This is the last week of summer and so the Side-Hustle Summer Series comes to a close with my favorite side-hustle: The Pottery Shop!
By day, my cousin Melissa is a full-time Insurance agent and by night she has been making beautiful stoneware, using slip and clay, by pouring and hand building, for years. She also has an amazing eye for design and can make any room look like it came out of a Southern Living magazine!
Last year she opened up the cutest home decor, personal goods and pottery shop in Taylorsville, Mississippi, just up the road from another quaint store run by Erin and Ben Napier: Mercantile in Laurel. You could say she is our town’s very own version of Joanna Gaines from the Silo’s in Waco!
She curates cool T-shirts, handmade local artisan goods, high-quality coconut doormats, real leather and mixed media handbags, plus her unique one-of-a-kind pottery and gifts. All of this while raising her daughter, working full-time & taking care of her mother.
I truly admire all the time and care that she puts into stocking her store, designing her art and then helping me find just the right gift for someone. She has so many unique ideas and I love the way she brings them to life in all that she does. How does she balance it all? She has help: her daughter works there and also is a ceramic artist, plus her mom and aunt work to keep the store open during the week, and her fiancé is helpful and handy in construction.
It takes a village to breathe life into a side business and keep it running while you work time! Her motto, printed on her business card: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.” – James 1:17
