MANSFIELD — You know the saying, “Mother knows best?”
There’s truth to that statement–at least in how it applies to Sara Vrooman’s art shop on Etsy.
“It’s funny because my mom always said she knew I was going to do something with art one day, and I never really believed her because I didn’t think I was good enough,” Vrooman said.
Vrooman’s interest in art sparked at a young age.
“Art class was my favorite and I remember taking a graphic design class in high school,” she said. “But I was never confident enough to pursue it in any way. I just kind of thought it was fun.”
The St. Clairsville native studied education at Malone University, where she met her husband of eight years, Rob, and worked as a special education teacher at Madison Eastview Elementary for four years.
It wasn’t until she started having children that she began crafting, using Pinterest to help trigger ideas for pieces.
“I was getting ready to decorate Nora’s (her daughter) nursery and I thought, ‘I’m just going to give it a try and make some of my own stuff’ in an effort to save some money,” she said.
Recognizing the talent she possessed, family and friends encouraged her to open an Etsy shop.
“But I just kind of laughed it off, thinking that wasn’t going to work out,” she said.
As time wore on, however, she eventually mustered up the courage to give Etsy a try. That was in June 2015. Her initial goal was to try to sell two items a month.
“It was really nerve-racking for me to put myself out there because I was pretty convinced nobody was going to buy anything from me,” she said.
Fast forward to 2017, she averages anywhere from 75 to 90 sales a month.
The stay-at-home mom of three young children said she is “blown away” by her shop’s success and is thankful for the opportunity it has given her to be creative.
Not only that, but it has enabled her to “spread Truth” to a number of homes, given that many of her pieces feature scripture from the Bible.
“I love that people are hanging God’s Word up in their house and that I get to help with that,” she said.
One of the main art forms she incorporates into her pieces is hand lettering.
“It’s funny because in school I was terrible at cursive writing,” she said. “I tried calligraphy thinking, ‘I doubt I’ll be good at it because I was never good at cursive,’ but it worked out,” she said with a laugh.
Asked if she took any classes on hand lettering, the 31-year-old said, “YouTube is great resource for learning.”
With plenty of practice, trial and error, she’s been able to grow her business into what it is today.
She creates works of art out of paper and wood using acrylic paint and watercolor paint. Sometimes she has a specific idea in mind of what she would like to make before getting started; other times she just lets her creativity run wild, she said.
During the holiday season, she took a break from creating, but she’s back at it again and hopes to add more items to her Etsy shop (Sara Vrooman Designs) in the near future. Stay tuned.
