7.13.2016

Our New Blog

Why hello everyone! We are super excited to be starting a blog for Pineapple Princess Design Co. and plan to give you exciting back stories, facts about our business and stationery, free printables, and so much more. The sky seems to be the limit on where we can take this, so it's going to be really fun!



Let's have our first post start with a short summary on how Pineapple Princess Design Co. came to be:


In 2011, my best friend and I were planning each other's baby showers (our little boys were born 2 days apart). I'd had a little graphic design experience, so I thought I'd give it a go at trying to design her shower invitations. As I came up with several invitation ideas, I began to think about how I could share my designs with others.

So.. I started a blog called "Graphic Design by Becky". Nothing too fancy, but I was offering my invitation and graphic design services for free (or really, really cheap). I didn't seem to be getting very much traffic.. apparently no one wanted my free designs! Then a friend suggested for me to open an Etsy shop.

Etsy was something I had looked into before, but it seemed like an expensive and risky investment. I told her I didn't want to pay that much for something that I wasn't sure about.. shortly thereafter I had changed my mind and I opened my Etsy shop on May 3rd, 2012. Our business has only grown and flourished since then.

Things started to change and shift when I had decided that I wanted my focus to be more on stationery and invitations. Although I love doing anything and everything that has a need for graphic design, when someone would ask me if I could help them with a logo I would quickly become overwhelmed and wanted to crawl into a cave and would be consumed by my anxiety.

Logo work, even if it pays off in the end  (I had somewhat of a good portfolio), was always stressful. I never knew what kind of request I would get, and as a new business owner, I was still having to learn how to say "no". (If you're a business owner, you know how hard that lesson can be to learn.)  So, I decided that I wouldn't have listings on my Etsy shop that were listed for custom logo or business design work, and I wanted to change my name to reflect more on my specialty and move away from the image that I can do any kind of graphic design.

Thus, our new-ish name: Pineapple Princess Design Co. (a.k.a. PPDesignCo.). Why the name Pineapple Princess? When I was little, I had a computer math game that I would play on our family's PC and they wouldn't accept any "normal" kid's name (it was an alien/space themed game, and it was weird). So my daddy had come up with the name "Pineapple Princess" and that nickname has kind of stuck ever since. With my nickname, and my love for pineapples, I felt good about using that as our new business name and image.


Etsy has been nothing short of a huge blessing for me and my family. It allows me to have an outlet to do what I love while also being a mom to my three boys and help to our family's income.


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I was diagnosed with synovial sarcoma (a kind of cancer, for those of you who don't know what that is) in my right thigh this last March. My husband was also unemployed during that time. So during chemo and all sorts of fun treatments and appointments, I still had to maintain my Etsy shop (with my mother's help) so that our family could have some kind of revenue coming in. With my husband's genius engineer brain, he purchased me a hospital desk/table and made it so I could do work on my desktop in bed.

Here's what that looks like:




So in between treatments, hospital appointments and many, many emails and Etsy messages, I still manage to be able to get orders fulfilled and rest periodically without completely going insane.

I feel so lucky to be able to do what I love and be a mom to my three sweet boys at the same time.


Thanks for reading! Shoot me an email or leave a comment if you have any questions!

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