Business Showcase: Yvette-Michelle Cottle Darby

Yvette-Michelle is a creative entrepreneur who has been an entrepreneur since 1994. In the initial stage of her entrepreneurial journey Yvette-Michelle worked from home, eventually branching out to having her own brick and mortar location on the beautiful commercial hub of Queen Street at the corner of John Street, Toronto Canada. Her second floor shoppe across from other creative entrepreneurs was the outlet for her personal designs — jewellery, hats, scarves, bags and purses — and a place where she also showcased work from other designers. Her creative venture was called, Verona Collections and included primarily one of a kind pieces and limited editions. After years of working in retail, Yvette-Michelle had to eventually face the reality that she was not able to keep her business afloat. She was experiencing cash flow and she had problems securing investors and funding, as a result she was forced to take her business back to her home studio and change from retail to whole sale. For many years you could find her creations at some of Toronto’s best specialty stores.

Like every thing else, one’s entrepreneurial journey often takes a turn, and when it did for Yvette-Michelle, she started another venture which she named Crafted Spaces through which she teaches sewing and other crafts including crocheting, knitting, and paper flower making. Yvette-Michelle started this new business working from her home studio and after some years of successfully doing so, she has moved into a commercial space in downtown Barrie in Ontario, Canada, which she calls her sewing studio. It is where you can find Yvette-Michelle from Tuesday to Sunday.You can visit her website for details of her sewing classes and courses; as well as familiarize yourself with her other offerings.

Her sewing studio is a very spacious and airy space that is beautifully decorated, deigned to facilitate teaching and learning. Here is a little glimpse of the space.

Photography by Yvette- Michelle Cottle Darby

Photography by Yvette-Michelle Cottle Darby

Photography by Yvette-Michelle Cottle Darby

Yvette-Michelle: Creative Entrepreneurs

 

Creative entrepreneurs are individuals with great drive and passion with a penchant to do what they love and find pleasure doing so. Most creatives lead very meaningful lives that are dictated by them. Most of them has broken away from society's norms and values and have found their own niche, where they do not respond to no one's beat, but their own.

Yvette-Michelle Cottle Darby is a creative entrepreneur who owns and manages a creative studio in downtown Barrie in Ontario Canada. Her business is called crafted spaces and it is indeed a stop that one can go to to awaken their creativity. Yvette-Michelle provides services in sewing, knitting, embroidering, crocheting and other creative crafts.  Her audience include children from the age of 6 years to teenage years, as well as women, and men. Her mother-daughter creative classes are wonderful in that she does not only teach them a craft, but is able to foster a bond between mothers and heir daughters that will last a life time. 

Are you a creative? What's your niche?