Watercoloring to 8,000+ sales

Art education major Rachel (Schaeffer) Byler ’12 had planned to be a teacher. While job hunting after graduation, however, she opened an Etsy shop—just on a whim—to display her watercolor prints and originals in 2013. Now 8,000+ online sales later, her Colorful Cat Studio qualifies as a full-time job. 

“2016 is when the business became huge,” she said. “It was the first year that I thought, ‘This is a big deal. What am I gonna do here?’”

She sat down with her husband Josh ’12, and they had to answer some tough questions, primarily, “Can we take Colorful Cat Studio from a part-time hobby to a full-time business?” They took the leap, investing in three fine art printers to keep all aspects of production in-house, which saved time and money.

“Thanks to my digital classes at Messiah, I was confident I could do the printing,” she said. “Doing my own printing is part of why my business did so well.”

She developed a schedule: paint three days a week, print two days a week. In his free time, Josh helps her print and package. When it’s especially busy during the Christmas season, her extended family pitches in.

As her portfolio of wildlife and fantasy prints has grown, she has leaned on the artistic fundamentals she learned at Messiah—even the courses that seemed elementary at the time. “Introductory classes required for your major that you kind of brush off? I’ve found that I use them a lot more than I thought,” she said. “Color and Design with [Associate Professor of Art] Brent Good—even though it’s an intro class—builds such a base. I had no idea how much I’d appreciate that class.”

She says fellow Etsy sellers continually write to her, asking for advice on how she managed to amass so many sales in such a short period of time. Over and over, she gives the same answer: A lot of hard work. And faith.

God is so important to me,” she explained. “My work doesn’t necessarily depict Christian images per se, but I create because God is the ultimate creator. I feel at peace with what I’m doing, and hopefully that flows into my work. This is what I’m meant to be doing.

— Anna Seip

Sidebar

The whale that launched a career

When you offer 200+ different watercolor prints—everything from woodland animals to Harry Potter scenes—what’s your best-seller? It’s a print called “Fathoms Below,” which shows a humpback whale dwarfing a ship. “That piece—that one by far—is why my shop started picking up,” said Byler. “It really seems to resonate with a lot of people. Maybe it makes you feel small by showing a larger perspective. Maybe it makes you feel like you are a part of something bigger.”