Welcome, well I never thought I'd be back on blogger blogging about my own small full time small business but here we are, hi.
Hey I'm Abi, a few years back, well let's say about 8 years I started blogging on blogger about fashion mainly, little travel posts here and there and now I will be posting on behalf of my small business NODE & STEM.
Let's start by telling you a little bit about myself & my business. Back in 2019 - yes when covid started I was working in a 25 hour retail job at the time. Covid-19 began to circulate the UK all the shops shut, even though I wasn't working in retail during this time the company I was working for paid a percentage of our wages which was amazing, so I had a lot of time at home. Which led me into online shopping, a lot. One thing I loved at this time was buying houseplants, I had over 50 at the point. A lot I KNOW, but I became collecting them. If there was a rare one I found on instagram, I was straight on eBay to see if I could find that plant.
After realising you can buy plant cuttings online, I already had a little shelf where I would propagate the stems until the rooted to plant for myself. Once I began thinking about it more, I thought why not try to set up something where I could sell the plant cuttings just to make a little bit of extra money as I din't know how long I'd be still getting paid from my retail job.
So I set up an Etsy shop at the start of April 2020 known as LETTERBOX CUTTINGS, where I would sell fresh houseplant cuttings & rooted cuttings I'd already had, and within a week I'd sold everything. I couldn't believe it, I was basically selling baby plants. When I first ran the idea through with my boyfriend he laughed and said that no one is going to buy a leaf. Well look at me now. I didn't put much into it, I was treating it as eBay, just take a few photos, upload them, write a description & hope someone would want a baby leaf cutting. A few hundred sales later I thought this is something I could actually turn into full time.
Whilst things began opening back up I'd gone back into retail around may or June 2020 I think this was & me and my boyfriend were currently looking for a house, not seriously looking just sort of keeping an eye, if one came up we liked we'd just have a little look. As he works in that business, he had an email one day for a valuation booking, and well a few months later we brought the house!
So I'd gone from using the kitchen for all my plants which was a top floor flat with skylight windows, basically a glass house to now we've moved into our house September 2020. A colder victorian style house, my plants did not like this move. I had to think of something else I could sell incase my plants didn't settle.
I was browsing on Facebook marketplace for some furniture I think, we like a good piece of retro furniture, anyway a listing came up for some dried flowers for £30. I thought ok why not for £30, if they didn't sell I could just put them back on there or eBay.
Little did I know, a few months later I'd have re branded, quit my retail job and made a studio out of our garage. I rebranded in FEB 2021 to NODE & STEM, I wanted to try and sell plant cuttings as well as dried flowers. As I began getting more and more sales for dried flowers, I started creating more things using dried flowers, such as wax melts & self care pamper letterbox boxes, as these became more popular. I created a new instagram & a new etsy shop for my plants, but I realised I enjoyed making dried flower bouquets more and I now spend all my time concentrating on building NODE & STEM. I'm now full time, re decorating my garage/studio as we speak and yes it's hard trying to create a small business on your own. I can say that I really have done all this on my own, a little help from my partner here and their but I think I've supprised myself and I will never be going back into retail. I remember when I handed in my notice I don't think I'd ever been so happy, the relief of just working for my self was something else & I wouldn't regret handing in my notice. But I think that's something I'll save for another blog post later on.
SO yes, that's enough of me rambling on, I hope you've had a good read. I'm not the best at writing, I feel like I ramble but it is the first blog post of many and I just thought I'd share the story with you.
You can visit all our links or website - www.nodeandstem.online
Etsy - www.nodeandstem.co.uk
Plant etsy shop - www.etsy.com/shop/nodeandstemplants
Instagrams - @nodeandstem @nodeandstemwaxmelts @nodeandstemplants
See you soon
ABI x