Mom’s creative passion fuels her sweet venture

Gillian Himalaloan-Sevilla has always had the penchant for creativity.

The 33-year-old mother of two recalled how she would always excel in her art classes as a kid.

“I was in sixth grade then when we were asked to do self-portraits. It wasn’t a contest, but, modesty aside, I got the highest rating because mine was spot on,” Sevilla told Cebu Daily News in a Facebook conversation.

She said that back in high school, she would always end up in the art or decorating committee during extracurricular activities.

Sevilla’s grandfather was an engineer and they had an iron works business before. She also had aunts who were very crafty.

While she grew up in a family of creators, Sevilla believed her knack for craftiness was something innate rather than something she picked up while growing up.

Sevilla admits to being a frustrated architect, having finished college with a degree in business administration upon the wish of her father and ending up helping manage their family-owned auto shop venture.

It was there where she met her husband, Raymond, who, like her dad, was also into cars.

After all these years, life had a way of leading her back to her passion in the form of a business she started two years ago called The Crafty Momma.

Sevilla puts her creativity to work in assembling colorful cupcakes patterned after well-loved cartoon characters, which are perfect for every special occasion including birthdays and even church gatherings.

Her creative business venture, however, started when she made bento boxes for his son, Matthew Lucas when he became a first grader. She got her inspiration from tutorials from Youtube and Pinterest — knowledge that she employed to surprise her son, get his interest and whet his appetite to eat his lunch.

A bento box is a box containing different small portions of different dishes of a Japanese lunch.

She said that for her son’s bento boxes, she would mold rice into shapes of famous cartoon characters and incorporate various cuts of vegetables for color.

This caught the eye of a fellow parent, who suggested that she turn her making bento boxes into a business — a suggestion that Sevilla heeded and so Creative Momma was born.

Her first order was 21 bento boxes for the kids in September 2015. In December that year, she also added cupcakes to her products.

Today, not only does The Crafty Momma sell cupcakes and bento boxes, it also offers pull-apart cakes, cupcake bouquets, and dessert buffets, which are all made to order.

Sevilla spent at least P15,000 as investment in her venture, the bulk of which was used to buy an industrial oven, which she uses to bake her cupcakes at their home in Guadalupe, Cebu City.

She started with one helper and now has three. Since May of this year, The Crafty Momma has been getting dessert buffet bookings every week and orders for pull-apart cakes at least two to three times a week.

The colorful cupcakes sell for P850 per dozen while the pull-apart cake, a designer cake made up of 30 to 36 cupcakes and sells for P2,000.

As busy as she is, she said she still manages to make time for her children, Matthew Lucas, 7, and Macray Liam, 5.

She is also thankful for having a supportive husband, who would fill in for her on times when she could not make it for her children’s school activities.
On the years of running the business, her creative venture, she has this to share to aspiring entrepreneurs: “Make passion your paycheck.”

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