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Moorea Seal remembers the times she used to eat spaghetti and cry. The local gal known for her insane amount of Pinterest followers (her current tally is more than 930,000), successful online store and eponymous brick-and-mortar location in Belltown, and her weekly journaling book The 52 Lists Project (released last year), reflects upon how her journey from then to now wasn’t all sunshine and roses.

An illustration major who graduated from Seattle Pacific University during an economic recession, Seal took on a host of jobs to support herself and find creative release, which included artist assistant to Seattle sculptor John Grade, full-time nanny, musician and blog designer. She also taught herself coding and jewelry design, skills she used to sell her handmade jewelry on Etsy late into the night.

“I had to be creative,” she says. “I didn’t know what was actually going to succeed, but I just had to try it all, because there were no jobs for me to take, so I had to make them myself. That’s all I could do.”

Seal’s new book 52 Lists For Happiness and a selection of 52 Lists-inspired home goods on sale September 20. PHOTO CREDIT: Taylor Jones Photography

Part of her creative self-start included a blog, launched in 2009. In utilizing social media to drive her content, she found herself with an explosion of followers on Pinterest—a casual 250,000—after she joined as a beta user when the platform was only a few months old.

“I didn’t want to be known as Moorea who has a big following,” she says. “I wanted to be known as Moorea who has put a lot of work into what’s she done.”

As Seal worked to create that character, she kept in mind her overarching goal: to be the perfect mix of Oprah slash Ellen slash Mary-Kate and Ashley.

“It’s the combination of wanting to be a good voice for other people but also caring about fashion and design,” Seal says. “That’s my big goal, so any opportunity that I can leverage to keep that journey going, then I’ll do it. I wanted to be an illustrator, but there was no opportunity for that, so I found other things to do.”

Earlier this year, Seal celebrated the second and third anniversaries of her Belltown storefront and online store, respectively. And after a whirlwind end-of-summer schedule of trade shows and new product prep, Seal will release a second 52 Lists book—52 Lists for Happiness (Sasquatch Books, $16.95) on September 20, and a third book next year about creating an inspiring home space. She’s also unveiling new home goods in September that complement the mood of 52 Lists (metallic color schemes and thoughtful goal-setting paper pads) and a celestial-inspired jewelry line, due out in-store and online in October.

A piece from Seal’s new celestial-inspired jewelry line, debuting in October. PHOTO CREDIT: Taylor Jones Photography

In the future, Seal hopes to open more storefronts, possibly in San Francisco, Los Angeles and Portland, and is interested in starting a clothing line. She’s also looking to move her Seattle office to a warehouse location for more storage space for product.

“I’d love to slow down a little bit, just a tiny bit, because I want to make sure that as we’re bringing more and more things to the company that it’s all really thoughtfully done,” she says. “When you’re on a roll like we are, you just want to grab everything that you can. But I don’t want it to be frantic. I want it to be really intentional.”

“I have already been risking everything I have in my business since I started,” she says. “All of myself. My name is on this. And it continues to feel worth it even when it’s stressful and when it’s hard and when I don’t sleep. I’ve already been making all of the sacrifices, and I know that it will pay off for myself and my entire team in the long run and I’m willing to just keep going. And I’m okay with crying when things get hard.”