20/05/2026
Don’t let the pretty pastel photos of perfect craft rooms fool you!
This is what running a creative small business REALLY looks like.
It’s more doom-piles, half-drunk coffee cups, admin and anxiety than rows of pretty colourful papers stored perfectly in rainbow-order.
“A place for everything and everything in its place” …ha! 😂
The reality is that when you’re a small business paying rent on a workshop, you’ve almost definitely outgrown the space before you unpack (IYKYK 😬), so if something stays in one place for long enough, it becomes a place to store other things on top of it. Sometimes you gotta move 10 things just to make room to put something down.
I’d love to have an insta-perfect setup, but, unfortunately, running a business gets in the way of that. If I had time to curate a perfect space for content, I’d be worrying where the orders had gone.
If you’re new here, hi! 👋 I’m Emma, a small business owner who makes really pretty cards and stationery, but has a really messy workshop. I’m here to de-influence you, and share some of the real, human, messy side of small business life. I’m bored of following the Instagram rules and showing perfectly curated content of my “perfect” small business life. Because running a small business is savage, brutal, hard work. It’s not pretty 😂
If you like greetings cards, snail mail, stationery and gifts, but want to see real human content and art and genuine, honest behind the scenes from my studio, be sure to hit follow and stick around x
