Cupid, draw back your bow…
Charlene Stockdale could well be the youngest business person in Omagh – and is potentially one of the happiest/most successful. The local 23- year-old has hit on that most elusive of business ventures: Combining something she loves with a viable enterprise. Charlene’s baby, Cupid Creations is an Omagh-based artistic business, offering range of hand-crafted wedding stationery to suit all styles and budgets. Not only that, the Fine and Applied Art graduate also creates bespoke jewellery and fascinators to order, conceived of and fashioned at her purpose-built log cabin near her home on the Hospital Road.
What is more, the innovative entrepreneur has also taken her expertise on the road, organising arts and crafts workshops for schools and community associations. In short: She has her business head screwed on. “I took part in the Go for It business programme last year at Omagh Enterprise Centre with a view to maybe starting a business years down the line,” she explained. “It was only after I started the course that I realised that this was something I could do without having to wait.
“Even though I was young I realized that this was something I could try… and that was that.”
Up and running – as a viable business – since January of this year, Charlene has already been recognized for her business acumen, scooping a nomination as Young Entrepreneur of the Year but she isn’t resting on her laurels, working sometimes around the clock to achieve her Cupid Creations Dream.
Currently, although she admits she would love a larger premises, Cupid Creations’ log cabin is a “private, tranquil location” to facilitate clients and their wedding consultations.
“Things are going very well at the moment,” she continued. “Business has been steady and it has really picked up since January and I’ve had a few weddings each week. With the workshops too I’m kept busy and I can see it coming that I’ll have to take on an extra person to give me a hand – maybe within the next year. If I’m busy with wedding stationary orders for during the week, I don’t get the chance to do as many consultations as I might like, so I’m always trying to manage my time the best that I can.”
Using the highest quality of card, beautiful papers, ribbon and embellishments to create individual designs, Charlene’s creations have proved the perfect accompaniments to wedding décor. But whilst the local lady can often be found hard at work in her cabin workshop, she says she also derives a huge amount of satisfaction from teaching local people about how to fashion their own greeting cards and enhance their own artistic capabilities.
“With the consultation part of the business, I do spend a lot of meeting and talking with people about their big day but most of the time, I’m working away on my own,” she continued. “That’s why I like the workshops. They give me a chance to sit down with people and that’s something I really enjoy.
“I like the fact too that there are different things to do each day. It’s busy a lot of the time but I love what I’m doing.”
Charlene went on to explain that in the formative days and weeks of her business, she was conscious of perhaps having too many strings to her bow (or too many colours on her palate). However with the support of her tutors at the Go for It programme, she admitted she was given the confidence to bring all her talents and ideas to the business table.
“The course was really beneficial,” she said. “It covered lots of things that I had no idea I might need to know about. But it was also just great meeting people in the same boat and talking to them about how things were going.
“At the beginning I couldn’t decide which idea I should concentrate on (stationary, jewellery or workshops) but the course gave me the confidence to understand that I could still include all these elements in the business and that really helped.
“Yes it was daunting starting a business when I was still relatively young but with the course and after a few months passed, my confidence started to grow when I realised that yes, I could do this. I realised that if this was the kind of thing I wanted to do, I was just going to have to go ahead and do it.
“And until now, it’s definitely a case of so far so good.”
For further information about Charlene exclusive range of products at Cupid’s Creations log onto www.cupidcreations.co.uk. Alternatively, give the lady herself a call on 07596154180.
Source: ulsterherald.com
