Bimibleu is a small business/shop that I operated between the years of 2022-2023. During this time I sold over 2,000 units of products while vending in person at street markets or at larger festivals.
As the creator of my shop I designed, produced, packaged, and sold all of my products myself which included digital prints, hand screen prints, hand screen printed t-shirts and tote bags, embroidered clothing, and laser cut keychains and pins.
As an avid doodler and aspiring designer as a student, I spent a lot of my college years with my nose in my sketchbook. Once I had access to more digital art tools, I turned my sketchbook doodles into more refined digital illustrations, and decided to pursue a dream of mine to share my art with my community and sell my art in my own way.
In 2020-2022, I was given the opportunity to manage the screen printing studio at the UC Davis Craft Center where I met an amazing community of people and got exposed to a lot of new crafts. Reflecting back, I remember spending a lot of nights practicing and producing in the studio and realized that the access and craft I was able to practice while working at the studio gave me the opportunity to achieve the art dreams that the high school me aspired to, but didn't have the resources to pursue.
The first step was learning how to produce my designs: I started learning how to screen print watching videos online, and then in person from a coworker, and practiced and self taught myself the rest. The second step was learning about my audience and who I would be selling to – or who I could sell to/who I had access to – which led me to learn about local street market vending opportunities. The last step (and the longest one!) was producing. I started spending days to weeks alone in the studio to practice screen printing my doodles onto paper, and eventually tote bags and T-shirts. After turning my drawings into screen prints, and printing them on paper and different clothing and accessories, I packaged them and labeled them, and sold them at the local vending events. As I sold more, I started producing at larger scales for bigger events and festivals.
While I've done art since high school, I learned how to screen print in the summer of 2020. I practiced honing those skills, and also wanted to focus on managing the studio and teaching others, and once I got comfortable and more confident with my craft, I started sharing and selling my art within my smaller community in the winter of 2021. Depending on my schedule, I would sell one day on the weekend every other week or so and sold at a few larger events until I moved away from the studios at the end of 2023.
Pictured above is of my first times vending at a local street market and getting to meet so many new people, friends, and supporters of the arts! Selling at these neighborhood markets was a great way for me to connect with my community and share my art at a small scale.
After vending at these smaller street markets at the farmer's market on the weekends, I organized a booth for the Craft Center to vend at the UC Davis Whole Earth Festival – a 3 day long student-run event that takes place on Mother’s Day weekend, and attracts over 30,000 visitors annually.
Vending for a larger scale event though also meant having to produce at a larger scale – I ordered a lot more stock and had a much higher inventory, and started preparing more in advance. Producing and packaging took a lot of time, but it was an extremely exciting process and an overall wonderful experience!
