Sallie Dale: Growing a Business and a Family

Sallie Dale, founder of The Urban Acres and mother of three – soon to be four – has always enjoyed exploring her creativity. In fact, she remembers sitting at the art table in elementary school and, when her classmates rotated to other tables, staying to continue her art project. Her creative talent continued to flourish and, years later, after she and her husband Andrew were married, she entered a contest for Mrs. Meyer’s Homemaker of the Year and won, in large part, because of her imaginative and innovative projects. She has been blogging about her DIY creations since 2014.

Now, Sallie is inspiring a new generation of creators by bringing an old-school craft known as punch needle embroidery up to date. If you’re wondering what punch needle art is, it’s a simpler form of embroidery and uses a large needle-like tool to punch loops of yarn into fabric stretched on a hoop. Sallie’s artfully created signature punch-needle patterns are available in her curated kits, making it easy to have everything you need to start, or continue, this hobby. Punch needle is an engaging activity for adults as well as kids – it benefits fine-motor skills and lessens screen time. Sallie is encouraging people to reconnect to their creativity.

TK: Tell us about the contest you won in 2016 and the opportunities that created for you.

Sallie: The Mrs. Meyer’s Homemaker contest was looking for a brand ambassador to partner with for a year. The winner would fly to New York for a photo shoot, and then the big prize was $75,000. So, not a small thing. I learned about the contest from my friend who sent it to me on Instagram. I entered by filming two videos: one showing me making felt flowers, and the other of a chicken coop that my husband built based off of a design I found on Pinterest. It had a big vegetable garden on the top and the chickens lived on the bottom.

I filmed that video, submitted it and, right around Christmas in 2015, found out that I was a semifinalist, and I had to make some other videos. Voter participation was a part of it, so we launched our campaign and had everyone we knew voting for us and voting for me. And I ended up winning, which was wild!

TK:  You won, in large part, due to your creativity. Have you always been creative?’

Sallie: I drew all over the closet shelves with crayons in my childhood bedroom. I remember crafting in my car, like always, having little bins of paper and stickers and making yarn and just always making stuff.

TK: Where do you think your love of art began?

Sallie: My mom is an artist. She sewed, cross-stitched and really nurtured that in me. We would sit and work on projects together. She would find things that she liked, for example, from Martha Stewart magazine, and we would figure out how to make them. This was all before Pinterest was a thing, so we’d go to Hobby Lobby and get things that we thought we needed and start. She was so wonderful to give me the tools and the time and let me get messy. She also taught me how to clean up.

TK: How did The Urban Acres get started?

Sallie: The Urban Acres looked very different when it started in 2014. Andrew and I were newlyweds, and we didn’t have any money. I wanted to decorate our house, but that’s difficult when you don’t have the money. So, I started a blog. The name came about because I got some chickens, including one breed called a silky chicken; I loved it because they look like cotton balls — white, fluffy and so cute. It got me thinking that I could blog about what I was doing where I lived in the middle of town. And one day the name just came to me, The Urban Acres. It hit me because we lived in the city, urban, but I also had chickens.

My first posts were about our chickens and making pies. I also had a couple of DIYs, like a macrame table runner and vases. I took it very seriously. I had a content calendar and shared different things that I was doing and recipes that I was making. In the beginning, I didn’t have a huge following, but it was really fun. I loved working on it.

TK: Let’s talk about what it has turned into. You still have that creative spin, but its focus is now on punch needle art. Can you share what punch needle is and how you got into it?

Sallie: I did something similar with my mom when I was young and then rediscovered punch needle in 2018. As soon as I saw it on Instagram, it was one of those things that I thought I wanted to do. Because the supplies to get started can be expensive, I asked Andrew if I could take an advance on my future gifts – birthday, Valentine’s, Christmas, anniversary – and buy the supplies. He agreed, and I bought a full set of needles, a frame and some fabric. I already had yarn. And then I started punching. The first thing I punched was not very good, but I really enjoyed it. It didn’t take long to catch on to it, and I figured other people would enjoy it, too, and they do!

TK: How did you turn this into a business?

Sallie: There were a few kits on the market, but they weren’t very good. There weren’t any designs that I really liked either, so I just took it upon myself to create my own designs. Then, I bought the components for 10 kits and sold those. And then I bought the components for 10 more and sold those. And went to 25 and then 100. Now we’re selling hundreds of kits each month.

TK: Can you share how your business has grown as your family has grown?

Sallie: When I started, my goal was to pay for our groceries. It was in 2019 that the punch needle art really took off, and I was teaching high school art. I also found out I was pregnant with our first child, Dot, halfway through the school year, and I immediately knew I wasn’t going to go back and teach the next year. I wanted to stay home with my baby. I figured out how many kits I would have to sell to replace my teaching income.

I spent that summer working on my Etsy shop. Andrew would go to work, and I would be at home just working on designing kits and working on social media. It took that whole summer and, by the time Dot was born, I was in labor, actively having contractions and packing orders to get them out so that I could go have my baby and not have to worry about getting all the orders out.

TK: What were the early days of building your business like with a baby?

Sallie: When she was born, it was just me working on the business, so I would work during her nap times. I would work frantically and then when she woke up, I’d spend time with her and play. As she got older, she could play independently, and I would work. My husband has been a huge part of this. I could not have done this without him.

TK: When did you realize that you needed to hire help?

Sallie: One night, I felt so overwhelmed and was on my kitchen floor crying. I told Andrew that I just wanted to be a mom, and the business was taking too much time. I didn’t know how to keep up. He looked and me and said, “Well, you can’t do it all.” But I didn’t think I could afford to pay anyone. And then he said something that made me realize what I needed to do to scale the business. He said, “You’re treating yourself as though the work you do doesn’t cost you anything, and that’s not true. It’s costing you your time, which is the most valuable thing of all.”

After he said that, I had a moment of realization. Shortly after, I was in my office one day and felt like I heard the Lord say to me, “I didn’t just give you this business to be a blessing to you, but so that you could be a blessing to other people.”

TK: So, what was your next step?

Sallie: I quickly realized that there were so many other stay-at-home moms who wanted to be with their babies. They also needed to make money, but they didn’t want to leave their kids, which is exactly what I wanted. So, I looked for people willing to help me in my business in different ways. Many of them wind yarn for me, and that is still how it works. They get yarn, wind it, pack it and then they give it back to my shipping manager.

TK: Did you see the benefits of their efforts?

Sallie: It’s been wonderful to experience this level of growth where The Urban Acres is not just supporting my family, but also supporting a lot of other families in the Tulsa area. That’s been a big lesson for me – giving people the opportunity to do what they can do and let it be a blessing for them to do it.

TK: As your business has grown, what have you learned?

Sallie: I’ve had to learn that I need to divide my work with others so that I can focus on what I’m really good at, which is teaching and coming up with designs. Those are the things I love. I’m happy to have learned all the various aspects of the business and thankful my knowledge has grown. But ultimately, I want to help empower others who work with me to operate in their gifts and talents, which ultimately benefits both of us, and I think that’s wonderful.

TK: Talk to us about the importance of adults and kids tapping into our creativity.

Sallie: I think you have to be intentional with your creative time because it’s one of the first things on the chopping block when you get busy. You have to be really intentional about making the time to sit down and do it. It’s interesting because, historically, handiwork handcrafts were things that women have always done. They’ve sewn, made rugs or knitted, and it was creative, but it also had a purpose in the family. For example, knitting socks for your children, making dresses for your daughters, things like that.

And now, with the way things are, you don’t have to make things you need anymore. You just go to the store and get it. So, I think that’s why a lot of people have lost that creative side, because it’s not useful. It’s now considered a luxury to be creative instead of a necessity. And so that’s really what I want to help bring people back to. Let’s get creative. Let’s take time away from social media and your computer and do something that is relaxing and reduces stress and anxiety.  You can sit next to someone and have a conversation, and you’re together, and that’s wonderful.

Dot

TK: You mentioned people unplugging from social media, including kids. It’s easy to put a screen in front of a child on a road trip, and I happened to notice that you had your daughter doing a little project on a road trip.

Sallie: It’s really wonderful to introduce people to a craft that could be something they do and introduce their kids to. As Dot has gotten older, she has become more interested in doing projects. She did her first beginner kit at age 4, and I showed her how to do it. Once she got started, she just sat there intently for about an hour and a half, working quietly on her project. She got almost to the end and said, “OK, I’m done.” She came back and finished it later, but I was so impressed with her! I think kids are capable of a lot more than we think they are. It just takes a little bit of time for us to explain and show them how. Then, once we give them the opportunity to do it, they can do it!

You can find Sallie online: TheUrbanAcres.com and also on social media: Instagram: @theurbanacres

Listen to the entire interview and learn how Sallie is achieving professional and personal growth on the Sharing Passion and Purpose Podcast. Access this podcast on your favorite podcasting platform or directly at SharingPassionandPurpose.com.

Nancy A. Moore is a Public Relations Coordinator at Montreau, Adjunct Professor at Tulsa Community College, and has been writing for TulsaKids for almost 20 years.