Could you tell us a little bit about Knot & Bow and how you got your start?
When I had my first son in 2009, I made the decision to leave my full-time job and try to earn a living on my own in order to spend more time with my son. I spent a year brainstorming potential shop ideas, and during that time, always found myself more drawn to the packaging materials than the products I was planning to make and sell. I’ve always loved paper crafts, stationery, and gift wrap. So, I focused on the packaging and never looked back.
Your shop is so much fun, how do you keep coming up with new ideas to and products to keep things fresh?
That’s certainly something I struggle with! I’m incredibly indecisive and think a lot about potential products before I ever add them to the shop. I find that I have plenty of ideas for new products, but because I always like to make sure my new products are retail ready for my wholesale customers, it takes quite a bit of planning to introduce them to my shop. I’m working on being better about taking the plunge and adding new products quickly — one of my big goals for this year!
Who or what inspires/influences your work?
There is a wealth of inspiration out there. My Twitter feed, Pinterest page, and Facebook feed is filled with color concepts, DIY ideas, and fun party concepts that feed my creative energy all the time. I also troll a lot of really unattractive supply and manufacturing websites, which can be difficult to navigate, but yield interesting product ideas much of the time. I hope to be able to spend a bit more time traveling the world in the future — I don’t travel much right now, but travel is so incredibly inspirational.
New York is such an amazing city, what do you do when you are not working?
I love living in New York! I live and work in Brooklyn, and spend most of my time here. It has everything that I love about New York at just a slightly slower pace and with a lower skyline. We are surrounded by incredible restaurants, beautiful parks, excellent museums, a zoo, great coffee, and lots of super fun playgrounds. With a one year old and a four year old, my world revolves around my boys. So, time away from work is usually filled with attempts at keeping up with laundry or hitting the sprinklers on a hot day. As parents, we don’t always get to do all of the New York things we’d love to do, but I’m thankful to live in a place where we run our errands on foot and get to spend a lot of time exploring our neighborhood.
What is one thing people would be surprised to know about you?
I used to have a (tiny!) food blog. I sincerely love to cook and bake, but you would never know based on the amount of takeout I eat these days! It’s tough to enjoy cooking with a one year old tugging on your ankles, but I’m trying to rekindle my flame in the kitchen. :)
And, of course we have to know, what is your favorite sweet!?!
M&Ms of any kind have always been my biggest weakness. But I also have a serious love for delicious cookies (Levain OMG) and almond croissants in the morning. And blood orange doughnuts. And salty honey pie. I have a sweet tooth.
Guess, Erin is offering Icing Design fans 20% off anything in her shop for the next week!! Just use coupon code ICINGDESIGNS at checkout!! Awesome...right...I think we would definitely be using it on the new party confetti bombs!!
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