Two Sisters Sealed Roadside Wildflowers in Resin With $200 in Materials: 2,300+ Orders and $65K in Their First Etsy Year, Then Copycats and a Serious Illness

Process

In New York, a small white flower grows just about everywhere: along roadsides, in empty lots, beside railroad tracks. It's called Queen Anne's Lace, and hardly anyone gives it a second look.

Two sisters picked some, soaked it in food coloring until it turned pink, blue and purple, pressed it dry and used a toothpick to place each bud into resin molds, turning it into earrings and necklaces. They spent about $200 on materials, and in their first year on Etsy they sold more than 2,300 orders for more than $65,000.

The brand is called Ann + Joy, after the sisters' middle names.

Stage 1: One Studied Drama, One Taught Art

Lindsay Ann Gottschall, the older sister, and Courtney Joy Bleier, the younger, grew up on Long Island, New York, in an artistic family.

As a little girl, Courtney Joy always wanted to be a teacher; she used to pretend to teach in the basement of their childhood home on Long Island. She became a figurative and landscape artist, went to art school and, after college, merged her two childhood passions by becoming an art teacher. She also earned a master's degree in art education.

Lindsay Ann expressed herself through art in a different way. She studied drama in New York City and pursued acting, while making beaded jewelry on the side. It "quickly became a passion of hers and would help lead her down a new path in life." She later ran a handmade jewelry brand of her own and had sold on Etsy before.

In 2009, both sisters moved from New York City to Miami, Florida.

Stage 2: Wearing Their Mother's Garden

In late 2016, while Lindsay was still running her previous jewelry brand, she was experimenting with resin and taught Courtney the process.

They wanted to draw inspiration from their own lives and make something new. They remembered that their mother had a green thumb and had planted bright, colorful flowers all over their backyard. The idea followed: could they find a way to preserve nature and wear it as jewelry?

Resin isn't easy. "There is actually quite a bit of science to the process that definitely took some trial and error to master," they said. Finding the right brand, mixture and consistency took countless tries. Then they experimented with mix-ins: glitter, wood and more. Finally, they turned to flowers.

They chose Queen Anne's Lace. It grows everywhere in New York, and its naturally tiny buds were perfect for small resin pieces. Here's how they did it:

• Pick a few stems, take them home and place them in different cups of water with various food colorings to dye them as many colors as possible;
• Once the flowers have taken the color, press each bud dry in a flower press;
• Use a toothpick to pull each bud off the stem and place them one by one in a resin mold or bezel frame;
• After the resin cures, add finishing touches like chains or ring bands.

"As tedious as it seemed," they said, "it was the perfect combination of tools and style to create a beautiful one-of-a-kind end result."

They named the brand Ann + Joy, after their middle names.

Stage 3: An Etsy Shop That Got Noticed Within Weeks

In January 2018, the Ann + Joy Etsy shop officially launched. They spent only about $200 on materials, since they already had most of the equipment.

Lindsay had run an Etsy shop before, so the new one was set up quickly. They put real care into one thing: photos. Lindsay photographed the jewelry and Courtney modeled it. Later, in their advice to newcomers, they stressed exactly this: "Pictures are so important to really promote the item."

Within weeks of launching, the shop rapidly gained attention. They kept experimenting with new molds and frames and listed each piece as soon as it was ready. In the first three months they sold more than 100 orders, bringing in more than $3,000. By the end of the first year, they had sold more than 2,300 orders and over $65,000.

That year, Etsy took notice and began featuring them on its homepage and in its marketing emails. They credit Etsy with a big boost.

Their marketing was simple: posting new products on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, sending a monthly newsletter to customers and people who signed up at craft shows, and relying on word of mouth, craft fairs and Etsy search. "Even in the beginning, we just started posting items on Etsy, and sales just started coming in. We were posting on social media, but not aggressively. We think it was just using good SEO and getting lucky."

They also made each design only once; after that, everything was made to order. That let them accommodate customers' flower color requests and offer more designs. There were no spring or summer launches; they added new pieces as they made them, which kept customers coming back to see what was new.

Stage 4: After the Copycats

As the shop grew, imitators arrived. "There were admirers of our jewelry that opened their own competitive shops. Natural flower jewelry has really become much more prominent in the Etsy world," they said. "While always flattering to be someone else's inspiration, it is a bit disheartening when your business suffers due to imitators."

Their response was to keep making things others didn't.

In early 2019, they introduced a custom service: customers could send flowers from a special moment in their lives to be sealed in resin jewelry. Brides sent flowers from their weddings, people sent Valentine's Day bouquets, and some sent arrangements from funerals. Before long, customers were sending other things too: dog fur, glass, seashells, feathers, hoping to preserve cherished memories. Making such meaningful jewelry, they said, was "incredibly rewarding."

They also gave returning customers 10% off their next order. These adjustments carried them through their second full year, to the point where Lindsay could go full time on the business while Courtney kept teaching.

In 2020, their channel mix was roughly 85% Etsy, 10% wholesale through Faire, and 5% from other platforms such as their own Shopify site and Apollo Box. Before the pandemic, they were busy enough to hire an employee to help with fulfillment.

Stage 5: The Pandemic and a Serious Illness

In spring 2020, the pandemic sent sales sharply down. Something harder was still to come.

During the pandemic, Lindsay was diagnosed with stage 4 appendiceal cancer. They decided to temporarily close the Etsy shop so Lindsay could be with Courtney and the rest of their family while she went through multiple surgeries and six months of chemo.

Throughout that time, the wholesale side stayed open, and Courtney took on the full responsibility of fulfilling orders. Amid the hard times there was good news too: Courtney got engaged.

In March 2021, Lindsay was officially in remission. In June, Courtney got married. With that good news, they reopened the Etsy shop and hired a third person to help with fulfillment.

But the Etsy shop had a hard time regaining traction. During the pandemic, many people stuck at home learned crafts on YouTube, and imitators multiplied. They weren't sure whether pausing the shop had hurt them in the algorithm or whether there were simply too many competitors. Wholesale, meanwhile, kept thriving.

Their takeaway: "The biggest lessons we have learned are to never get comfortable. Things can change at any moment, in your personal life and your business. We didn't expect to have to shut down the shop, and unfortunately, it seems to have hurt our business." And: "Creating means constantly growing and changing."

Stage 6: Since Then

Archived snapshots of the Etsy shop show how sales evolved: 4,375 total sales in November 2019, 5,258 in November 2020, 5,484 in June 2021 and 6,403 in April 2024. Growth slowed noticeably.

In 2021, they also collaborated with a painter friend on a set of mandala flower paintings. Their best seller has always been the moon stud earrings: tiny resin moons filled with real flowers.

By 2025, custom pieces on their website started at $20, and Lindsay's bio described her as a family photographer and mother. We could not confirm whether the shop is still fully operating, and we found no revenue figures after 2021.

Thinking

1. A great product can come from the cheapest materials. Queen Anne's Lace grows by roadsides all over New York and costs almost nothing. The value was in the idea and the craft: dyeing, pressing and placing each bud in resin turned an overlooked flower into one-of-a-kind jewelry.

2. On Etsy, photos are the storefront. With one sister shooting and the other modeling, they were featured on Etsy's homepage in their first year. On a handmade marketplace, buyers can't touch the product, so photos decide almost everything.

3. Handmade goods are easy to copy, so find something that can't be. Once people understand how something is made, they'll make it too. Ann + Joy answered with a custom service: sealing customers' own flowers or pet fur into jewelry. Pieces carrying personal memories are hard for imitators to take away.

4. Relying on one platform is risky. About 85% of sales came from Etsy. After the shop paused, traffic was hard to win back. Fortunately, the wholesale channel kept the business from stopping entirely during the hardest stretch.

5. People come before business, but a business needs a backup. When Lindsay fell ill, pausing the shop to be with family was the right call. Wholesale and Courtney's persistence carried the company through. A small business is better off with parts that more than one person can keep running.

Action

1. Look for cheap, distinctive materials around you. What common things around you go unused: wildflowers, seashells, old fabric? Think about whether a new technique could turn them into a product.

2. Take the time to get your photos right. Before opening your shop, prepare clear, attractive product photos, ideally showing the item being worn or used by a real person.

3. Have enough stock before you launch. Their advice: open with enough inventory on hand, or making everything to order can become stressful.

4. Offer a custom service that's hard to copy. For example, work customers' own items, photos or names into the product so it carries personal meaning.

5. Don't depend on a single platform. Beyond Etsy, try wholesale platforms, your own website and in-person markets to give your business more paths.

6. Build a backup into your business. Ask yourself: if you suddenly couldn't work for a few months, what would keep the business going? Train someone who can help, or develop a revenue stream that doesn't depend so heavily on you.