Sometimes a Little Change is a Good Thing

Instagram Name Change

Where to even begin! This post is mostly for my loyal and amazing followers on Instagram who have been along on the journey I’ve had as a sign maker the last few years! When Little Bits of Everything Quilts and I started our shop in June of 2013 We really had no idea where it would lead. This has been an amazing journey and I am excited for this new chapter and I truly wish I could thank each and everyone of you for helping make this dream a reality for me! 

For starters I’m not going anywhere! I am just ready to change the way I do business a little and will no longer be making signs. Our shop will still remain open and Rachel will continue to do amazing quilts, pillows and linens. I also hope to do some printables of many of the signs in our shop that you can download digitally. I will without question still keep her amazing creations as an important part of my feed because naturally I’m gonna need some amazing products to stage makeovers room reveals etc!!  But I have decided after many months of preparation for this moment, to stop making signs and focus on blogging full time! Hence the change in my Instagram name to ;The Mountain View Cottage. Over the next few weeks I will be letting go of the last of my inventory! I’ve saved a few amazing designs you haven’t even seen yet to close this chapter which I will post about in full detail and how you can snag them on Instagram over the next few days and weeks. 

The Journey Here:

Its been an incredible 3 years and I would love to share how I’ve made it to this moment and what led up to this decision! I l want to be open and transparent with you all and since you have been such a huge part of my journey!  I also hope that perhaps my story will resonate with some of you who have also reached a point in your business where you are wondering “Whats next” and can take the leap as well!

The Good and the Ugly:

Last fall/winter I hit a point as a sign maker where I felt on top of the world. I had several incredible features last year that knocked my socks off and totally exploded my business even more! The opportunities that followed these features were things I could only have dreamed of when I first started making signs. Following the mountain of success I felt I was standing on came a huge and incredible low point. I was struggling. I was struggling hard. I had a newborn baby including 2, 4 year old and a 3 year old. I felt like I couldn’t keep up with any of it.  The orders the shipping, the emails, social media. I just felt incredibly overwhelmed by life and I knew that I needed to make some big changes to manage it all better. Because I knew not only was my business suffering but more importantly my husband and kids!

I started by attempting to hire a few workers to help me run my shop. I was fortunate to have some amazing people work for me, but I knew I ultimately  needed to hire an entire team to make my business flow again. The more that became obvious the more it just didn’t feel right. I gave it a good go and eventually realized that perhaps my “Next Move” was not making more signs, hosting more sales etc. but perhaps something different entirely.

I had started out as a blogger with Rachel and together we created the brand Little Bits of Everything inc. We blogged for a solid year before our shop took full focus and we abandoned it altogether. I started thinking that perhaps I would start a different blog entirely on my own and really make a go of it this time instead of just blogging for “fun” which is all fine and dandy but it doesn’t pay the bills! 

Thus, this blog launched at the end of November 2015. If you’re unfamiliar with this blog its because I’ve kept it pretty separate from my shop. I wanted to see if I could really work hard and see some results over the next year after launching before I stopped making signs.

A New Adventure

Firstly I just want to share testament to you how sharing your intentions with the world can make all the difference when you are off on a new adventure! I knew the moment I decided to create this blog that this was really the right path from me. I had a very personal and spiritual moment that was all but the Lord yelling at me “GO GET STARTED” very few things have been that distinct when I have asked in prayer and it gave me the courage to start climbing this new mountain! 

Within 2 months things began to snowball with this blog, I had very few published posts and somehow in a fairly short amount of time several of them went viral on Pinterest and I watched as my numbers creep higher day after day! I simultaneously had a magazine feature of our home and it seemed like I was well on my way.  As life would have it, the time I needed to blog and actually tackle the DIY projects on my to do list, was always a stack of signs needing to be framed away. I felt discouraged yet again wondering how would I keep up with my shop which I was hoping will provide the income to tackle some big projects and still have time to get any  of them done? I stepped a way for a while and just conceded to the fact that I’d be making signs the rest of my life. 

That idea seemed further away than ever this spring until some changes happened with my husbands work. He finally had scored a new position at work that he had been working the last several years for. With this incredible blessing also came with 10-20+ extra hours of work each week for him. About two weeks in as I was sitting at my kitchen table working I had this crazy realization that I was done!! His new position gave us a little more financial freedom  and also meant that my kids needed their Mom not just home, but much more present! I decided in a matter of minutes with another one of those incredible moments of clarity through prayer that it was time to set the end of my sign making in motion. This was in June, I made it real by telling all my friends and family and also hung a big sign on my fridge that read: I was “QUITTING SIGNS”! I went full steam ahead and have only been selling the remaining signs from my stash since June. I decided that when I neared the end of my inventory that I would announce the change that was happening when in reality it had been happening for nearly a year!

The Leap!

There are few things as amazing as growing a small business from nothing and watching it flourish.  Making and selling signs has created opportunities for my family that otherwise would have been unreachable! We have taken trips, put our kids in extra curricular activities among a whole host of amazing things. Building a business that started at my kitchen table and paid me more than I ever made working for the man was something I could have only ever dreamed of! The reality is that blogging is one of those things that typically takes time. I make about enough right now for a trip to our favorite fast food restaurant once a month! So this leap is a big one when it comes to our families finances! However I know whole hardheartedly that I am always much more successful without a safety net and I’m ready to just jump in without a backup plan and go for it! The truth is I can’t be a sign maker or a blogger and do my BEST work unless I’m all in on one or the other! I’m just not one of those incredible people who can blog all night and work all day! Because truth be told making signs often keeps me up in to 3 a.m. as it is! 

In a nutshell I will share more of my love for decor, design and DIY on Instagram once my stash of signs is completely gone! Which lets get real isn’t a far cry from what I share right now anyway! I have already made some fun DIY videos of projects I’ve made and hope to include video a big part of the “How To” behind this blog! I am excited for what lies ahead and while these changes are a big change from what has become normal over the last 3 years I am looking forward to the new normal and of course sharing it all with you!! So if you’ve made it clear to the end of this incredibly long winded post, thanks for sticking around!! LETS DO THIS!

XO Haley

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