Hello! And welcome to the Spring Designer Spotlight. Some of you may have been around for a while and recall that in January 2022 I acquired Baby Kay’s Appliqués. My goal at the time was to get the website updated, update some photos and listings on the website and Etsy, and then start adding my own designs 6-12 months later.

Not long after taking over Baby Kay’s Appliqués, I was approached by a smaller company with about 300 designs in their catalog. So in May 2022 I added those designs from Baby Appliqués (ironic the names were so similar) and worked toward shutting down that Etsy site and combining everything into one shop.

During this time I decided to start working on new designs to add to the shop because I worried that if I waited too long, people who had been customers for a long time would no longer follow in the Facebook group or check the website to see if anything was new. While I know a lot of people still love doing appliqué designs, I have tried to add a variety of new things from felties to coloring pages, to sayings and more to keep it interesting.

As I continued to work on adding new designs, I was asked by the owner of Pink Aviator if I would be interested in buying her catalog, which I did in September 2022, adding over 1,000 more designs to the shop.

You may wonder why I would even consider taking over three (3) catalogs of designs as well as add some of my own in a world full of embroidery designs. Well, that brings me to the significance of the date today, the day that I am in the spotlight!

April 24th is an important date to me. It is full of sadness, overwhelming feelings, and failure. Yet, it’s also a day that brought about life lessons – personal and business. It’s the day that my life long dream of owning a salon came to an end. For those who know me, I’ve been a business “owner” to some degree since I was 11 years old and started a paper route and made my own business cards that I passed out in my neighborhood to offer my babysitting services.

In my early 20s I started working in the salon industry and fell in love with it and my dream became to own a salon one day. Fast forward to around 2007/2008 and I met a woman who wanted to sell her salon. I spent a year working on the due diligence and preparing to take over the salon. Set up a new website, created a beautiful new logo and set on my way to follow my dreams. Sadly, the econony took a downturn and my dream started slipping away. Businesses around me started to close, people were losing their jobs, the housing market was terrible and each day was a struggle. I started working back in corporate while still owning my salon, trying to make enough money to cover the bills that went along with owning a business and it took a toll on me and my family. My parents put their own financial security on the line for me and my dream. I had to face the facts…I couldn’t keep the salon open any longer. After a long day of phone conversations with my lender, I exhausted every avenue and walked into the salon to let my team know, April 24th was our last day in business. I was crushed. I let myself down, my family down, my staff down, and my customers down.

I woke up the next day and realized I couldn’t dwell on it. I had to find a way to turn this into a positive. I eventually took a full-time role where I had been working and steadily worked to pay off my SBA loan – yes, I still had to pay them back despite no longer owning the salon. I worked very hard to recover from that. When I saw an opportunity to keep three designer’s dreams alive by taking over their catalogs, I had to give it a go. I couldn’t let all their hard work die.

I won’t lie…it has been a VERY hard last 16 months since I first took over Baby Kay’s. The sales are low and some days I wonder why I did it. But I truly love embroidery, I love the designs in the shop, I love coming up with new ideas and my daily hopes and dreams are to keep growing this business now known as GeminiRed Embroidery Designs.

I appreciate each and every customer that has passed through here over the years and look forward to continuing to bring you new designs! Life is tough, but so am I! My favorite quote is “Never, never, never quit!” ~Winston Churchill

Now…onto the fun stuff. If you have read this far, here’s your chance to grab a fun bundle of designs bringing together all the catalogs offered in the shop. For $5.00 you will receive 9 designs valued at over $35! Go grab the Designer Spotlight Bundle {April 2023} today! It is available throughout the Designer Spotlight!