Crafty Chica’s ‘Enthusiastic Desperation’ Turns ‘Latino Chic’ into Glittery Business
April 6, 2009
Patricia Marroquin–HispanicBusiness.com
Like one of her boldly colorful, well-assembled love shrines, Kathy Cano-Murillo’s career has come together nicely.
But for the woman dubbed the “Crafty Chica,” the road to mainstream success — from selling her Mexican pop art out of her home to launching a mass-retail line of craft products — was strewn with fabric scraps, paint and loads of glitter.
On her Web site, CraftyChica.com, Cano-Murillo, 44, admits to being a “hardcore craftaholic,” but she wasn’t always one.
As a young wife and mother in Arizona in the early 1990s, she and her husband Patrick, an artist and musician, started their own business making Mexican pop art. With two children and in an 800-square-foot home, the couple filled their orders. From storing to producing to shipping, every room of their modest home was used for their art business.
After the family went broke, Cano-Murillo got a part-time position at the local newspaper, the Arizona Republic in Phoenix. She worked various jobs there, including news clerk in the Features department. When Cano-Murillo, who had an associate of arts degree in marketing and a strong knowledge of pop culture, was promoted to full-time clerk, entertainment writing was added to her slate of duties.
Cano-Murillo and her husband were still operating their home-based art business when an editor at the Republic asked her to write an arts and crafts column.
“At first, I balk,” she said. “‘I don’t do crafts, I do art!’” she said she told the editor.
“When people said ‘crafts,’ I thought of my Nana’s doily tissue-roll covers (they were very beautiful, don’t get me wrong!),” Cano-Murillo told HispanicBusiness.com. But through a craft Web site she stumbled onto, “I met other women, my age, who were doing hip crafts like I wanted to do,” she said. “It clicked at that moment that a new generation of crafters were emerging, and I dove right in!”
She took on the newspaper column, and by 2000, she was hooked on crafting, launching the Web site CraftyChica.com to, as she puts it, “preach the gospel of cool crafts to the masses.”
Her crafts quickly gained popularity. She said she was “tired of not finding any cool Latino-themed craft products at stores, (just) really cheesy Latino-themed projects to make.” All she could find were projects such as children’s crafts using paper plates for Cinco de Mayo. She decided to make her own “Latino-chic” home decor items and accessories.
“So many women responded that they loved the ideas,” the Mexican-American crafter said. “I realized there was a niche that needed to be filled, so I went for it. And it is not just Latinas who love this style — it is anyone who loves bright colors, cultures, arts, traveling, etc.”
The next few years were busy ones for Cano-Murillo. Her column went syndicated, published nationwide. She attended night school to finish earning her bachelor’s degree. She was approached by a book editor to write her first two books. She was even hired to create pieces for the cast members as well as media gifts for “Frida,” the film based on the life of Frida Kahlo starring Salma Hayek.
Quick to follow were securing an agent; deals for more books, including a novel; and lines of home decor products for Lowe’s stores and jewelry for Target. She also does a Webisode crafting series for Lifetime TV and has held “crafting cruises” for several years.
A major development came in 2007, when Duncan Enterprises, a leading manufacturer of arts and crafts products that include Aleen’s Original Tacky Glue, hired her as a full-time product developer to work specifically on the Crafty Chica brand and products.
“This was a dream come true,” said Cano-Murillo, who was now able to quit her full-time job at the newspaper (she still writes her column). Before joining Duncan, “I worked on Crafty Chica projects late at night when everyone was asleep. Now I get paid a salary to do it during the day.” Rather than her and her husband handling every aspect of the business themselves, she now has a staff at Duncan to help. “From research, design, marketing, public relations, product development — they have taught us so much!” she said.
The alliance with Duncan also made it possible for her to get her products — which include glitter, appliques and workshops-in-a-box — into mainstream venues, such as Michaels and Jo-Ann Fabrics and Crafts.
Cano-Murillo, who is as liberal with her exclamations as she is with her glitter, describes her entrepreneurial style as “enthusiastic desperation.”
“The desperation,” she said, “translates into having that ‘hunger’ to succeed — to work every angle, go after every opportunity to make something happen, hoping for that one break.”
There were stumbles along the way. She said her biggest business mistakes were in underpricing her products and in taking orders larger than she and her husband could fulfill. “I once took an order for 10,000 hand-painted flower pots for a large perfume company and my husband refused to paint them,” she said.
Then there were those in the industry who thought her products were “only for the Hispanic market” or should only be sold in Latino-heavy areas of the nation. “That makes me laugh,” said Cano-Murillo. She said Duncan Enterprises studied her Web site statistics and discovered that more than half of the visitors come from non-Hispanic areas.
Despite the bad economy, Cano-Murillo says people are crafting more. Her Web statistics have gone up and people want ideas for things to make for family activities, for their home or as gifts. She said she makes a point of posting a new project every day.
“It makes me happy that people are turning to crafting to help get through these tough times,” she said. “I try to come up with ideas that are easy to make, and don’t cost a lot of money. I want to make it easier for people to enjoy being creative — and if my crafts can ease some stress, even better!”
Those crafts pop with bold colors (”pastels make me gag,” she said) and glitter (”I am truly addicted to glitter”).
Her advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is to “come up with a business from a topic that you love and believe in.”
“If you try to copy or be ‘the next so-and-so,’ it won’t work,” she said. “You have to really find your signature style and go with it. Embrace online marketing, but not in a cheesy way. Be sincere. Be ready to give up sleep. It will pay off.” She also suggests using free outlets such as Flickr, Facebook, MySpace and blogs to build your brand.
What are the next glittery goals for the Crafty Chica?
Her first novel comes out next year and she plans to write more, with the hopes that they’ll be turned into TV series or movies. She plans to launch Crafty Chica Charities to “make a difference all across the globe.” She wants to continue to grow her brand, “inspiring people to flex their creative muscles.”
And, most important, she’ll “keep spreading the gospel of glitter.”
Source: HispanicBusiness.com (c) 2009. All rights reserved.
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