Episode 51: Carina Gardner - The Art of Dreaming Big
A lifetime learner and prolific entrepreneur, Carina Gardner learned to sew by sneaking downstairs and using her mom’s sewing machine to create Barbie clothes from fabric scraps. As time went on, she found herself in the scrapbooking world at a time when scrapbooking crossed over into fabric. The first fabric company she designed for was Northcott. She also designed a fabric line for Riley Blake, who was so impressed, it started producing a variety of Carina Gardner branded products. According to Carina, it was a lovely way to take her creativity to a whole new level.
Carina is always striving for that next level of creative excellence. When she was contemplating starting her own scrapbooking company, she was contacted by the creative director at Echo Park. He asked if she’d be interested in working with them to create a sister company. It was out of that conversation that Carta Bella was born. All the designers reported to her, and all design works went through her. As the creative director, she got to focus on all things creative, while Echo Park dealt with all the business aspects. It was a perfect arrangement. (0:24-13:21)
Always evolving and aspiring to reach the next level, Carina has worked for a variety of entities over the years—always from home, always on her own terms. She currently has eight shops on the Internet, and a Design Suite where she teaches aspiring designers to make their mark and make money. Her one-year program is different from other classes because she believes that if you want to have a successful design company, you have to understand how cells work and how money work. In addition to doing creative critiques, she also gives a lot of business advice. She believes that learning how to make money is creative in its own way.
When it comes to business and design, Coco Chanel is one of the great inspirations of Carina’s life. “What I love about her is that when everybody was going one way, she was going the opposite way.” Carina believes that this very approach is the key to success, and that when you’re going your own way, “You’re building something so different, so unique, so valuable, that people can't help, but want to know what you are doing.”
Carina wants her students to have big dreams, and she wants to help them realize those dreams. So she pushes them to know what fulfills them, what makes them happy, what makes them light up when they wake up in the morning. Helping her students and watching them succeed makes her feel successful.
Any way you look at it, Carina is a big dreamer. And a lot of those dreams are coming to fruition: a book, a 40-ft by 8-ft mural, a design agency. But of all her dreams, her biggest one of all is to help thousands of women dream big and become financially free.
As you listen to the podcast, you learn that Carina’s classes and podcasts are devoted to creative dreamers, the designers and sewists who want to learn, evolve, and grow with a community. For those of you who love design and are podcast listeners, there’s, “Making Design with Carina Gardner. If you’re more interested in sewing you can hang out with her at her You Tube channel, youtube.com/karinagardner. Either way, spending time with Carina is time well spent.
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