To close out the year, earlier this week we had a Practice team co-crafting experience that felt very on brand. Ben picked out an entry-grade Gundam kit, and I made a custom mini kit featuring a 1:12 desk with Practice-inspired decor: a cutting mat, laptop, Craft Psychology book, plant, a tiny framed “Creative Making is Self-Care” print, and—of course—a 1:12 scale replica of the Gundam kit box that we also assembled.
(Want a mini kit of your own? Email me at erica@practicemaking.com—I’d be happy to send you one!)

We mailed out the kits to our engineers, Jake and Matt, and hopped on a New Year’s Eve video call to co-craft. While we didn’t finish both projects during the session, it was so fun to share our hobbies with the team.
The best part? While there was no expectation for folks to do so, everyone completed their projects afterward and said they had fun. Turns out creative making is self-care—who knew? 😉
Beyond crafting
Last week, I leaned into my love of the quantified self and jumped on the Spotify Wrapped bandwagon, sharing data about Ben’s and my creative making over the past half-year that we had tracked in our prototype form. Reflecting on our progress was so rewarding and we both enjoyed seeing the patterns and trends in our creative practices.
But we didn’t just make dollhouse miniatures and tiny robots this year. This week I want to share a different view of our half year of “making”—building a company from an idea to something real.
Where we started
It all began on February 9, 2024, when Ben and I met for coffee to catch up. We ended up talking about our creative practices and the joy they brought us. That conversation sparked an idea we couldn’t stop brainstorming.
A few meetings and messages later, we decided that we may have the start of something real. We dove into research, talked to experts, analyzed competitors, and dreamed up product ideas. It was pretty exciting! We started soft-pitching—and while some feedback was discouraging (“This isn’t a billion-dollar idea” and “investors only care about B2B SaaS right now”), we also got enough positive signals to keep going.
One friend called it “a really BIG idea,” and we wholeheartedly agreed.
By the summer, I desperately wanted to talk about our startup idea with everyone and anyone who would listen, so I decided to go “LinkedIn Public” earlier than most startup founders would.
Going public
On July 16, I published my first Substack post. I didn’t even use Practice’s name yet, because we were still securing the domain name, figuring out branding, etc. but I otherwise laid it all out there:
My next adventure: building a startup
TL;DR: I’m co-founding a startup dedicated to fostering creativity as a form of self-care. It’s inspired by my 2023 sabbatical, where I discovered the power of creative hobbies to heal burnout and bring joy.
I shared it on LinkedIn and the response was overwhelming—texts, DMs, emails, comments, likes. It seemed like we had tapped into something that resonated and had potential.
And then I got a message from a past colleague and talented engineer who wanted to get involved. A few conversations later and he agreed to help us build this thing. And then another engineer agreed to help us out. But we knew that building the product would take time—we’re bootstrapping and all have day jobs, families, and lives.
So I did what I could to maintain momentum: I kept posting what we’re learning, exploring, and experiencing here on Substack.
Highlights from the ‘Stack
Since then, I’ve shared 24 posts (every Thursday except Thanksgiving, and this post, which is a day late). That’s a lot! It’s become a ritual—another practice—that I really enjoy.
The most-read post was my first one, followed closely by a post I shared a few weeks later with our company name and vision:
Introducing: Practice
I’ve spent the last few weeks sharing the origin story and some of the theories behind the startup I’m co-founding, and today I’m excited to formally introduce you all to Practice (practicemaking.com).
I’ve also shared silly posts that made me laugh, like channeling my “Big Founder Energy,” which featured some top-notch Photoshopping by Ben:
And there’s the post about the time I completely biffed an “informal conversation” that was actually totally an interview/portfolio review, so you all now know a phrase that haunts my dreams: “Is this how you usually show your work?”
Other posts explored “the why” behind Practice, like when I debuted the phrase “creative making is self-care” (our unofficial mantra) in this post from August 8. I introduced you all to two experts: my licensed social worker sister-in-law, Sara Davis, who uses craft to treat trauma and Dr. Anne Kirketerp, the originator of Craft Psychology who is now an official advisor to Practice!
Ben guest-wrote a few posts about Hobby DNA and gender stereotypes. (He’s also provided notes, edits, and input on basically all other posts as well. Every Tuesday-ish I send him a link to a messy draft and I am very grateful for his input!)
I also shared a few posts that were more “startup-y”, like why we decided to write a memo, how much SaaS rules everything around us (leading us to raise a friends and family pre-seed round), and why I wanted to get a head start creating the vision and values for our company, even before we have a product in the market.
It’s been fun to look back and see how far we’ve come and re-live our journey.
The imagery
In addition to writing these posts, I also had a lot of fun illustrating them. Creating tiny scenes to reflect Practice has been a wonderfully meta experience (my creative practice is all about mini-making, so why not apply my lowercase-p practice to uppercase-P Practice?). Sometimes I’d know what photo I wanted before writing; other times, I’d rush to do a quick photoshoot at the top of the stairs (the best light in the house) just before hitting publish.
Here are a few of my favorite images:






The newsletter
In addition to my creative writing project this Substack, I’ve also sent out 3 monthly newsletters. You may be thinking, isn’t this blog essentially a newsletter? Well, not exactly. In our newsletter, we share company news and things we are reading. There’s definitely an overlap, but you can see the archives in case you missed one.
The product
While I’ve been over here typing away on these posts and doing impromptu photoshoots of tiny things, Jake and Matt have been hard at work building out our activity tracking, feed, and hobby match quiz with Ben’s product guidance.
We’re still refining the MVP, and while we had high hopes to launch this month, we’ll see where we get. Don’t get me wrong: we are super eager to launch and continue learning, but at this point, Practice has become more than a product in my mind. It is a big idea—a movement to elevate creative making as a form of self-care and improve people’s lives.
Reflecting on a half year of Practice
I didn’t track my hours writing these posts, brainstorming product ideas, or talking to experts and potential users. Neither did Ben, Jake, or Matt. But much like what happened when I reviewed my creative practice last week, reflecting on the past year of building Practice fills me with pride. From research and brainstorming to product development and community-building, we’ve accomplished so much. And the vision for Practice is even more exciting and inspiring than it was when Ben and I first met for coffee in February.
I can’t wait to see what this new year brings and look forward to sharing our plans and progress. Here’s to 2025 bringing even more joy, growth, and making!