Victoria Beerman

I am almost 58 years old and I am a former magazine art director.

I had long been interested in surface pattern design, so in 2020, I started searching for training online. I watched Bonnie’s Creative Live and Skillshare classes and I started trying to create patterns on my own. It was very slow going, and my Illustrator skills were rusty. Plus, I had no direction.

When Immersion 2021 was announced, I knew I had to take it. The cost was well worth it and I viewed it as an investment in myself. I believe I will recoup the money in the future, as my side hustle grows into a business. Even now, a year later, I refer back to class videos regularly.

During Immersion 2021, it made me so happy to come home from my soul-sucking day job and learn new skills and gain inspiration from the amazing guests and classmates.

My Illustrator skills grew so much that I was able to create a pattern per week and enter them into Spoonflower competitions and on POD sites like Redbubble—all while working full time. I currently gain a small revenue stream from these endeavors, and recently I was selected as a Featured Artist and Product on Redbubble. This is all directly related to skills I learned in Immersion. I plan to keep nurturing my side hustle until it grows past being a POD business and into licensing and creating my own product.

Perhaps the biggest benefit from Immersion is the community.

During Immersion 2021 there was a team of supportive staff who answered all our questions as we moved through the course material. I was also matched with an amazing Peer Group during Immersion and we still meet twice a month, nearly a year later, to support and encourage each other.

After Immersion, I joined the Flourish membership and the trainings and community there keep me moving forward. I love it, and I also love supporting and encouraging my fellow Flourish members.

Last year I focused on creating patterns, and created nearly 100 of them, which are now a source of passive POD income.

In 2022 I am focusing on implementing more of what I learned last year and I have no doubt I will look back on 2022 with the same amazement as I look back on 2021.