Rising Stars: Meet Danielle Ansley

Today we’d like to introduce you to Danielle Ansley.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
In 2016, one of my closest online friends invited me to visit her in Illinois to help her with a booth she had rented at a convention. We had an incredible time together and working side-by-side with her opened my eyes to a new hobby- resin crafting! I fell in love and as soon as I got home, I invested in molds, resin, glitters, pigments… the works. I played with resin for a while but never really got anywhere with it, so I decided to take a break and focus on other hobbies. As I’m sure you’re well aware, life throws a lot at you sometimes and in the summer of 2019, I found myself jobless, depressed, and struggling. In an attempt to keep myself busy and distracted from my woes, I decided to throw my time and energy back into the hobby I had so greatly enjoyed. There were a few mold makers that I followed on social media and I absolutely adored their designs. There was one in particular who listed new molds once a week. You had to set a timer to even have a chance of purchasing one of their designs.

Week after week, I tried. No matter how quick I thought I was, I always missed the molds I wanted to purchase from them. I started noticing that this was a trend with a lot of mold makers in the community. I got frustrated that I could never seem to get my hands on any of the mold designs that wanted, so, one day, I threw my arms up and decided that it couldn’t possibly be all that difficult to learn how to do it myself! I took my savings and bought a laser cutter, found a silicone distributor in Atlanta, and dove headfirst into tutorials and articles online. I learned how to use the laser cutter and just starting designing! Originally, everything I created was for myself. I didn’t expect to be a ‘mold maker’- I thought I would just be designing molds for myself and that I could expand my resin business that way. I decided, however, that it could be lucrative to sell some of the molds I designed, so I started social media accounts for my mold-making business and opened a shop on an online marketplace. I was shocked when my molds started to completely sell out – just like I had seen with those other mold makers. I realized very quickly that making molds was where I needed to focus my attention. I stopped doing resin work and started my own website in early 2020.

Shortly thereafter, everyone was home and looking for a hobby to throw themselves into. While we saw a lot of bread being made, there was a shocking amount of people who picked up resin art. My business and social media pages unexpectedly took off. I was blown away. Stunned. I dreamed my entire life of being an artist and, while this isn’t exactly how I pictured using my creativity, I felt so incredibly blessed to have found success in mold making. When I started the website, I knew that having scarcity with my designs would cause a higher demand like I saw with other mold makers, but I remembered how awful it felt to not be able to get your hands on the designs you wanted and I decided that I would run my business differently. Apart from the occasional seasonal or special edition mold designs, I wanted my molds to be readily available to whoever wanted them. I did away with limited restocks and now my shop has over 400 mold designs available- and it is ever expanding! I love what I do and I’m looking forward to taking on new challenges and expanding even more in 2022!

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I started the business with essentially no idea what I was doing. There was a lot of trial and error and I had to learn how to deal with new and challenging situations on my own. I didn’t always make the right choices and when I realized how quickly my business had grown, I also faced some pretty serious burnout and growing pains. Running a one woman business is exhausting. I am the product artist, manufacturer, photographer, social media manager, website designer, marketing lead, accountant, fulfillment team, customer service, and so on! It’s a lot of hats to wear for one person and it can take a toll. Not only that but, with success, especially in a creative field, one of the biggest fears for designers and artists is theft and plagiarism. In the height of my growth in 2020, an overseas wholesale manufacturer took a series of screenshots of my social media posts. They proceeded to trace every single one of the designs, reproduce them and sell them for a fraction of the price. With me having so much on my plate already, it felt like a war I couldn’t win. I was devastated. I couldn’t compete with the prices and working to get the designs taken down was made nearly impossible with confusing and difficult to use webpages that were in another language, legal documents, etc.

On top of me already having to manage a business by myself, it was too much. It broke me for a while. Seeing someone else profit off of your hard work and creativity makes your stomach sink and is discouraging beyond belief. However, after some time, I realized that what I offer is special. I provide high-quality, lovingly made products that I am proud of and that I designed and created with my own two hands. I saw two choices; I could either spend my time endlessly fighting the theft as it spread across multiple websites, or I could focus my attention on creating new designs and expanding my business. I chose peace and to focus on growth. There will always be ups and downs with any business and I believe that it is important to make sure that, at the end of the day, you’re taking care of your own head and heart. I want to stay passionate about what I do because I know that will be reflected in my products and a huge part of that is self-care.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I spent my entire childhood with a pen, pencil, paintbrush, or marker in my hand. My mom tells me that the second I could pick up a pencil, I was drawing. I jumped from artistic hobby to hobby throughout my youth and my mom was always there supporting me, encouraging me, and feeding my creativity every step of the way. Any new interest I picked up, she made it happen. We weren’t particularly well-off, but she believed in fostering creativity in my sister and I. We were blessed to be able to try new things. I took cake decorating classes, learned how to sew, took voice lessons, acted in school plays, learned how to do beading and make jewelry, and so on. I tried every possible creative activity I could manage.

In the 4th grade, for career day, I dressed up as an art teacher. At that point in my life, I couldn’t imagine a better profession and I had always loved my art classes. It was my favorite part of school and I was certain that teaching art was what I wanted to do with my life. My parents had other plans and encouraged me, firmly, to pursue becoming a pharmacist. They knew it would be a solid career with stable income and multiple days off a week where I could enjoy art as a hobby. I excelled in high school, graduated with honors, and got a full-tuition scholarship to Mercer University. Towards the end of my freshmen year, after I had doubled-down on science classes and spent a few lectures quietly sobbing on the front row with my best friend, I knew that I would never be happy if I continued down that road. I swapped majors to Studio Art and decided to get a minor in English, with teaching art still in the back of my mind. College changed for me after that and I found my joy again. I learned very quickly that I loved painting. I would listen to audiobooks of my assigned reading for my English courses with a paintbrush in my hand.

After graduating and moving back to Atlanta, I ended up fulfilling my youthful dream of becoming an art teacher relatively quickly. It started with teaching an after school art club for first and second graders and ended with me being a pre-k and kindergarten art teacher. I loved it. It was a dream come true and an experience that I needed to have to know that I wanted to pursue my own career in art. I could never find my niche though. I wanted to be a painter so I tried to make it happen but I didn’t know how to market myself or get myself out there so I went back to hobby jumping. After a while, resin and mold making stuck with me. Right now, my primary focus with my mold making business is jewelry design. It is the perfect creative outlet and seeing the incredible things that resin artists make with my designs is indescribable. Getting tagged in photos of beautifully handcrafted jewelry is one of the greatest joys of my day-to-day. I love seeing other artists thrive and create and to be able to provide a tool for others to express themselves is the most amazing thing I could have ever imagined investing my time and creativity into.

Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
As cliché as it may sound, I’m certain that passion is what is most important to my success and the only reason why I am where I am today. Loving what you do is reflected in the things that you create. While I do sometimes face creative blocks and burnout, I love my job more than I could have ever imagined. Now that I’ve done this for two years, I don’t want to do anything else and that love for what I do creates a sense of pride that pushes me to create high-quality products, to try new things, to experiment, to grow, and to expand. Being able to share what I do with so many amazing artists is icing on the cake. The unique creativity that I see every day from my customers is so beautiful. Seeing people use my art and designs to express themselves is magical and sometimes surreal. Love seems to always be the secret ingredient.

Contact Info:

• Email: mistygrovemolds@gmail.com
• Website: https://mistygrovemolds.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mistygrovemolds/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mistygrovemolds
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/mistygrovemolds
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@mistygrovemolds 

Image Credits
Danielle Ansley