thread the machine. I remember the first thing I sewed on that machine. I cut apart an old worn orange towel. and made it int a pillow which stayed on the top shelf of my little sisters closet for years. I then was given my grandma’s antique singer machine and from there, is where everything began.
Through high school I believe my craftiness kind of dwindled off because at the time, being crafty I guess wasn’t the “cool thing” to do. When I became pregnant with my first daughter Etta is when it all began coming back to me. I would go shopping at boutiques and see bows, headbands, tutus ect. and say to myself ”you know, I bet I could make that”. It didn’t accrue to me that I really could untill I said it out loud one day, and my husband Evan said, “well, then why don’t you?”. Thus beginning my company Little E Designs
I started making all the bows for Etta to match her perfect little outfit. It was such a nice feeling to go out in public, and someone say, “that is such a cute bow, where did you get it from? ” and have the satisfaction of saying “thank you, I made it myself”. That is when I started making more and more bows. Giving them as gifts, and mastering my title of Bowreista (if you will).
I then I found out I was pregnant with my second little girl Ella. I started making more and more and the things I was producing were getting better and better. Shortly after Ella was born I brought my oldest sister Monica into the company to be my business partner. Getting my name out there was key. We decided to give the company a face lift. We decided on a new logo, a new look and relaunched the company with a new website. www.littlestl.com. Our products are bigger and better than ever now with only room to grow. The sky is the limit.
