Meet Sherri Savage

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sherri Savage. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sherri below.

Hi Sherri, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?

So how did I find my purpose? I think my true purpose is the fact that I was a single mom and I had to find a way of keeping food on the table. I’ve always been immensely talented at anything, creative, but I lost a lot of that spark when I went through my divorce. When the pandemic hit, I was in between jobs. I was struggling to find something that would pay enough to put food on the table, and I have to say I kept seeing a bunch of people branching out into the craft world, which I’ve always been a part of, but I wanted something that could truly make me money because if something looks crafty people don’t wanna buy it. I like working with my hands and I like bright shiny glittery things. So out of necessity, I decided to try my hand at becoming an epoxy artist. And it’s odd because literally I didn’t know how to proceed. I didn’t know what I was doing and yet the very 1st cup I made came out perfect. My son, who at that time was a sophomore in high school stole the cup. It was his cup anyhow and said mom you need to do more. So I started searching how to do different techniques how to become more original how to make my product stand out against everybody else and ended up falling in love with this craft. I love seeing people’s joy when they see all the glitter how different they are and how excited they are to receive their new cups. After starting with the cups, I found after I did a cup I’d have extra epoxy and I hate wasting anything so I looked into getting mold and that’s when I started branching out to different kinds of art techniques. I’ve done everything from keychains, ornaments, dungeons & dragon dice, you name; it if it can have epoxy on it I’ve done it. Like I said it was something that I found out I truly loved and it allowed me to help feed my child, pay my bills and move forward and still find joy and something I like.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

What do I do? I’m a resin epoxy artist which means I work with making different molds, free hand cups, pens, dice and various other items. I also crochet so I make unique crochet items. I’m something you don’t see a lot with a monkey shines is I actually crochet very fine tiny detailed doll fashions I used to be a doll artist I no longer repaint dolls, but I still make their fashions.

What I feel is most exciting or special about it? What exciting is seeing OK so when you do a poor or a cup or anything of that sort, you do not know what the end product is going to look like. And various techniques are very deceiving because I can do a poor and if I use alcoholics on the bottom of it, which is the side you see up when you pour it looks one thing as soon as you unmold it it looks totally different and it’s kind of the same with a cup. I’ll start a cup and I’ll put on the glitter or I’ll put on epoxy or I’ll put on paint and it doesn’t look anything like what it first started as in the excitement for me is seeing how it looks in the end I’ve had failures, but sometimes they’re fun failures, and turned out to be a great product. And that surprise of unmolding a product is just so fulfilling. A fun thing about monkeyshines gifts is the fact that it’s named after my son who we call Monkey his nickname. He is autistic and he’s an amazing kid and when he was younger, he had to unload everything I wasn’t allowed to touch a mold once it was finished curing and he’d get so excited to see how it looked when it came undone and that was another surprise for me to see the shock and surprise on his face. Sometimes he hated what I did sometimes he loved it and he always came to the table with new ideas I would’ve never have branched out and done cups with wrenches as handles or a cup that’s just even geared towards racing cause he does racing. He brings a new aspect to the craft and makes me smile even more. He truly is the reason Monkey Shine’s gifts got started and I always tell people we are an autistic based family because he has such a huge part in it. He helps sand my cups, he help spray paint cups he unmold he helps design. He will 3-D print items for my cups and he has amazing ideas.

New products and events. One of the things I’ve learned about business over the years is you always have to keep your product line new and exciting when something becomes two mundane or blasé, people will get bored with it and stop buying and even stop coming to your shows or your website so I’m always looking to do new and exciting things. One of my most exciting new product line that I am coming out with is the fact that I can literally put glitter on anything and I’m starting to get into glittering shoes so those will be coming to my website over the next five or six months. I also have recently gotten into the dungeon and dragon dice and containers for them and that’s a new and exciting thing that I’m starting to add to my product line as well. As for events, we currently don’t have anything lined up until September but my website I always try to keep updated. I post on my Facebook page very regularly. Anything new that I have and on my Facebook page and website, I try to keep updated what event events that we will be attending so that people can come and find us and buy from us in person and save shipping

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Wow three qualities or skills oh, this is difficult quality wise. I think you have to be persistent. I think you have to be very honest with yourself and customers and you have to have faith. The last one is the hardest to move forward on because when you start a journey like this you don’t know if you’re going to succeed you don’t know if your product’s gonna be liked sometimes you don’t even like the product cause you don’t know how to proceed it and it’s taking a lot to just learn to have faith that by going to a show and having something that’s so different and unique that people are going to love it and you just have to put the faith out there and do it and that’s where the persistence comes in. You have to be persistent. You can’t try doing one product one time at one show and that’s it. You have to do it over and over and over again because it takes multiple times and multiple items for people to really like it and then ask for honesty I have worked with so many other businesses and I think one of the things so many of them lack is honesty. They will try to sell you their product like a snake oil salesman. It has all of these great features then you get at home and it doesn’t. I’m honest about my cups I’m honest about you know everything I make and I will tell you you know my cups are not for little kids , my cups my cups, can’t be dishwasher or microwaved and definitely not dropped. These are facts that people need to know and yet I’ve seen other Cup people tell people oh yes, you can put it in the dishwasher and I also tell people upfront you know if you come to me and you honestly say I drop my cup cracked what do I do? I will actually work with you on fixing that Cup or potentially getting you a new Cup however, if you come to me and you say my cup cracked I don’t know what happened. I know exactly what happened but I will still try to help you but when you lie to me, you’re gonna pay full price to replace it, and I said I am very, very honest with my customers and because of that I have to be honest with myself. Sometimes you have to step back and you have to look at a customer and say I can’t do this for You. This is not my style or this will compromise my morals or that is out of my wheelhouse, and because I have that honesty with myself, I can be honest with them
People starting this journey like I said they need to have faith. You can’t do one or two items go to a show not sell them and just give up. It doesn’t work that way you have to be persistent. You have to do five or six shows back to back you have to have more than one or two items many times I’ll have my table and I’ll have just one or two items. Just kind of feeling the water. See if people pick them up even look at them and I’ve noticed when there’s only one or two something on the table. People don’t even consider them however, if I have Upwards of 10, it catches peoples attention. You have to be persistent and not give up after the first rejection.

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

so one of the things that I make people very aware of as I have some major medical issues that can hold me back and because of this, it is my biggest challenge. On days when I don’t feel good I can’t even get out of bed and when I have orders to fill, that’s really hard on my body and on my mental health because I feel like I’m letting people down, but I’m very upfront with people when they place an order, I’ll tell him this is X amount of days however there is a chance that it may take an extra 2 to 3 weeks so if you need it by a certain date, I need to know that date now. Another major major challenge because of my medical issues is doing actual artisan shows. I cannot lift anything over 20 pounds and as I’m sure you’re very aware of tables displays in our product is all very heavy. Luckily my son helps my best friend helps and we get things in and out.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://monkey-shines-gifts.square.site/
• Instagram: @monkeyshinesgifts
• Facebook: https://Facebook.com/monkeyshinesgiftshop

Image Credits

The Monkey Shines crew Alyssa, Seth (Monkey), Erica, Sherri (Mama), Judi (Gamma – that is spelled correctly)