Who's Behind Elegant Crafts
and Homemade Gifts?
Hello, and welcome. My name is Deborah Smith. I love to make crafts. I've been called the "flower-lady," "craft-gal," and the "scrapbook-lady." If it involves creating something, I'm probably up to my neck in it!
Even as a child I loved to make things and decorate my bedroom. As a young adult I sold my creations at art-and-craft fairs, around my home state, in beautiful Northern Michigan. Later, I operated a dried flower business, growing and drying flowers to sell to other crafters. Eventually children came along, and my focus became children's crafts for quite some time. I've taught many classes for children at church, and our homeschool group over the years.
I Discover Scrapbooking
 Starting in 1997, I taught scrapbooking classes for four years. During that time, I pretty much gave up other crafts, as I was spread pretty thin, teaching scrapbook classes and holding workshops, raising and homeschooling three children, co-coordinating our homeschool group, teaching Sunday school, teaching mid-week classes, as well as serving on the church board and other committees. Life was too busy to do much else, so scrapbooking was my only creative outlet.Fast-forward a few years, and I now have a little breathing room. My dormant passion for making homemade gifts and crafts sparked to life once more. I Become a Webmaster - Sort Of
I love to teach crafts, and knew I wanted to share my crafts with others, so I started a scrapbooking website a couple of years ago. All the technical aspects of website building, however, almost did me in! Crafty I am, techie I'm not! I am so "untechie," that I can't figure out how to program the DVD player. I'm afraid I'll launch the space shuttle or something with it!I slogged through a year of just learning the ropes of website building, and eventually had a pretty nice looking website with good information. Those that did find it said they liked it. Unfortunately, very few found it. It was, sad to say, lost in a sea of websites, like so many great sites out there today.
I finally threw in the towel, with that website, and took a break from anything to do with html, javascript, or css (that's techie talk for webmasters). Blech! I learned a lot, but not enough to really get it off the ground. Then I discovered SBI
In the back of my mind, though, I had remembered reading about a business building/web-hosting company called SBI (Site Build It), that struck a chord. But at the time, I didn't think I could afford it. What I didn't realize then, is that I couldn't not afford it! I spent over a year of my life, hours and hours, trying to do it on my own, and in the end I spent way more than I would have on SBI. If you factor in the time I spent, it was a small fortune!After a year's break, I wandered back on the web, still yearning to create a site that would be a creative outlet, and a connection to like-minded crafters. Somehow, I stumbled upon SBI once more. Finally, after trying it all on my own, I realized what a bargain SBI really was. The testimonials of people, who even took the time to make videos of their stories, rang true.  This time, I didn't hesitate. It was all or nothing for me. But really, there was no risk. Their money-back guarantee made it a no-brainer. I took the plunge...and what a refreshing plunge it was! Finally, someone else took care of the tedious details. I could focus on building my website, making crafts...all the creative stuff I love doing. Well, okay, there are some things I had to figure out, here and there, but whenever I got confused, or needed help, an enormous team of other SBI owners were there to help, in the friendliest, most helpful forum on the web! Even the founder of this multi-million dollar company joins in the forum. To me that says a lot about him and SBI. And if the forums couldn't help, the friendly support staff could. Today I'm Building a Business
Today, I'm no longer just building a website; I'm building a business, a way of life, doing what I love. It just doesn't get any better than that.Here is another story by a fellow SBI owner that touched me deeply. Maybe you can relate. Click on the video button to watch. Don't worry, it's under two minutes long.
If you too, have a passion that you would love to build a business around, take a moment to stop and learn what SBI is about. It can't hurt to look and it might just save you from the angst and waste of time that I went through trying to do it on my own.
Wishing you all the best and happy crafting!
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