Those of you who have been following xameliax for a while will know that last year I launched a second business, Bloom From The Darkness.
I wanted a space online where people could safely share their stories, experiences and tips on how to cope with a variety of issues ranging from Body Positivity, Depression, Anxiety, Grief, Health, Well-being and more. A place online that people could visit to feel better about themselves and less alone, and a place where I could raise money for a charity close to my heart.
Fast forward 6 months and Bloom has grown a wonderful community of writers and readers across the world and raised nearly £300 for the Mental Health Charity Mind!
While Bloom From The Darkness runs separately from xameliax I still wanted to be involved in as many ways as possible – it’s my passion project after all…and I’m a bit of a control freak! I have the final editorial approval over our articles, submit content to our social media channels and sneakily add songs to our motivational playlist every now and again! But I wanted to do more…
So I decided to launch a collection of motivational t-shirts with Bloom that will go towards our charity donation target of £500 in the first year of business!
I love each and every one of my designs and I’ve been working on them secretly behind the scenes for a while now, so I’m really excited you all finally get to see them!
They retail at £16.99 with 10% of profits going to Mind Charity (and the rest going back into Bloom so we can keep the website, shop, forum and social channels running).
Starting an e-commerce store (and a second business!) has been a real learning curve for me over the last 6 months and it’s certainly not as easy as it looks! There’s a lot of initial outlay to make sure the products you’re selling are good enough quality plus the time and effort spent trying to source it all.
There are running costs, set up costs and a lot of postage. Contracts to sign in order to become a charity ambassador, team management to organise content and distribute products, and a LOT of trial and error.
But although it’s been a lot of hard work I’m so proud of everything we’ve done with Bloom over the last 6 months and look forward to watching it grow even more over the next year!
CLICK HERE to visit the Bloom From the Darkness Store and see my full collection!