Local Business Champion: Scribble Dabble Creative Studio
Meet Allie Espinal, founder of Scribble Dabble Creative Studio
Scribble Dabble Creative Studio is a pop-up art & creative play studio founded by Allie Espinal to help more kids and parents fall in love with art and nurture their creativity.
Why did you start your business?
Without knowing it at the time, I was creating the first Scribble Dabble classes at home during Covid with my young son. My freelance marketing and design work went away with all the uncertainty, and I suddenly found myself with an abundance of time. Without a creative outlet for myself, I threw all that time and energy into developing fun, creative ways for my son and me to spend our days together.
Fast forward two years, the world began to turn again and I contemplated returning to part-time work. By this point, I had a 3-year-old and a new baby at home. This came after a complicated pregnancy and lengthy hospital stays for both my baby and me. While I'm not sure these life experiences necessarily changed my priorities, they certainly made them so loud that they could no longer be ignored. I decided at that point to clean the slate and build something new that was better aligned with my values and the way I wanted my life to feel.
Before my new venture had a name or an LLC, I was offering classes to neighborhood families in my backyard, which eventually grew to include more families within the community. I officially hosted my first class as Scribble Dabble Creative Studio at a local business in February 2022.
Today we host our weekly programming at the YWCA in Darien and continue to pop up at backyard playdates, daycares, birthday parties and events all over Fairfield County. The biggest lesson that I’ve learned in the past few years is to trust the process. Just like in art, you often start with an idea of what the outcome should be, but you're inevitably met with unexpected challenges and things get messy. If you stick with it, push through, and trust yourself, it always takes shape...and often the result is even better than what you had planned.
What is your best-selling product/service?
Scribble Dabble Creative Studio offers art and creative play programming for ages 1-5 years. We currently have two popular caregiver-and-me programs: Curious Creators (ages 1-2.5 years) is a playgroup structure, providing you and your child the opportunity to explore imaginative art & sensory play experiences alongside a small group of peers, while supporting your toddler's early development. Littles Creative Club (2.5-5 yrs.) starts to introduce a bit more structure. In this weekly class, our young creatives dabble in a variety of materials & art techniques, experiment, and use their imaginations in an environment where all are artists and there are no wrong ways to create. Your little creative will walk away more equipped to bring their unique ideas to life in art & play.
I love that as a small business owner, I get the chance to work with other local businesses and organizations. Given that we are a fully mobile studio, we rely on local brick & mortar establishments to host our weekly classes, birthday parties and family events. Over the past two years, we've popped up at Honey Joe's Family Coffeehouse, The Alliance Center, Third Place, Cups N' Cones, Child's Pose Yoga, A Place Like Home and YWCA Darien, and I'm so grateful to them for their hospitality and support.
Have you reimagined your small business?
Running a fully mobile studio certainly has its challenges, but the biggest benefit is that I have the freedom to experiment, make mistakes, learn and evolve the business to fit the needs of the families we serve, and my needs in this season of life and motherhood.
Visit Scribble Dabble Creative Studio online https://www.scribbledabblestudio.com/ and get social:
Instagram and Facebook @scribbledabblestudio/
Questions? Email scribbledabblestudio@gmail.com
HamletHub thanks Fairfield County Bank for making our Why Small Businesses Matter series possible!