Today we’d like to introduce you to Monica Garcia.
Hi Monica, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Back in 2018, my friend and I attempted to make a macrame plant hanger through YouTube. It took us many hours and we drank wine and sang to Adele to get through the initial frustration of trying to make them. Later on that year, I moved and tried selling stuff through Facebook market. Not thinking my handmade creation would sell, I sold it for $15 and to my surprise got a lot of offers. The person that ended up buying it gave me a $20 and said “keep the change you deserve it”. I was very surprised, and although other offers kept coming through to make more, I declined. Then, starting in 2019 I was planning a trip to Hawaii and was looking to make some extra money. So I found my untouched roll of macrame rope, made just a few and posted it on online again. Lo and behold, I got a lot of messages coming through to the point that I had to go buy more supplies. I literally funded my whole trip with macrame money in less than a month and had some money left over after my trip.
I had planned on stopping once I funded my trip, but as I was on vacation I couldn’t stop thinking about making more and I started having different ideas as to what I could make next. Also, it didn’t help that I never took the Facebook post down so I kept getting more orders coming in even as I was in Hawaii. When I got back, I hit the ground running. I tried my hand at local farmer’s markets and festivals. I learned the hard way of doing everything and learned the consequences of being ill-prepared for weather. I really had no idea what I was doing, but I got so much support from the local community to keep going and was offered different opportunities to do consignment and different festivals. It has been a journey but I really am thankful for all the people who kept pushing me to keep going even when I wasn’t prepared.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Not at all. I think the biggest struggle I dealt with was my mindset. I had to learn a lot about myself during this process. When I first started this, end goal was a trip, but then after that it was like “okay if I just make some extra money from this I’ll stop once I hit this goal”. So going in with the mindset of this is all about money was setting myself up for disappointment and it didn’t fulfill nor give me purpose. I had a lot of moments where I had to ask myself why am I doing this? I was burning myself out and had to stop and refocus at one point, I had to acknowledge something that I had never considered myself as; I am an artist. I am not a factory, I create beautiful unique things, and I can make them as I please and however I want. That also means I can price them as I want and if people like it, they will buy it. In the beginning, I sold my products for dirt cheap which was not doing me any favors, and I was trying to produce them at high volumes. It was a lot and I had to learn about myself and realize that I am not a person who is solely motivated by making money. I am someone who loves making purposeful creations that bring people peace and most importantly give me peace. So that meant I had to say no to some opportunities and also meant I had to sell myself so that if people questioned my prices, I wouldn’t be offended. I had to learn my worth.
Other problems I encountered were silly and normal things I think people usually do — or maybe just me. For example, my first market I dived headfirst into the unknown. The market organizer gave me a list of things I needed for my market, like a tent, table, signs, weights for tents, etc. So me and my cheap self got a tent off of Craigslist (it had bright orange top), grabbed a linen cloth from a craft store and in my ugliest handwriting, I came up with “Macrame Mo” (didn’t have enough room for my name) as my business name. This sign was to be my welcome sign and only sign for my tent. Then for weights, I googled what people used (sandbags) and took that term quite literally. So I got some zip bloc bags, a giant bag of sand and filled them to the top (4 quart size bags). If you know anything about vendor markets (which I did not), you’ll know this is NOT what you need. First market of my life my tent leg broke, the sandbags obviously didn’t work, my boyfriend had to rush to get cement cinder blocks and truck straps to hold it down, and then the orange top flew off. So we were operating in a skeleton of a tent on my very first day. I made one real sale and two pity sales from my sister’s friend.
By the second market, we had a wooden post holding up one leg with my macrame cord tied around for support and then I ended up spilling crawfish juice all over my table cloth. Lord help me! Someone needed to wake me up to reality that this wasn’t going to work. Somehow I still made a lot of money those next few markets and that kept me thinking ‘this is fine, no need to upgrade nobody notices’. I think it was the last market of that season when a horrible windstorm broke my pots and soiled my sign, the skeleton frame-look was back, and I made no sales that day. I remember I looked around miserably at everyone’s intact tents and was like “Monica it’s time to invest”. I literally spent the rest of that market day ordering quality equipment off of Amazon as I sat in the blazing sun in my skeleton tent. I was so stressed out then but now I look back and think it’s hilarious how stubborn and cheap I was.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a macrame artist that specializes in plant hangers. I am the owner of Monica’s Porch, an online store where I sell all my creations. I do live markets as well, but since COVID those have been very limited. I also create other home and plant goods, such as cement planters, wall hangings, seasonal decor, and I take custom orders as well. I also am an instructor and teach classes for beginner to advance macrame. I am most proud of the fact that I kept going even though there are plenty of other macrame artists, heck you can even get some cheaper ones off of Amazon. But I am proud that I’ve continued and have developed my story through my business because I think that’s why people buy from me. It’s not just because they want it, because truthfully they can find it elsewhere cheaper, but maybe it’s because of my story that I give through my products.
I invite people in, I welcome them to my creative side, I give them a glimpse of what they can add to their homes to make it more “peaceful” and I encourage them that they can not only buy it but make them too if they want. What I design is meant to inspire peace within their own homes and hopefully minds too. When I set up my sets or markets, I set up with the idea of “what’s going to make these people sigh with relief and feel like they can just rest” because that’s what I want my products to inspire in their own homes. I guess what I am most proud of is my business’s name, Monica’s Porch because I believe it encapsulates that meaning of rest, welcoming, peace, and inspiration. It’s like I’m saying, “come on in, there’s always a seat here for you”. No matter what walk of life people come from, I know we all need a little bit of peace and little bit of joy to make it to our next destination.
What makes you happy?
In this quarantine period of my life, a good space is what’s important to me and brings me happiness. I have moved so many times recently and currently in transition moving out of a super small space with all my work stuff plus bedroom crammed together. Since we can’t really go anywhere during this time, having a good home space is super important to me and really brings me happiness. I am really looking forward to my new home, I will have my own art studio in it, and this has been a very long time coming for me so I am super excited to move in. It’s not the idea of perfection and cleanliness in a space that I’m trying to achieve, it’s more of just having a place where I am planted and can grow and create that makes me happy and in general at ease. Other things that make me happy, not staring at a screen and being outside in the sunshine doing something active. I love me some sunshine!
Pricing:
- Plant hangers starting at $17
Contact Info:
- Email: macrame.mo@gmail.com
- Website: www.monicasporch.com
- Instagram: @monicasporch
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