Featured Designer - Taryn Dams

Hello to Taryn Damns, owner of Oh Danger, an Etsy shop full of dangerously cute crochet goods & postcards.

All items in Oh Danger are vegan, and made by a vegan. Taryn also makes monthly donations to various animal causes and donate my time volunteering at my local, no-kill Humane Society.



You can win a FREE Squidie as featured in Oh Danger just by entering Taryn's contest. All you have to do is fill out the survey here for the chance to win a squidie.



We caught up with Taryn to ask her more about her business:

K&B: What's your name and where do you come from?
TD: My name is Taryn and I live in Ontario, Canada. Due to the nature of my job I tend to travel about the southern portion of the province, so I don't really identify with one particular city or town... though I'm hoping to settle somewhere soon!

K&B: How did you get into making and designing?
TD: I've always been crafty. When I was about five years old I remember sitting at the kitchen table and just playing with playdough for hours, making everything I could think of - my Mum said she'd never seen a kid who could sit and play with playdough for six hours straight without getting bored. A few years later my grandma taught me how to crochet, and it's something I kept up with all these years. As a teenager and through University I worked at a craft store, which gave me the time and the access to resources to be able to continue being creative despite time constraints in daily life - not only did it allow it, but it actually encouraged it! I usually stuck to simple crafts - scarves and the like - but a few years ago, I saw picture of a crocheted donut. I thought, wow, that is adorable! And I started to make ones like it. I realized I wasn't half-bad at recreating things I thought were cute, so I kept going.



K&B: Where do you get your inspiration from?
TD: Cute things. That's pretty generic but it's the truth! I love to create based on the things I find visually appealing - cupcakes and squids are my favourite. It's an odd mix, I know.

K&B: What makes your products different?
TD: They're made by me! Ha. There are a lot of people that do what I do; I would be naïve to think there weren't. But whatever I make and sell in my Etsy shop fully reflects my personality - from the style, to the colour, to the purpose, to the careful nature with which it was crafted. I'm vegan, too, so everything in my shop is 100% vegan - I don't, and never will, create or sell any items that contain animal products. I'm part of the Vegan Etsy team which is comprised of many other sellers with values like mine, so I guess it doesn't make me all that different, but I think we're still a minority compared to the whole of Etsy!



K&B: What do you enjoy about running your own business?
TD: I'm still kind of a newbie. I have a full-time job so my Etsy shop is my hobby-turned-side-business. I like being able to have the freedom to create on my own schedule. The freedom of just being able to create! I don't have a ton of sales just yet, so I always feel really popular when I get one - I like the reassurance that people like my stuff.

K&B: What are your favourite websites for inspiration?
TD: I take my inspiration from real life - cute foods, animals, etc - no specific websites come to mind!



K&B: Can you describe your typical day?
TD: I have a full-time job working away from for an environmental remediation company on a military base, and so my days aren't very glamourous. I work almost 11 hours per day and I live in a hotel. My spare time is spent crocheting, reading, and well... sleeping! Thankfully this is contract work and I live by this schedule spring-fall. The winter is when I thrive - volunteering at my local animal shelter, crocheting like crazy, napping with my cats and reading more books than a lot of people read in a lifetime.

K&B: What's the most embarrassing thing you've ever done?
TD: I generally don't get embarrassed easily - being a complete klutz, I'm used to tripping in public and making a fool of myself so I've gotten used to it. But once, I had a friend that I met online. She had a tattoo of her name, in an obscure kind of script that I obviously read wrong... because I called her by the wrong name for ages. This was years and years ago, though, so I don't remember how I came to be corrected, or why she never corrected me herself... either way, I felt like a complete idiot. But hey, we're still friends to this day!



K&B: Do you have any hints/tips or advice for other creative sellers?
TD: Enjoy what you do and make sure that it reflects you. Trying to copy something else or making something that doesn't fit who you are can't possibly be successful, because you need to believe in your own abilities so that you can properly market it! The internet has done an amazing things for creative sellers - thanks to social networking sites, it's easier than ever to get out there and spread the word about what you're doing. I have Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and even my personal blog to thank for exposing others to the things I make for my shop.

Many thanks to Taryn for being a featured designer.

If you are interested in being interviewed for Kicking & Biting please just drop me a line (use the 'contact' tab above).