Meet Melissa Galbraith

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

Melissa, so excited to have you with us today. So much we can chat about, but one of the questions we are most interested in is how you have managed to keep your creativity alive.

I love to pull inspiration from where ever I can. The most mundane or simplistic things can spark an idea. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come up with an idea for an embroidery pattern while walking my dogs around my neighborhood. One such idea came to life last summer. I was thinking about my love of golden age murder mysteries and how many of the murderers use poisons or poisonous plants instead of the knives and guns that are so common in murder mysteries today. Seeing my dogs snuffling in all the plants around me, I started to wonder, what those poisons actually looked like. When I got home, I started looking some of them up online. It turns out, many of them are beautiful plants. This inspired me to create 3D poisonous plants, which became part of my newest book, 3D Botanical Embroidery & Stumpwork.

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?

Melissa Galbraith is the fiber artist behind MCreativeJ. She was born and raised in the desert of Washington state where her mother instilled a love of making things by hand at an early age. Melissa shares her love of nature through whimsical and modern hand embroidery kits, patterns, workshops, and her books, 3D Botanical Embroidery & Stumpwork, How to Embroider Texture and Pattern, and DIY Embroidered Shoes.
 
Melissa was reintroduced to hand embroidery after needing a creative outlet from corporate communications. She loves that embroidery is like coloring with a needle and thread. Melissa found that many craft enthusiasts also wanted to learn how to embroider but were daunted by where to start. Thanks to this and a love of teaching, Melissa began to share her hand embroidery knowledge.
 
Melissa’s embroidery kits make it easy to learn a new craft for makers of all skill levels. She enjoys seeing makers fall in love with the needle arts, especially that magical ah-ha moment of learning something new.

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?

1. Find your niche
When I picked embroidery back up again, it was for fun. When I started it as a small business, I didn’t really know where to start. This caused my work to not really have a theme and was hard for my brand to be known for anything in particular. Once I figured out what I wanted to do and be known for with my work, I’ve used this as a guiding point with everything that I create.

2. Make small business friends/connections
Starting a small business wasn’t ever something I ever thought I would do. I didn’t really know anyone in the space so I didn’t have anyone to ask questions or go to for support. Finding or creating your own small business cohort/ maker community is the best way to build connections and have a network that will support you.

3. Don’t be afraid to fail
I think so many people get caught up in the idea of things needing to be perfect or a smashing success on their first go. This is not the case. Running and growing a small business has a lot of failures along the way but those pitfalls helped me learn and grow. Without them, I wouldn’t be able to look back and see the gradual growth of where I am today. Slow and steady is better than a flash in the pan.

Okay, so before we go, is there anyone you’d like to shoutout for the role they’ve played in helping you develop the essential skills or overcome challenges along the way?

As a one woman small business owner, I’ve been doing it all for over a decade. It often means I juggle a lot of hats from shipping to production to design to marketing, etc. With the gradual growth of my company, I’ve learned I don’t have to do it all. I can ask for help, especially for the things I don’t enjoy doing. Hiring a virtual assistant for monthly support and part time help during busy seasons has helped lessen my load and allow me to take on more opportunities because I’m not stuck in the nitty gritty of it all.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.mcreativej.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mcreativej/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MCreativeJ/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@mcreativej
• Other: Pinterest: https://pinterest.com/mcreativej
  TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@melissaatmcreativej

Image Credits

Melissa Galbraith, MCreativeJ