Today we’d like to introduce you to Shannon Holbrook.
Hi Shannon, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I have always been an entrepreneur at heart! I had a photography business from the ages 12-17! It was called TheHoneyBPhotography, and while doing that, I opened up TheHoneyBShop on Etsy to sell photograph prints! (and never once made a sale!) Once I started planning for college, I decided to spend all my monies on a planner after diving myself deep into the planner community rabbit hole. I saw beautiful planners decorated to the brim with fun stickers, but as I was shopping for stickers for my future planner, and again, no money – I decided to design my own that I could print and cut out of copy paper from my parent’s printer. I haven’t even received said planner yet, and I posted some of the sticker designs I made in a Facebook group dedicated to planners, and everyone loved them. So what does my entrepreneurial self do!? Open TheHoneyBShop back up on Etsy and I posted my PDF files of my stickers I designed for sale. This allowed others to buy them and print them their selves!
After doing this in end of July 2015, it only took two short months for me to save my earnings and turn them into an investment. I bought all the supplies to become a physical sticker shop for planners. A cutting machine, a new printer, sticker paper, mailers, and I was ready to go. It wasn’t until 2016 that I would discover using my own illustrations for my sticker designs! I have always been an artsy-fartsy kind of gal and took coloring books way too seriously as a kid! I went from scanning in images that I doodled on paper to purchasing an iPad and falling in LOVE with digital art. This really assisted my business in scaling, but I think 2019 was the pivotal point for TheHoneyBShop. In January 2019, we released our first ever Babe Box, with only 100 boxes available. This was a monthly stationery subscription that features a curated theme with rad, unique stationery products like sticky notes, washi tape, pens, papers, stickers, and so much more! We are now into year three of the Babe Box, and this has probably been the best decision… and my favorite thing I’ve ever done for TheHoneyBShop. We’ve grown to about 900 monthly subscribers and planner babes all over the world using our products. The Babe Box has been an amazing way for me to create new products that feel the void in the Planner Community. The Babe Box has also pushed me into another world to fall in love with – product development! Now, as we enter year 6 of TheHoneyBShop, we have transformed more into a product-based Stationery Shop. We specialize in planners, stickers, and so much more. We have expanded our lines, and offer lifestyle items too, which includes custom tumblers, vinyl decals, t-shirts, mugs, totes, etc!
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
It hasn’t always been the easiest journey being a female entrepreneur and a young one at that. I started my business at 18 and probably made more mistakes than most. My business got a large following pretty quick and a lot of people got to experience me “growing up.” Being in a community with a wide range of different people at different ages, I didn’t always “fit” in, and sometimes this affected my business. We turned those struggles into finding our own misfits, real quick, though! Finding my style and my aesthetic in my business has also been a struggle, honestly! And don’t even get me started about taxes. Why don’t they teach you stuff like that in high school!? I was clueless my first two years, and this was definitely something that impacted my business.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I didn’t initially open my business as an “artist” behind the scenes, but as I mentioned in our story, I discovered that I could totally use my own designs in 2016! Always being an artist at heart, I slowly transitioned into finding out how much I love digital art. Over the last few years, I have became a self-taught graphic designer! Learning Illustrator myself, figuring out how to draw in Procreate on the iPad, and just diving myself deep into my love for digital art! I remember when we first released our “Tattoo Babe” in the shop, she was a curvy bombshell with tons of tattoos (which you didn’t see often in illustrations for our niche community) – and it just BLEW up. That is when I knew I wanted to bring some inclusivity into the planner community. Not only tattooed beauties, but different skin tones, shapes, and sizes. This is still something I work on to this day, as I always want you to find yourself in my artwork. I would definitely say from this day, our Babes became something we are highly recognized for, and I am the most proud of. They have evolved so much, and I love doodling chunky but funky babes! Being a tattooed beauty myself and marrying a tattoo artist who owns his own shop here in Bremen, my artwork is heavily inspired by tattoos. You can see a lot of traditional tattoo ideas sprinkled throughout my work! This is something I believe that sets me apart from others in my community – just the style I have adapted and loved on! Alongside hand-illustrated artwork, I have also been practicing script + lettering in my business! You’ll find all our wordsy stickers + items are all hand-lettered by me!
How do you think about happiness?
There’s three things that make me the happiest. My husband, my family, and my business. And luckily, I’ve been able to blend the three up into my life. One of my proudest – and happiest moments of my life was making my business successful enough and grinding tooth and nail to allow myself to hire my mother and needing that assistance. Not only have I hired my mother, but I have now taken my sister on as it’s just us three running TheHoneyBShop. They always say you’re not working if you’re having fun, and every day is fun with these two. We never work a day in our life. Every day, we’re laughing, having fun, and dancing. Their support in my business makes me so happy, and they want nothing but the best for me. It has seriously been the best thing ever.
Pricing:
- $30 for Babe Box subscription
- Stickers start at $3
Contact Info:
- Email: contact@thehoneybshop.com
- Website: www.thehoneybshop.com (website) www.thbsbabebox.com (babe box)
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/thehoneybshop
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/thehoneybshop
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjp_NbeSrWRfg9eIWFesfTA
