Women Doing Business: Leigh Anne Hart

Posted on the 26 March 2012 by Gandbblog @GandBblog

Hi Readers! I'm Leigh Anne, from Hart to Heart Blog, as well as from Hart to Heart designs. When Melissa asked me to guest post for her Women Doing Business Series, I was so excited. If you want to know, what it's like starting a small business from scratch and getting your foot off the ground, you have come to the right place!
I have always had a lot of direction in my life, and have known exactly what I wanted to do. However, when my fiance (at the time) decided to join the Army my whole world was rocked. We got married last summer, moved across the country to Anchorage Alaska, he got deployed to Afghanistan 5 months later, and I decided to take a 6 month visit back home to Ohio to be with family.yadda. yadda yadda. 
There is a lot more to the story, but you get the idea-- the last year and a half has been a whirlwind! While meeting new people in Alaska, I met lots of wives with adorable babies! However, being newlyweds with a deployment coming up we knew that we needed to hold off on the baby making for at least another year. 
So the baby fever set in. Yep, I said it. However, I knew that there would be no babies in the near future, so I decided to live vi-curiously through some of my best friends and adorn their daughters in cute bows! 
I have always been fairly crafty. My mother is a die hard scrap-booker/card maker so I'm sure that had some influence. However, I had never thought about making products to sell. 
1 month pre-deployent I headed out to the craft store and went on a shopping spree. I spent the whole next evening just sewing, gluing and creating away. And who knew, I came up with some pretty cute things? My friends loved the headbands, and their babies did too!
So this is when Hart to Heart blossomed. I knew that if I put some serious time and effort into this idea, that one day I could make something pretty big out of it. So I signed up for an Etsy account, got inspiration and got to work. 
Along the way I contacted J&Paper and she helped me with creating an awesome label for my headband cards. Also somewhere in-between moving BACK from Alaska to Ohio,and my husband leaving for Afghanistan, I decided "hey, maybe I should start a blog too!".... at the same time as my 2nd to last quarter of my undergrad was beginning. Bad timing? -- no, but I learned time management that is for sure! 9 weeks later, I finished winter quarter, marked 3 months off the deployment countdown and took a moment to breath. I planned, contacted people, and sewed my little heart out in aims to get this shop off the ground! 
As much as I'd love to tell you how I have thousands of sales, I cannot. My shop is new, and I'm proud to be a new shop owner starting from scratch. However, I can tell you that the near future has great things in store for Hart to Heart Designs. A large photo shoot will be happening this Saturday, involving over 25 of my items, and I cannot wait to share the end results!
Starting this business has been a God send. I love creating things that other people appreciate, and also having an outlet for my creativity! I hope you all follow my journey on Hart to Heart Blog as well as keep an eye out for NEW and exciting things on Hart to Heart Designs. Thanks again to Melissa for asking me to take part in this series. 
xoLeigh Anne