Meet Julie Thomas

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

Julie, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

I think everyone has a moment in their lives when their world is suddenly turned upside down and you have no choice but to accept the cards you have been dealt, and learn how to adapt to a new normal. This life changing moment happened for me when my youngest child was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). I had just quit my professional job to become a stay at home mom, and was struggling to help him as he fell behind his peers developmentally. As stressful and uncertain this time in our lives was, I felt relief once he received a diagnosis because we could finally seek out the help we desperately needed. Our lives over the next several years turned into multiple daily therapy sessions and adapting to our new normal- which was doing whatever possible to support our son. I had always assumed I would return to work once both of my children were in school full-time, but my son still needed my full support at home. With all of our medical expenses adding up, I needed to find a way to save money where we could. I’ve always enjoyed baking, so I started to learn how to decorate cakes and cookies for our family birthdays and other special occasions. I would share photos of my creations on social media, and I started to get requests from family and friends to bake for their special events. I never would have guessed that this new baking hobby would ultimately lead to becoming a small business owner. I don’t know that I ever would have had the courage to take the leap from my professional career into entrepreneurship if we hadn’t faced these challenges, so I believe this is where I found my own personal resilience.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I’ve been a foodie my entire life, so I always hoped I would some day make it into the food industry. Before becoming a cookie artist, I enjoyed taking basic recipes and making them my own using natural, high quality ingredients. There is nothing more disappointing than taking a bite of something that looks good, but tastes terrible! It’s very important to me that my products are consistently delicious, so I start by taking great care in curating high quality recipes that everyone will enjoy. The next step in my process is to work closely with my clients to design a collection of cookies that commemorates their special event. For each collection, I start by creating a color palette to coordinate with the event decor. Then together we imagine unique designs to fit their theme. I love incorporating personalized details to make each set feel extra special. Over the years, I have also started designing 3D printed cookie cutters and silkscreen stencils to further showcase the individual theme of each cookie collection. Being a cookie artist requires a lot of time, attention to detail, and a passion for sharing your art with others. The best part of the job is seeing the reactions of my clients when they pick up their edible works of art. It brings me so much joy to witness the excitement of seeing their vision come to life.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

When I first started decorating cookies, I struggled quite a bit with imposter syndrome. Since I don’t have a traditional background in art, I never really thought my work was good enough to sell. I constantly compared myself to artists who were further along in their journey which was quite discouraging. I’m also a natural people pleaser and I had a really hard time saying no to clients when their request wasn’t something I normally would do or they didn’t want to pay a fair price for the time required on my end. This led to burnout pretty quickly. I ended up losing my joy for decorating cookies because I wasn’t happy with the work I was creating, and I was severely underpaid for my time. I ultimately found solace within the cookie decorating community, a network of other artists who had or were currently experiencing the same exact feelings I was dealing with. Their advice helped me to gain confidence in myself as an artist, and also gave me the courage to start saying no to the things that didn’t serve me professionally. I am now much more confident in my worth, and no longer afraid to stay true to the goals I have set for myself and for my business. My advice to those who are just beginning their journey on a new endeavor, would be to find a network of individuals in your field to gain support from and share knowledge with. It will change your life and your business for the better.

To close, maybe we can chat about your parents and what they did that was particularly impactful for you?

My parents have always been supportive of any goal I have wanted to achieve. I had always imagined that I would become a bilingual education teacher, so I graduated with a Spanish degree and planned to get my teaching certificate shortly after. Right after I graduated, I started a position teaching early childhood education at a daycare. It turned out that teaching was not my calling, and I only lasted about five months working at this new job. I dreaded every second of going to work during that time. I bounced around various jobs while I figured out my next steps, and even went back to school to study an entirely new field. I dropped out of this new program after only a semester, and ultimately landed my first professional job working for a non-profit organization. I really enjoyed my work at this company and felt good about the work I was doing, and was using my Spanish degree. I thought I would stay in this career until I retired, but after eight years, I felt a strong urge to be at home full time with my two young children. I remember being terrified to tell my parents that I was quitting my job to be a stay at home mom. I was worried they would think I wasted my education, but was surprised when they instead told me that they were proud of me. Nearly thirteen years later, they are the biggest cheerleaders of my cookie decorating business. I wouldn’t have become the person I am today without their unconditional love and support. I hope I can give my own children the same level of support as they grow older and follow their own dreams. Thanks, Mom and Dad!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.juliesartisanbakery.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/juliesartisanbakery/

Image Credits

all images are my own