Time flies when you are having fun…isn’t that the saying?  Well, it has not only been fun but it has been a lot of growing up, learning, and hard work. Limani Designs started at a time in my life that I pretty much felt the whole world change around me.  I had been working at Harpo at the time and there was no better place to learn to follow your heart when it comes to your own happiness other than from Oprah herself!  In July of 2011 this was my life…I was getting married, I was going to be without a job for the first time since I was 16, and I was moving away from home (finally I know, but still a very new experience for me). *Please note, getting married and moving out of my parents home are NOT negative things by all means, I just felt the life I had grown accustom to was changing pretty drastically all in one month:) My friends were finding and taking on new positions around me and I just couldn’t see myself doing that at that time…

I think sometimes the inner voice in your head is just the smartest but we are too scared to listen to it. Well, I listened to that voice. We enjoyed our wedding celebration, a wonderful party that feels like yesterday btw, took a month long honeymoon to do nothing but go to different beaches every day and during all this time I knew when I got back I would take a leap of faith and start a business that I was passionate about!

In October of 2011, with the help and guidance of our good friend and Koumbaro, Alex, I created my very first LLC company.  Obviously before I got there I had agonized about the name for months prior to this decision.  I wanted the name to include my mom and I in a way that was not obvious. I kept thinking, there had to be something that my mom and I loved more than our families, fashion and creating things…the Limani in Agrili!  Our first family home is by this tiny seaport in the southern part of Greece that if possible, I would spend the rest of my life there. It. Was. Perfect. It had a special meaning to both of us, it was different and it brings us pure happiness thinking about it.  Of course, my brain did’t stop there, I immediately knew I wanted a paper boat logo!  My mom used to make paper boats with us all the time when we were little and you can’t have a seaport without boats, am I right?

So that started it but what do you do when you start a business and have not idea what your next steps our?  Before starting Limani, my mom, Angie, and I were fortunate enough to work on some pretty special celebrations before realizing this is what we wanted to do full heartedly.  Those experiences our my absolute favorite.  We jumped right in to every project and figured things out as we went.  Without even realizing it then, we had started our portfolio-yay!  So I spent hours…I mean HOURS…putting together a website, (I am not tech savvy at all by any means but this was not a battle I was going to lose) and LimaniDesigns.com 1.0 was launched in January 2012!! Woohoo!!

Then the best things started happening…our friends and family started referring us to clients and we have not stopped since then.  We can’t tell you all how important it is to have a strong, supporting circle and we absolutely would not be doing this all these years (and many, many, many more to come) if it wasn’t for you!

Thank you for taking this journey with us and we look forward to the next chapter in our lives with open arms.  Our new meeting space is just perfect and we couldn’t be happier to have a place that we can meet clients without the clatter of the Starbucks team making coffee in the background (although all those Starbucks meetings with our clients have always been our favorites).  This place is small and just what we need right now.  Thank you all for coming out and celebrating our Open House with us.  We plan on celebrating a lot this year so stay tuned for more wine and champagne parties to come!

Eventually, our dream will be to have a large studio space WITH our meeting space but for now I have learned to enjoy the small wonders and be happy!

Also, while all of the above was going on, I had dreamed of our cute Etsy Shop that we opened in February 2012, so this Open House celebration also celebrated 5 years of making and selling Angie’s beautiful candles.  I can not even imagine creating her unique candles (or attempt to) why mess with a great thing, right?!  I not only love my Mom but I admire her ability to be the creative person that she is and do everything that she does.  I will write a different post about her another time…I am already too emotional!

Even though our Easter is not till May 1st, our season started early this year with our first order coming through in February (yay! for really organized souls)!  We have received so many custom orders, Angie and I are learning a lot about what toy/show/game is really trending now:) and we will continue accepting custom orders until the week before Easter.

This year’s collection is as always cheerful, with brightly colored ribbon details, playful and youthful.  There is intricate wrapping, little details throughout and of course the main idea behind our Shop, ORIGINAL designs.  Which one is your favorite?

Happy April everyone!  This is going to be a great month, I just feel it!

xoxo,

Eleni and Team Limani

Venue: The Wedding Gallery, Roscoe Village in Chicago.  Limani Designs’ Easter Candle Collection on Etsy