Modern Monday with Moxie Pear

Happy Monday ya’ll! Hope you all had a great weekend. It was such a perfect fall weekend full of long walks, meeting a new friend and catching up on sleep. But I’m excited to get back into the swing of things with this week’s Modern Monday featuring Lisa Bacon, owner + designer behind Moxie Pear. Lisa has a long-time graphic design business and growing her eco-friendly office product line. Her pencils are fabulous! My daughter and I love using them all the time. So let’s see how Lisa gets all of this done!Tell us about your business.
Hmmm…where do I start first?My primary business is Moxie Pear, which is a graphic and web design company that focusing on helping small businesses (mainly handmade) with their branding. This includes logo design, web design, print design and everything in between.

I recently started WRITE WITH MOXIE, a line of eco-friendly paper pencils. I wanted to offer an office product that was eco-friendly but really cool at the same time. I have plans to add journals and other writing utensils to the line over the next year.
How have you grown your business from an idea to where it is now?
Originally my business started out as a complete hobby. That was about 6 years ago. With the advice and encouragement of a business associate, I started slowly building my clientele. I started out offering just graphic design and then eventually grew into web design, which is now my primary focus and what I love to do. I have been lucky that most of my business has been from word of mouth. I think that is the best kind of advertising!

Why did you begin your business?
I wanted to do something where I could stay at home with my children and work. At the time, I had a custom children’s clothing line that I sold online. It gave me the creativity I was looking for and the extra income that my growing family needed but it wasn’t fulfilling everything for me. I was approached by a clothing label maker who liked my logo and wondered if I would be willing to design logos for some of her clients. Since I have always love graphic design and art, I said yes. It grew very organically but quickly and from there I decided to focus on graphic design and let my clothing line become more of a hobby. It was the best decision I could have made. From there my business blossomed and I decided to offer other services. Eventually, through a lot of determination I taught myself web design. That is really where I found my passion. I also love helping other people achieve their dreams of starting a business.

Where do you draw your inspiration from and how do you apply it to your business?
I get inspiration from all over the place. Since my business is very visual, a lot of inspiration comes from color. Recently, I have started to collect color palettes and mood boards for parties and weddings. There is something about seeing an event all put together that makes me giddy and starts the creative juices flowing.

Describe a typical day.
6:30 – Alarm goes off. I hit the snooze.
6:45 – Finally roll out of bed and get my son up for school. Get in the shower (most mornings unless I am so tired I can’t make it) get ready.
7:15 – Drag my daughter out of bed (literally) and try to find something that she will wear to school. Hair brushing (some whining) and she is good to go.
7:30 – My son goes out to the bus stop and I take my daughter to school.
7:45 – My assistant comes to my house on Monday, Wednesday and Friday so if it’s not one of those days I usually go back to sleep for an hour.
8:45 – Get the office ready to start the day
9:00 – Amanda (my wonderful assistant) arrives and we talk about the day’s to dos.
9:30 – 2:00 Work, Work, Work
2:00 – Amanda leaves and I go wait in the never ending car line of my daughter’s school.
3:00 – Gia’s home and usually wants a snack. Sometimes I will go back to work until dinner, depending on how her highness is feeling about that.
5:00 – I watch my news program (The Five on Fox) and then get ready to cook dinner.
6:00 – Cook dinner (If The Baconator aka my hubs is home, he will do this)
7:00 – Homework, Bath and Family time for Gia — sometimes Xander is home and sometimes he is too cool to hang with his mom, teenagers!
8:30 – Gia goes to bed and I try and spend time with Xander. We will usually watch a movie or something on tv
10:30 – Xander is in bed and I usually go on the computer to finish work or veg on the couch and watch bad tv
12:30 – Hubs gets home from work and I am usually in bed by 1:30

My husband works the late shift right now so my sleep is slightly lacking. When he goes back to days, our schedule will be a bit more normal at night.

Name 3 interesting facts many people don’t know about you.
1. I have double jointed thumbs – ok not really interesting but a little weird!
2. I love to read business books…I have a huge collection of all sorts of topics.
3. I have an obsession with salt. I use it on everything and even keep little packets in my car.

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