How Our Shop Came To Be

We started our business by mistake.
A pretty well-intentioned mistake.
I (Heather) thought of this INGENIUS way to fund our next adoption.  We already made candles at home... why not sell them on Etsy?
But why not up the ante a little and make the candles soy wax instead of paraffin? 
And why not sell them in gift sets in little crates?

I looked around for crates.  They were so expensive and not to the dimensions that I wanted. 
Then one day, I asked Michael to try making some simple crates, as long as he stayed under the price that I was thinking about paying per crate.

And he made crates exactly how I wanted them for one-seventh of the price.
So we put the candles on Etsy.  None sold for a week or two, and I got antsy.
Suddenly, it came to me.  Michael could make some crates to sell to other people who might be having the same problem that I had been having.  And he could make nesting sets! And take custom orders!

Very shortly afterwards, we listed our first crates on Etsy.  Soon our crates began selling like crazy, and we were getting custom orders and adding new items to our shop.  In six months, we only had two candle purchases from people we knew.... so we took it as a sign, and took the candles out of our shop and focused solely on crates and crate-like furniture.  And that is how we found ourselves where we are today.