Melissa’s Interview With Myriam Sandler of Mothercould

This March, we’re celebrating badass women by using our platform to spread awareness and share stories from female founders in our community.

As a part of my IG Live Series for Women’s History Month, I got together with my arts & crafts soulmate, Myriam Sandler of Mothercould, to talk about taking risks, betting on yourself and turning your passion into a career.

Here's How It Went:

Melissa: To start, can you tell us who you are and what you do?

Myriam: My name is Myriam Sandler, and I’m the creator of MotherCould. I’m also a mother of two girls, Nicole, 6, and Emma, 3, and we live in Miami, FL.

Melissa: When did you start Mothercould?

Myriam: I started the idea of Mothercould in 2016 when my first daughter Nicole was around a year old. She wouldn’t eat solids, she would only drink milk and it was driving me crazy.I realized that she had a texture sensitivity. I went straight into sensory play and it completely changed everything. I started sharing on social media and it started picking up. But then my life got really crazy and social media is a full time job – creating content, captions, answering people – so I completely shut it off after 6 months. I came back in May 2019 and my whole life had changed because I had another daughter and even less time than before, so I came back with a video focus. There was a lot of buzz around those Buzzfeed food videos, and not a lot of videos involving play recipes, so I went straight into that. I wanted to be able to create that type of content for parents, where they would be able to see something in about a minute and understand what to do and feel empowered to do it. Ever since then we have been growing!

Melissa: So when you started doing it, did you know that it could be a business and that you could grow your following the way that you have?

Myriam: No! I totally thought that the way to do anything in the kids activity world was to be that traditional blogger. Where you create your website and you create content and eventually, make money off of ads that are on your website. But I hate writing- I can’t be a blogger if I hate writing! I love making videos, so I thought I’m just going to do me and focus on social media.

Melissa: How did it become a business and how do you make money doing what you do?

Myriam: There are two ways that people make money usually. You either create your own products to sell, like ebooks, or, you have a blog. In my way, I decided I wanted to provide all of my content for free. Anything I create is accessible to my audience for no cost, which is very important to me and will always be that way. I have sponsors now who compensate me for that content. Right now I’m at around 5% sponsored, which is enough to cover expenses for free content. I did it for 2 years without making any money. Small companies that I didn’t know offered to send me stuff and I said no. I was creating a relationship based on trust and authenticity and I didn’t want to have those things until the bigger companies I already knew and loved came in. It’s only been about a year that I’ve been making money.

Melissa: It just shows how great and authentic you are. That arts and crafts giveaway you did – OMG that is like heaven for me and my kids.

Myriam: None of the giveaways are sponsored and none of them have ever been sponsored. Those are items that I buy and I give to my audience, which is something special to me. It’s all items that we truly like and that I know I can send to other families around the world and they’re also going to truly enjoy without the pressure of the sponsorship attached to it, which is cool.

Melissa: How do you come up with the content, and what is a normal day for you? How much of your time do you spend doing this?

Myriam: Really, I would say all of my day is content creating. It’s not just the videos I put out, it’s also things for stories or things for other social platforms as well.. I always use everything inside my house for all of my ideas. So if I think of something and I don’t have it, then I’m doing that because we’re not going out to buy anything. I know that if I don’t have it, then my followers most likely don’t have it. The cool thing is that I get to create these things, and then when my girls come home from school we get to sit together and do them, so that is super special for us. Even though it is part of what I do in my day, connecting with them at their level with these little things is really cool.

Melissa: Someone on our Live just asked “Where do you go for inspiration? Are you constantly thinking about new things to do?”

Myriam: I’m always thinking about new things. That’s how my brain’s always worked, ever since I was little. I’ve always had my big box of arts and crafts stuff under my bed. My friends made fun of me when I was getting married because I wouldn’t let it go and it was under my bed and I was like “This is coming with me, I’m going to use this and I am never letting go!”

Melissa: I totally get you! My friends bought me a “Honk if you love Scrapbooking!” sign when I got my license, because I’m obsessed with scrapbooking. Even now, we have an IKEA unit filled with arts and crafts supplies and it’s like my heaven. It’s more for me than my kids, but they get to play with it and make a mess with it.

Myriam: Exactly! If you like it, you like it! As my kids have gotten older, and I’ve seen what their needs are and what they’ve learned at school and all that, I see things around the house that we can use. For example, the other day I had some paper rolls and my daughter was learning her sight words. So instead of writing them a million times, I created a device on a paper roll where she could insert a popsicle stick and interchange them to make different words. That’s kind of how I think of things. I get inspiration from my kids, and a ton from social media. I hardly ever go on Google or Pinterest because I think it’s a world of clutter sometimes. For me, it’s looking at stuff and seeing what my child’s needs are and where they are in their stages. Which is interesting, because a lot of people ask me for baby activities. At this time, I don’t have any babies at home and it’s hard to create those activities. Even though they’re there, on my page from two years ago. It’s hard for me to create them today.

Melissa: That was going to be my next question, and actually someone just asked “Are you going to continue to create things as your kids grow up?” My question was “Do you see your content evolving with your own life and your own children so it’s now geared towards their age?”

Myriam: Yes. I think that my content will evolve as everybody evolves, because this is motherhood, and this was always meant to be about the parents more than about our kids. It’s an empowering platform for you to feel really good about the things that you do with your kids. It’s always going to be that way, whether I want to create products or write children’s books. It will grow with us as we grow. We can’t always be in the same place.

Melissa: I happen to think that what you do for a living is probably one of the most popular jobs, everyone wants to do what you do to some degree. You’re different and you’re not a blogger and are your own unique version, and I think that’s what’s so inspiring to me. What advice do you have for another mom or somebody who is looking to just start out?

Myriam: I think the number one thing that was hard for me when I first started, was that my eyes were everywhere. They were just looking at what other people were doing, what worked for them, and trying to decipher the code for success that other people had on social media. ZERO of those things worked for me and I was getting to a very unhappy place. I read something that said “Comparison is the death of happiness” and it’s true.

Melissa: Comparison is the thief of joy- that’s a good one that I live by because it’s so easy to compare yourself.

Myriam: Nobody ever succeeded and turned around and said “Wow, that was so easy!” It’s never going to happen. So what worked for me was to refocus and keep my eyes on my own path. And realize what I really like, and what I relate to. People will follow you on social media based on you, on your taste, on what you like. SO if you take little bits of others it’s never going to be you. Not everyone is going to like you, but you find your people and you find your community and your support system.

Melissa: That’s amazing. We had another question about your Venezulan roots and how you bring that in your content and how it inspiries what you do?

Myriam: I would say that one of the reasons I’m so resourceful is because we didn’t have a lot of things when I was younger, like all of the specialty things. When we would come to the US we would buy all of the brand name items like PlayDough, and it was so exciting because in my country we didn’t have all those things. We did a lot of DIY. My family is also bilingual, so if you watch my stories you’ll hear me speak to spanish, especially to my kids. Those are our home roots. My father is from Morocco, and a lot of the recipes that I share are Jewish-Morroccan, because my family is one big melting pot. I’ve traveled to a lot of different countries and have an understanding of different cultures and different people. That’s one of the things I love most about my community, is that I get to meet people from all around the world.

Melissa: My children are a little bit behind yours, I have a 2 1/2 year old and a 5 year old, and they do what I do. How have you seen what you do impact your girls and what do you hope they’re taking from watching you?

Myriam: I think more than anything I’ve wanted to instill in my girls is to have confidence. Just have confidence to believe in themselves, to trust themselves, be independent, and try and do things on their own. It’s kind of annoying now when they say that they want to do things on their own, but it’s such a good quality and that's something that I do myself. Which is good and bad because I try to do everything on my own and manage it all. They see exactly what's going on and they try to do it too. They see how I encourage them to dress themselves and do things together. My eldest is 6, and I have her measure the ingredients for the playdough and she’s so proud and can look at the playdough and say “I made that.”

Melissa: How do you define success?

Myriam: In happiness. If you’re happy with whatever you’re doing you’re successful. It doesn’t matter what it is. It could be literally anything. If you’re happy and passionate with what you’re doing and enjoy what you do everyday, you’re successful.

Melissa: We’re running out of time, but is there a piece of advice you can leave us with that you wish you knew when you were younger?

Myriam: Trust yourself. You have everything you need within you to continue on this path and succeed. You just have to stay focused and work really hard- but you’re going to get there. You don’t need to search for it, it doesn’t cost money, because it’s already in you. You just have to keep going.

Melissa: True that.

Want more crafts content? Catch the full interview with Mothercould plus the rest of our Women’s History Month convos on our IGTV.

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