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Meet Dannie Royce of The Little Sparkle Shop in Gilbert

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Dannie Royce.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Dannie. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I started The Little Sparkle Shop in 2014 after being a stay at home mom of three and an Army family for over eight years. We had decided to separate from the military and return to civilian life with family and friends in Arizona. We were excitedly looking forward to new adventures to include a new home, my husband pursuing a new career in the medical field, our vow renewal and my best friend’s wedding. As my best friend and I worked together to plan both of our ceremonies, we noticed a growing list of items, signs and decorations we wanted to include in ceremonies. In that moment, I realized it would be more affordable to just make it ourselves! As I finished bridesmaids’ gifts and cute little signs, I would post pictures to my own personal social media. The response was overwhelming! Before I knew it, I was receiving requests from my friends, as well as people who knew my friends, of items to make. I was then encouraged to post my work on local social media pages and again the response was amazing! That is when, with the support of my husband and kiddos, I decided to pursue my dreams of owning my own business and The Little Spark Shop joined Esty in January of 2015. Once again, we were blessed with a positive response and continue to increase our customer base.

While my husband is finishing up his degree, our shop allows my husband to make up for all the time he lost with our family when he was deployed. After 10 years of marriage, we have created an amazing company that supports all our family and even allows us to do a little adventuring. We work together to create new designs. He does all our wood working and painting while I do all the cutting, laying, shipping, customer relations and marketing. We absolutely LOVE our customers both locally, nationwide and hopefully this year we will add international shipping. Our designs are inspired by life, love and of course a little sparkle where ever we can add it! We truly believe that through our designs can spread just a little bit of sparkle and happiness to the lives of our customers. The world needs a little more happiness.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
In the beginning, we experienced some growing pains. It was difficult learning to balance the new business with being a wife, a friend, a mother of three children all in activities and still finding a little time for myself. All the while my husband was trying to readjust to civilian life and balance family, school and another job. We have gotten better with balancing all our many roles. Don’t get me wrong, this is still a work in progress. The hardest part has been balancing the Christmas rush of the business while still sharing special Christmas moments as a family. There isn’t much that can prepare you for that! It gets crazy making sure every order is fulfilled and shipped out on time. We are blessed to have friends and family who will come help with any task that needs to be done, even if that means loading the dishwasher! It has been amazing to see as the kids have grown older, they have really begun to show an interest in helping with the business. The younger two tape shipping boxes and even label them FRAGILE. My older one loves helping come up with ideas for new designs and helping package our orders. All three of them are proud of what we have accomplished and LOVE telling everyone they meet about The Little Sparkle Shop. We have truly become a family business.

So, let’s switch gears a bit and go into The Little Sparkle Shop story. Tell us more about the business.
We create custom vinyl designs. These designs go on items that range from tumblers, coffee mugs and wine glasses to wooden signs, T-shirts, onesies, canvas totes and everyone’s favorite seasonal item, our glittered ornaments! We even create car window decals that are great for advertising your small business! Nearly all our designs are inspired by what is going on in our lives or the lives of our friends and family. I also enjoy adding a little of my own personality to our items and that usually means adding a little sass. Last year we added so many pregnancy, baby and wedding items! It’s been such a blessing to be surrounded by so many people who give us so much inspiration. Our customers rave that we always seem to have the perfect gift for any occasion. We pride ourselves on creating products that speak to people right where they are in life.

Our newest designs are onesies inspired by babies, adoption, in vitro fertilization and godparents. Last year we released a line of Black mugs with Gold text that were made to inspire women with quotes like “Goal Digger” and “Ambition is the new Black”. Who doesn’t love a little inspiration with their morning coffee?! One of the most exciting part of our designs is that they can are customizable. Our customers love that we can change up the design to fit their needs, add a personal touch with a name or date, change colors or fonts. We can even create a completely custom product they’ve dreamed up! My favorite part of our company is the quality of products we use! It is important that we use a professional grade vinyl that will last for many years.

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
We truly believe luck has played a role in our company! We have been so lucky to have friends and family who pushed us to grow and thrive through our growing pains. We have also felt lucky being able to witness the lives and adventures of our loved ones. They give us the most amazing material to work with and be inspired by. I have also been lucky to have such amazing mentors who come from so many walks of the business world. They have guided me through so many tough decisions on where to go next. Of course, we have felt so lucky and beyond blessed for the overwhelming positive response we have received from our customers. With hard work and support from our loved ones, and of course good luck, we have been able to make our dream of a family own business a reality. We cannot wait to see what the future holds for The Little Sparkle Shop and our little, all-American family.

Pricing:

  • Designs start as low as $4 on our ETSY
  • We have $5 inventory sales through our facebook page TheLittleSparkleShopAZ on occasion
  • We ship nearly all products priority mail 2-3 days starting at just $6. (excludes car decals)

Contact Info:

Getting in touch: VoyagePhoenix is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.

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