Meet Chelsea Ward

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

Hi Chelsea, thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
The majority of my family are self-employed or small business owners with an amazing work ethic. I’ve always been surrounded by folks who had flexible schedules and the ability to make their own schedules and I’ve wanted to have that in my life. That said, it has definitely come with a lack of work-life balance and I grew up seeing that side of the self-employed life as well. Seeing family members working late into the night or over the weekends was common. Now that I’m personally self-employed I have a greater respect for my family members who definitely put in wildly long hours in order to have the flexibility of being there for each other when needed.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I run two businesses, Sketchy Notions and Wanderful Retreats. Sketchy Notions is my stationery brand full of colorful + cheerful original watercolor illustrations for thoughtful gift-givers. Wanderful Retreats is my retreat business, where I host small groups in week-long retreats in Tuscany with day trips, cooking classes, wine tastings and art lessons.

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?
Being flexible: not every idea is going to work out and you have to be ready to pivot or iterate in an instant. There’s no shame in pivoting or changing course either.

Be willing to ask for help: I took a course in wholesaling for product based businesses (Paper Camp) and one of my favorite quotes from the host was, “You don’t know what you don’t know.” It can be hard to confess not knowing but not being will to learn will only hurt you in the long run.

Document and take notes and sketches of everything: I have piles of sketchbooks and notes of past ideas. Sometimes there’s a winner in there but the idea is not quite right for right now.

Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?
This year I’ve been taking on more small commissions from fellow small businesses and I’ve really loved collaborating with them! I’ve done custom stickers and illustrations for stores and even started doing some custom watercolor illustrations of their cats with plants that I can use in future runs of my Cat + Plant Calendars (or even the Dogs + Flowers version).

I’d love to connect with more small businesses that want some custom stickers, prints or postcards for their own businesses.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Amal Iqbal

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