Today we’d like to introduce you to Alisha Allen.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
It was the Christmas of 2017 and my aunt usually sends little extra Christmas funds for the kids to buy presents. This year she made it clear that I needed to use some of the funds on myself.
A friend of mine had just picked up a Cricut Expression off of Facebook Marketplace and was making her own t-shirts so on a whim I went over to Cricut’s website and purchased the Explore One.
This would start me on a journey that would lead to current-day Vibrant Xpressions. Soon after placing the order to Cricut, my mom fell ill with an infectious brain mass in her frontal lobe brain.
After weeks of being by her side, I returned home to this box from Cricut. I had joined a few Cricut groups on Facebook but still didn’t know what to do with them, but the few projects I tried were immensely helpful to my mental health. One of the craft groups I joined had an admin named Holli Mostella and she literally saved me. She had tutorials that were easy to understand and before long I was making beautiful projects.
It got me out of my head and into producing something productive. After 2 long months, my mother was released from the hospital. Not the same woman she was before the infection but still a mom. My mother was my biggest fan. I’d send her pictures of all the things I created and she encouraged me to branch out into selling my designs.
At that point, Vibrant Xpressions was born.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
It has been far from a smooth road. I start Vibrant Xpressions in July of 2018 and just did work for friends and family for the most part. I started in t-shirts and home decor work. Then in March of 2019, my dad turned ill very suddenly and passed away. That put everything on hold because my mom needed round-the-clock care immediately.
We had to figure out how to move our life and family from Enterprise, AL to Seymour, TN, and in a hurry. My mom needed monitoring by doctors which we couldn’t provide in Enterprise. From March to May we figured out what we needed to do to move the whole house 400+ miles north. I started dabbling into other crafts during this transition.
In April of 2019, I did my first tumbler and from that point, I was hooked and would be the focus of my business. In May of 2019, we moved. My mom, my significant other, 3 teenage children, and 5 dogs. When we finally were settled and had our bearings about us Covid hit. I had only done one craft show in the local area and definitely didn’t get my name out there locally.
I did however get introduced to a Facebook gaming streamer and it busted a hole wide open for supplying merchandise to a handful of Twitch and Facebook streamers.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Tumblers are my passion. Creating beautiful works of art that people carry around with them is my calling.
Also teaching others how to make them. I focus my TikTok platform on helping other tumbler makers learn the craft without some of the pitfalls that I went through while learning. I specialize in resin arts as well.
Tumblers using resin, keychains, magnets, coasters, and most successfully recently resin pens.
Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
Yes! There are so many inspiring figures in the crafting world! Melody Lane was my first mentor and she was amazing. She would share her knowledge through YouTube tutorials and classes, but this year unfortunately succumbed to covid. My most meaningful mentor has been Holli Mostella.
She is an inspiration for everything that embodies strength. She has YouTube tutorials, a Pateron group of the most inspiring ladies, and a couple of gents that will lift you up on your darkest days, as well as a Podcast, Crafting and Beyond. Through this group, I met Sarah Anne who runs BAMF Creations and she has youtube to help navigate small business hurdles as well as blogs on her website and tutorials.
Sarah Meadows Brown is a driving force as well also met through Holli’s group and she is the co-owner of Counter Culture DIY and also runs a podcast called A Culture of Inspiration.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.vibrantxpressions.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vibrantxpressions/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VibrantXpressionsAL
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/VibrantXPS
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN3NOsAj5DIuM7o1NUOP9TQ
