This Woman — She Creates!
Amazing things happen when a person has both artistic talent and entrepreneurial drive. Meet Rachel Austen, founder of Elle Crée, which is French for “she creates.”
Rachel lives in Portland, Oregon, where she worked as a graphic designer. Driven by the desire to create her own company, Rachel was always searching for the perfect product.
Inspiration hit her when she was visiting an estate sale and saw a lovely, mid-century painting created from a paint-by-number kit. That was it — she would turn her illustrations into paint-by-number kits, so other people could explore their own creativity.
Rachel created her artwork, and then came the challenges. The first one was paint, and it was more complex than just choosing a few colors.
When you look at a picture, notice that when there is one color, there is usually a shadow in the same color, but darker. Or a highlight, again the same color, but lighter. Rachel wanted these paintings to have realism and depth, so she sourced the primary colors and then devised a custom recipe to make every other color.
She experimented with paint surfaces, beginning with canvas. After a couple of years, she added a paper board kit that is cost-effective and easier to frame.
Rachel also refigured the size of the piece. She began with a 12 x 16 piece but found it to be too big a project for most novice painters. She now has two sizes — an 8 x 10 kit with canvas and a 6 x 6 paper board version that can be completed in two hours.
All the components of her kits were finally ready. She had the designs and a way to print them on both canvas and board, her paints were packaged, and she added paint brushes.
But there was still one more enormous learning curve — the packaging. She initially rolled the canvas and put it into a box with the paint and brushes.
However, the box was small. People could not see what was inside. They could not envision their finished piece. So, it was back to the drawing board to invent packaging with a cut-out, so people could see exactly what they were buying.
Rachel began selling her kits to local shops and listed them on the wholesale site Faire to reach a nationwide audience. By 2019, she felt her business was solid and then out of the blue came a pandemic. Rachel said she was a “catastrophic thinker,” sure everything she built would fail.
But far from it. On the first day of the lockdown, a local TV station aired a segment about her business, giving her huge local sales. Then her Etsy orders went crazy.
Everyone was looking for projects to do at home. Within a few months, her orders on Faire were so high that she had to turn off her store for six weeks just to catch up!
Rachel has brought Elle Crée to nationwide trade shows and shares a story about how unexpected events can occur. A buyer asked her if she would collaborate with another artist to make kits with her designs. Rachel politely and quickly said, “No, she did not think that would work.”
The buyer then revealed she was the director of operations for beloved artist Mary Engelbreit. Rachel started thinking fast. After many emails and live sessions, and with full support from Mary herself, Elle Crée carries paint-by-number kits from the famous artist.
Rachel’s business is concerned with all the right things — sourcing clean components, reducing waste, and respecting the environment. Her company supports a nonprofit devoted to racial equality, and her primary brand value is giving her customers accessibility to the creative process. There is no doubt it is a wonderful, artistic creation!
Diane Sulg
Diane Sulg is executive director of CRAFT and founder and co-chair of American Craft Week (ACW). She is a handmade advocate who provides valuable information in her one-day seminars titled “All About Wholesale” at wholesale shows throughout the United States. Diane is the former owner of Maddi’s Gallery, in Charlotte and Huntersville, North Carolina.