Speaker 1: 0:30

My name is Lisa Holliday and my business name is the Joyful Penguin. I'm an LLC and right now I just kind of focus on retail. I focus on making polymer clay jewelry, mostly earrings, and then I make decoupage, oyster shell, trinket dishes and ornaments.

Speaker 2: 0:46

Okay, interesting. Tell me a little bit about how you kind of fell into this, how you got into doing all these different crafts.

Speaker 1: 0:57

Sure, I've always been kind of artsy-craftsy my entire life and in different stages of my life I've nurtured it or I've been away from it and I was a teacher. And then in 2018, I stepped away from that and did some tutoring on the side and I had the time to actually maybe make this a thing and I just kind of delved into some crafts and things like that and I stumbled across these shells on the internet and I thought those are really cute. I could totally do that. So I actually went into town to King Street Oyster and I asked the manager I'm like it's going to sound strange, but can I take some shells home with me? He said sure, and I kind of played with it and started making those, not really sure what I was going to do with it.

Speaker 1: 1:38

I used some of my own house, I gave somebody's gifts and then during COVID, tierra Flynn at the Global Local had a workshop. Through. It was Harper Lee Designs. She's also local and she makes polymer clay jewelry and she had a workshop and a friend and I went there and did that, had a lot of fun with it, and then I just kind of explored that more and more and I was doing some other things. At the time I was making these wrap bracelets, I was experimenting with air, dry clay and, one day, air dry clay.

Speaker 1: 2:12

Yeah, yeah, because I love pottery but I know it's quite an expensive thing to get into. I had no history with it and I was just like, let me just see so again, making small bowls and magnets, like things like that. And after taking that workshop and seeing Tira's store I had mentioned to her one day apart from that day I said I would love to just sell things in here. And she goes well, what do you make? And I told her I was kind of dabbling and she goes well, bring it, I'll sell it. I'm like you don't even know me and you're going to say yes to this.

Speaker 2: 2:45

You're like do you trust me?

Speaker 1: 2:50

Yeah, she was super sweet about it, so literally the like what's going on here, you know. So she has been instrumental in helping me get the confidence to put my stuff out there and, believe me, it was terrible three years ago. I've improved quite a bit but, um, and just kind of taking that chance on me and allowing me to do that, and it's just um, it's just kind of taken off from there. So I've kind of narrowed it down to the shells.

Speaker 1: 3:16

Okay, I, in complete transparency, I didn't think I'd still be making them, I thought it was this kitschy thing that would pass. But now you see them in a lot of places and they're popular and she keeps asking for them. I've now branched out to some other stores and still doing that, just trying to find some other creative ways to use them as well, like ornaments and some visual art things, and then just playing more with the jewelry as well, because there's just so much you can do with that. So, even though there's a lot of clay art in the area, we all kind of have our own unique style.

Speaker 2: 3:50

So tell me a little bit about you said at the beginning of all this. You said that you were a teacher.

Speaker 1: 3:56

Yes, right yes, uh, what did you used to teach? I taught elementary education, so primarily second and third grade, with a year in fifth grade.

Speaker 2: 4:05

But um my husband. You were very creative.

Speaker 1: 4:08

Yes, and that allowed me to kind of work in that creativity, um, especially in the beginning of my career when it wasn't, um, because teaching is very different now than it was when I first started. As far as the time you have to work in that kind of stuff and you can still be creative when teaching today, of course, but I just felt like I had more time to do those little art projects at the end of a unit or to work it in in a lesson.

Speaker 1: 4:29

So that kind of checked the box for me while I was teaching.

Speaker 2: 4:32

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 4:32

So yeah, that's really cool. Now kind of check the box for me while I was teaching, yeah, so yeah, that's really cool.

Speaker 2: 4:44

Now, are you using those teaching skills that you've acquired over the last couple years for any, incorporating it into this new stuff that you're doing with the shells and the jewelry and all of this?

Speaker 1: 4:52

I have, and Tiara, once again, had encouraged me to start these workshops, so I do teach people how to do the decoupaging process with the shell. I've done some earring workshops and, honestly, I really enjoy the shells more. What is this process called Decoupage? So you can decoupage it's like basically gluing.

Speaker 2: 5:09

So tell us. I was going to say, tell me a little bit about the process, cause I'm I've never done it before, and I don't know if any of our listeners have done it before either, but like what kind of all goes into the process of these shells.

Speaker 1: 5:26

I'm going to take a quick swig of my water before I start. I feel my mouth getting sticky. So yeah, you can decoupage almost anything. In some processes it's transferring images onto something using Mod Podge, which is basically a crafter's glue. That's the best way I can summarize it.

Speaker 2: 5:45

It's the stuff they put over, like painting sometimes, right or no.

Speaker 1: 5:49

I don't know if I'd use it for that like to give it like shine or gloss.

Speaker 1: 5:54

There might be some people out there doing that. That's not my thing so I'm not really sure. But there are things that people do to create. When they either transfer an image onto something or they're gluing this image onto something, they'll use it as a sealant. But for what I do with the shells is, once I've prepped the shell, I'll paint it. After it's clean, of course, paint it this nice white background, because the shells are very different. So there's dark spots, there's light spots, and just to kind of keep it even tone, I'll paint it with paint and then I'll put the image in there. So it's not this like stamping or anything like that. I put the actual image in there and then I seal it with the mod podge. So that whole process of using mod podge to kind of seal in that image is the best way I can explain decoupage.

Speaker 1: 6:38

But there's other, there's many ways you can do that so people decoupage images on birdhouses and vases and all that kind of stuff, so I just happen to do it on shells very interesting.

Speaker 2: 6:49

So you just saw this somewhere and it was like this is my inspiration.

Speaker 1: 6:55

Yeah, it was like just something to get me started. Ultimately and the people who know me have been hearing this for three years I really want to get into drawing and painting again.

Speaker 2: 7:04

So that's what I started with when I was a kid.

Speaker 1: 7:05

I was going to say did you used to draw and paint? Yes, so when I was younger that was my thing and my parents saw that I was above average, so they poured into that a little bit. I signed me up for like private art lessons and then once I hit junior high I grew up in New York so we didn't have a high school at the time, so junior high was like seventh or ninth grade and then we had a choice of a couple of surrounding schools. So once seventh grade hit, because I was also playing sports, my parents said you got to pick one. I have two siblings. They had their own interests and stuff like that. So I picked sports and I don't regret it. I love sports, I love being part of a team, I love that kind of community.

Speaker 1: 7:42

Um, so art has been in and out of my life, um, in different aspects. Uh, sometimes I had no time for it, other times I would start. I've started a lot of things, I'll say that, but never really had a chance to nurture it and it wasn't until I stepped away from teaching that I had the time. So I still hope to get back to drawing and painting. I have all the supplies and all the time I just don't have the time. So once we'll see how far the shell stuff goes, I think the jewelry I can play with for a while because that changes. But I think maybe once the shelves take up a lot of my time. The process and because I supply different stores and I do my own markets, it takes up time and I've taken three years to kind of balance how I want that to play out in my life.

Speaker 2: 8:30

Very interesting. Going back to the process of the shelves and all of this stuff and hosting these classes. Um, what do you find most challenging?

Speaker 1: 8:41

um, about just the whole thing the whole business, um, I think just finding that balance, because I don't need this business to put food on the table. This is something that brings me joy. This is something that um takes up my I mean, I've got plenty of other things too, but it's like I want to do this and I feel like I've been given this opportunity to do it. I want to take advantage of it. So I think the hardest thing was trying to find that balance. My first year I signed up for any and every event that someone would take me and I was completely burnt out. In the end Now made a nice little chunk of change, but I'm like it's not worth it. Every weekend I'm doing something.

Speaker 1: 9:15

I'm not spending. My husband works full time during the week and then I'm on the weekends and it's like it's just the two of us and our dog, so I didn't like we had no time together really. So I'm like, okay, let me scale back, let me see what shows are actually beneficial for me. Um, and last, last year, I did better, but this year I just did like two spring shows. I didn't do anything during the summer except um, supply the stores and had a couple of orders and and then I was like, okay, well, the fall and winter markets are usually tend to be better anyway. So I've about six of those and I think, I think I found a nice balance where I'm busy enough and I see the benefit of it.

Speaker 2: 9:52

It's not work yet it doesn't feel like work, it's still fun.

Speaker 1: 9:56

It's still fun. Yeah, there's some parts of the process I don't like doing, but it just comes with it. But I think that was the hardest part for me and knowing when to stop, because I had actually this year I was like there's the painted tree markets were coming.

Speaker 2: 10:09

There's one in.

Speaker 1: 10:10

Sterling. There's one in Dulles. I signed up for one and then all I did was brought me stress and I was like I can't balance this. It's just me, you have to know stress.

Speaker 2: 10:20

Should I stress for this.

Speaker 1: 10:22

Yeah, is it worth it, right? And then I had signed up for this big show in Dulles and I'm like what am I doing? I'm going to rip my hair and I haven even started prepping for it. So I pulled out of both and I felt so good about it because I'm like you know I'm happy where I am.

Speaker 2: 10:42

I love the community I'm a part of, I love the people I get to interact with and I'm content right now. So, okay, well, flipping the coin a little bit, what do you find most rewarding about? About being able to have your own business? About the stuff that you know, these products that you provide?

Speaker 1: 10:58

There's a couple of things. One, just being a part of this community, like I mentioned. It's very important to me because, especially when I stopped teaching, I was home yeah, it's different and just having a lot of conversations with the dog, you know those kind of things. I wasn't a part of anything.

Speaker 2: 11:14

And when did you say you stopped teaching it?

Speaker 1: 11:16

was the 2016, 2017 year. I did some tutoring and then I taught during COVID and that was about it and during COVID, we were all homes.

Speaker 2: 11:28

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 11:29

So that part's been nice, just meeting all the people other vendors, other shop owners, other connections that people have made for me and just these friendships that have started. I get to do something I like to do. I like working with my hands. I'm making some money on the side, which is fun because I've been able to pay for things on vacations that you know maybe weren't in the budget or you know didn't want to be extravagant with, or things like that. So it's just been nice to be able to contribute to those kinds of things and be able to do something I really enjoy. And then I have pretty much complete control over it. So if it's too much I'll scale back, if I want more, I can add some more. So it's kind of nice having that working for yourself kind of feel.

Speaker 2: 12:11

Yeah, yeah, that's very true. So tell me a little bit um about what are you doing currently for marketing for your events, or for just selling or having at the, or what shops are you currently at?

Speaker 1: 12:30

I'm currently with the global local here in town. Um, I'm also with the Global Local here in town. I'm also with handmade local makers and artists and crafters LMAC, it's a mouthful, but they have a location in One Loudon and in Dulles Town Center. So I'm in both of those and I recently branched out to Erin's Elderberries down in I guess Vint Hill would be the area. I have some family down that way and I do have a couple of friends who have stuff in that store. So I have a website that I kind of list these things on. I don't. I tried doing the selling on the website and it just it was too much and and I'm going to be honest with you just the the idea of making reels every day and doing all that kind stuff.

Speaker 2: 13:14

I started. No, I'm not the TikToker. You're not the dance girl.

Speaker 1: 13:18

No, I love it, I love watching other people do it and it's just like that's not me and it's also I try to branch out a little bit into some of it and it just it's a lot of time and energy and I know if I got used to it I'd probably get better at it, but I just didn't want to kind of go down that road. So I do post on Instagram, I do have a Facebook business page. So those are my main things and I'll, you know, at shows I'll have like a flyer to, you know, advertise future shows, things like that. So those are my main ways of advertising.

Speaker 2: 13:52

I was looking at your Instagram earlier. I saw all the pictures of the shelves. I was like, just by seeing this, it's very like, aesthetically pleasing and interesting to like oh, thank you just go through it and want to look at more and more of them, so I like it.

Speaker 2: 14:11

Um, can you tell me a little bit about maybe giving another entrepreneur out there who is deciding whether they really want to go full force into a new venture? What kind of advice would you give somebody who's deciding should I, should I do this, should I? Maybe it's not. They think it's something that other people would never be interested in, or, you know, yeah.

Speaker 1: 14:45

I would say to ignore that little voice in your head saying, um, it's not going to work, it's not worth the shot, it's people aren't going to like what you have to offer, all those things. Because I fought those same voices and it took someone like Tira to get me to ignore them and just put myself out there like it's scary. You know, because I put these shells in these poorly made earrings, at least at the beginning, and I was worried about what other people were thinking. I understand that, like there's people who put out beautiful stuff and it's not for me, I wouldn't buy it, but I think it's beautiful, I can appreciate the craft.

Speaker 1: 15:21

But to to not let, um, those fears get in the way and to just take risks to find your people, to find people who believe in you and support with you, whether it's family or friends or even other people in the, in the business and um, and just really, for me, community was so important. I found out about so many of these events and possibilities and stuff through other people. I uh, you can find things online, sure, but it's different when you get it word of mouth and you get people giving you advice like, oh, don't do this one, it wasn't good, or do this one it was great. Or connect with this store owner. She's looking for more inventory, you know those kind of things. So I would say just to kind of push through those fears and just give it a shot, because you just never know. I had no idea I'd be where I am today when I first started.

Speaker 1: 16:16

And now you're having a whole bunch of fun doing all these crafts. I'm earning pretty decent money for what I'm doing and yeah, I've made a lot of friends. All right.

Speaker 2: 16:21

Well, tell me a little bit about you, outside of all of the fun crafts and stuff. Who are you? Outside of the business type? Do you like going out? Do you like? Are you a foodie? Oh, I like food.

Speaker 1: 16:40

I wouldn't consider myself a foodie but I like food. I'm Italian, so I like food. But I would say a big part of my life is missions work. So I just recently came back from a trip from Zimbabwe and that was the first trip I've taken in about six years, but before that it was a huge part of my life. It's a long story, but back in 2004, it was my first year teaching. Actually it was that December that the Asian tsunami hit and my husband and I were like we need to do something. You know, our church needs to do something. So a couple months later, a small team we were a part of that went to Sri Lanka and first time I left the country, going to this horrible, devastated area, and we built, we helped build some homes, assisted with another crew with building a women's pregnancy ward, and after that trip we're like this is something that needs to be part of our life. And about a year later my husband left his job as a police officer for Fairfax County, which he loved, oh my.

Speaker 1: 17:43

God and took over the missions director position in our church. It wasn't something he was planning on doing right away, but the guy left the position. He's like all right, this is my opportunity. So for those next few years he built relationships with various different places, but our main focus was Nicaragua and we traveled back and forth. For a while I went with him as much as I could with the teacher schedule. I went during the summers and then about four years into it, I told him. I said I you're gone too much. I want to do this with you. We need to figure something out. So I left teaching the first time and we moved to Nicaragua and we um so how long were you in Nicaragua for? Well, that time we were only there for a couple of, because we were spending our time doing like language school and stuff like that we actually had a trip to the Middle East during that summer doing another trip and unfortunately I was diagnosed with cancer that summer.

Speaker 1: 18:38

So we went home and spent about a year taking care of that and then Sorry to hear that, oh, thank you. So. But then we were like, okay, well, we're not gonna move back again, but we continued to do stuff there, and I'm condensing a very long story into short, but at some point my husband felt like it was time to leave his position.

Speaker 1: 18:59

We moved to Arizona Again, a whole long story. I taught for a year out there. He was learning how to fly airplanes, which is always what he wanted to do, started here in Leesburg and he's like we need to go somewhere where there's more consistent weather. I'm like I'll go wherever. So we went to Arizona and while we were there he's like I feel like we're supposed to go back to Nicaragua and I said okay. So we packed up our stuff supporting us financially to go and those families were heavily invested in what we were doing there prior to anyway. So they loved that we were going. They loved having the accountability down there and we were there for about two and a half years and while I was there I taught English to.

Speaker 1: 19:42

There was an orphanage on the property. It was about 250 kids there, so I taught almost all of them. There was another American down there who took a year to teach at the actual school, so she taught all the littles because I couldn't understand their Spanish. My Spanish isn't wonderful, but I really enjoyed that because that was a lot of fun. I was teaching. There's a lot of creativity I had to do for them just because of lack of resources and then just you know, in general. But then we came back after about two and a half years and we've been here, we are in a new church in Leesburg and this is their first time doing a missions trip and we jumped on board and we loved it and we hope to go back in the spring. That's amazing, yeah. So I'm excited to have that aspect of my life back.

Speaker 2: 20:23

That's awesome. I love hearing that awesome. I love hearing that. I love hearing that you've followed your. What you feel like is your calling to wherever it may drive you, and that's that's awesome, yeah we've been blessed to have that kind of flexibility, so to speak.

Speaker 1: 20:42

Um, we don't have kids which people do it with kids, but, um, it does obviously make it a little bit more challenging. But, yeah, we've taken advantage of every opportunity we could and just try to make sure we're hearing the Lord and what he wants us to do, and try to be obedient to that.

Speaker 2: 20:58

Yeah, that's amazing. I love hearing that. Tell me a little bit about. I think we had a. You have a little bit of a winter market coming up or an event that's coming up soon.

Speaker 1: 21:18

I do so. The fall and winter markets are kind of where it's at for me, and this month I actually have two. So I've got Bluemont Fair coming up on the 21st and 22nd.

Speaker 1: 21:27

And that's been a very good show for me. Love the coordinator, kim Labas. She's just awesome. Where is it? It's in um. It's the community center in bluemont and it's that whole area. So there's arts, crafts, there's um, there's food, there's uh, wine, beer, and then all these things that the community provides and offers. Um, it's a big event, so that's a lot of fun. I'll be in the barn. I always get in the barn because I don't have to deal with the tent. It can get hot in there, but I do like it. So that's coming up. And then the following weekend I'm at Aquaquan's Fall Fest. That I haven't done before, so I'm excited about that one. And then I've got a couple in the area. I've um. I do have a workshop coming up though, um, at henway cidery in bluemont. It's part of the whole dirt farm, um, what's it called? Bluemont vineyards, like that whole family, and I'm doing a workshop with the trinket dishes there, and that is october 27th.

Speaker 1: 22:23

So I'm hoping to get some signups for that because, um, I had one during the summer and we had to cancel it just for just it was just kind of the vibe the summer and we had to cancel it just for just it was just kind of the vibe all summer with people trying to do workshops. There's just weren't getting people to sign up, but you know people are busy.

Speaker 1: 22:35

Yeah, we're in fall and it's fun and you know that kind of stuff, so I'm hoping to get a good time and it involves the winery brewery vibes, the fall vibes.

Speaker 2: 22:45

Yes, yeah, okay, awesome so where can people sign up for this workshop?

Speaker 1: 22:49

It's on my website now. It's at the joyfulpenguincom. So you can go to the events page. But it's also on the main page. You can just click on the link. There you go. People Sign up, you have to go.

Speaker 2: 23:01

All right, awesome. Is there anything that I haven't touched on or that we haven't touched on during this conversation that you would like to address?

Speaker 1: 23:14

say to the audience let everybody know I would just kind of like to circle back on that community thing and how much I love being a part of Leesburg. We actually lived in Leesburg before, on the other side of town, when we were younger and broke and you know, just always wanted to live downtown and just you know, it was just always out of our price range. But we thought we moved around quite a bit, ended up in Leesburg twice and then, coming back this last time from Nicaragua, we were looking at building a house down in Haymarket and then this house popped up in town and he's like, he's like, you know, let's take a look at it because it was small, we had to add to it, but it's right off Marcus Street. We love it. It's not in town In town, so it's super quiet where we are. But we love that. We can.

Speaker 1: 23:59

I walk every morning not every morning, but I walk a lot in the mornings and I can walk through town. So you could have literally walked here. I could have walked here. I could have walked here. I would have been a little sweaty, but yeah, I could have walked here. Yeah, I would have taken about 15 or 18 minutes and I just love it and I love being a part of knowing some of the small businesses here and just the connections I've made and um again, with Tira just introducing me to people and I just I've never had that before.

Speaker 2: 24:22

I've never had that community feel and all the neighborhoods we've lived never had you know, I kind of feel that same way about Leesburg, because I never liked Leesburg really. I grew up in like Sterling and like that area, so for me I was like, oh, leesburg's too far, yeah, but I moved down here what like four years ago and I live very close to downtown. Like driving is is like five minutes away. So I'm like I like the being able to walk around.

Speaker 1: 24:52

It's a great little town and when we first lived here there was not much going on down here. It was mostly just the antique shops and whatnot. But when we moved back we're like, wow, this has changed quite a bit. This is like a hopping place.

Speaker 2: 25:05

Have you been to a First Friday yet? Oh yeah, yeah, I have done.

Speaker 1: 25:09

I did one it was still cold, so it was one of the early ones I think it was in April where I just kind of had like a table to demo what I was doing right underneath Tuskegee's, so next to the office there, the Visit Loudoun. So that was fun. And then, yeah, we've come out plenty of times, but now that we live here it is busier on the weekends, so we kind of sneak in during the week just so it's not as crowded, but we encourage people to come, because we love this town and we want to see it thrive.

Speaker 2: 25:36

Awesome. Well, thank you very much for being here today, but for my last question, I'm going to ask you if you could leave our listeners with a message or some sort of mantra that you live by, or anything like that. What would that be?

Speaker 1: 25:56

I would say and this is on my website do more of what brings you joy. Have something in your life that you find joy in. We can get stuck in a rut with work and especially if it's not something we truly enjoy and I've been there, I've taken jobs and I'm like I am getting nothing out of this other than a paycheck, and that's why I went into teaching and for other reasons, I had to leave that. But yeah, just find that one thing that you can find yourself in and just get joy from it. I think it's important.

Speaker 2: 26:28

Yeah, it is. It's very important to be happy.

Speaker 1: 26:33

Yes, it's time to do so.

Speaker 2: 26:35

Thank you very much for being here today.

Speaker 1: 26:37

You're welcome. Thanks for having me. This has been fun.

Speaker 2: 26:38

And telling us all about the different crafts that you're able to show and teach, and all of that. So thank you very much, you're welcome.