Meet Lacey Benard | Bitty Bao Co-Creator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Lacey Benard, co-founder of Bitty Bao, a Chinese bilingual book brand located here in Southern California, and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Lacey, what is the most important factor behind your success?
Bitty Bao is a brand that is truly community powered and mindfully ran. When Lulu and I first started, we both agreed that it was extremely important to us that we built a strong community around our brand. We believe in collaboration over competition, uplifting others, offering support and guidance when we can to help others succeed, and letting our own passions and point-of-view lead our business decisions to create and project a brand built on genuine heart and soul.

We are so lucky that we have been able to get connected to so many amazing small book accounts who have helped to support us; @behabbi, @gordonandlili, @minilovetales, @ednamamd, @eugeniachu8245, @whohasapetbooks just to name a few.

And creator accounts like; @hellowonderful, @isateony, @cardboardkiddo, @lulu__make, @aplaywego, @kimwongclan, @oceanchildcrafts, and @toddlertoddlerlittlestar, @growingupyang, @maistorybooklibrary, @averyandme, @wontoninamillion

Maybe it’s the fact that Lulu and I were both elementary teachers when we first met, but we love sharing ideas, problem solving challenges with others, and helping to guide people in ways that can help them save time and access more resources. We get asked a lot about the bookmaking process and both Lulu and I are always so happy and proud to be able to share the information that we have learned. It’s one small way that allows us to help even more books by small book authors get printed and become available for the children of the world. Nothing makes our teacher hearts happier than helping people develop a love of reading, providing options in books that allow readers to feel seen and represented by the literature available to them, and helping to give power to more diverse individual storyteller voices.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?

All of our Bitty Bao book art is made of simple papercuttings – it’s really unconventional in the world of 21st century created books and illustrations. My art materials are simply a pair of scissors, a thin and thick black Sharpie marker, colored paper, painter’s tape, and a glue stick. When Lulu asked me to join her in her bookmaking journey, I told her that I didn’t know how to do any sort of digital art or drawing. She encouraged me to do any mode of art that I felt comfortable with.

Since I was young, I was a scrapbooker; this hobby is where I was able to work to improve my freehand scissor skills. Over the years, my paper craft hobby evolved into creating handmade paper cards for friends, always with a cute kawaii aesthetic. As I tried to apply my art to our Bitty Bao books, I found that I had a steep learning curve ahead of me to tackle how to format, edit, and create files that would match the specifications of our printer, social media, and other various vendors we work with. I consider myself the queen of work arounds – and even without any formal training or experience, have been able to rise to the occasions set before me. I spend a lot of time on YouTube looking up directions and took a multiple module Skillshare course to teach me the basics of Adobe InDesign and Photoshop. It’s so important to be comfortable with the idea that you need to be a lifelong learner as a small business entrepreneur. There’s always so much more to learn as the world around us changes in how things are made, marketed, and sold. I love the aspect of challenge and feeling of accomplishment that I get from working on Bitty Bao because it allows me to put my heart and soul into a project that I share so lovingly with so many families on their reading journey. I love that with each book we create, I am able to share a little bit of me with so many others.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Visiting Southern California provides so many opportunities to see a little bit of everything. Day trips allow for a weeklong trip to include opportunities to see everything from the beach, to the mountains, to the desert! Here are some of my favorite places in & around Los Angeles:

Food & drink:
Phillipe the Original (Los Angeles, CA) – French dip sandwich
El Tepeyac Café (Los Angeles, CA) – Manuel’s special burrito
Half & Half Tea House (San Gabriel Valley, CA) – iced milk drink with honey boba
The Donut Man (Glendora, CA) – 24/7 donut shop
The Apple Pan (Los Angeles, CA) – diner from 1940’s serving great burgers & pie
Urth Café (various locations in LA & OC) – great desserts, coffee/tea, & eats

Daytrips:
Wi Spa (Los Angeles, CA) – 24/7 Korean spa
Glen Ivy Hot Springs (Corona, CA) – luxury spa
Beach & cute towns surrounding (too many to choose from! Malibu, Santa Monica, Corona Del Mar, Laguna, Dana Point)
Museums/pop-up museums

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
We would love to take this moment to dedicate our Shoutout to all of the families, especially the mamas, out there who have helped us grow our Bitty Bao brand. Bitty Bao is really mama-loved, inspired, and powered. Throughout our journey, it has been the messages and photos sent from these mamas who have purchased or stumbled across our books that have guided our decisions towards risk-taking and expansion. It has been the encouragement of these very mamas who have challenged us to continue to put out a steady stream of Chinese bilingual board books. We quickly learned that there were so many families that had been craving and seeking out books like ours for their own children -diverse representation in books is so important as we all strive to raise our children in this multicultural world. It has been the mamas who are posting pictures of their bitty babes with our books that help us spread the world of our small business to others in the most organic and authentic way. We dedicate our journey to the mamas that invite us to in-person events, attend our events and readings, dream up and invite us to participate in collaboration opportunities, and introduce us to other entrepreneurs who we may be able to help or learn from. Our journey is truly made possible by all of these mamas who believe in Bitty Bao as a brand and believe in Lulu and my mission as mompreneurs. We thank you all for being with us on our bitty bookmaking journey, it means the absolute world to us.

Website: www.bittybao.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bitty.bao

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bittybaobooks