Hive Member Spotlight - Aimee Aikens - Sacramento, CA

Hi, I’m Aimee! Originally from Grand Rapids, MI, (home of Amway—Kelsey and I had a funny discussion about this), I lived in Portland, OR, and am now in Sacramento, CA for a couple of years. My birthday is September 2, and I suppose I really wanted to be a Virgo since I was supposed to be born right around August 8. I am not married, but Ian and I have been together for six years as of March 5, and eventually we’ll get married. (Ian is in law school right now, so we really have NO extra cash which is the main reason we aren’t married yet.) No kids, no pets right now though we are trying to get our apartment people to let us get a kitten. We live on the law school campus, which is great for Ian but crappy for me, since my commute to work is 40+ minutes most days.

I work as a Key Account Designer for Harmon Homes (any of you in the Seattle area may have seen our magazines, or a lot of places really, we do 40+ different areas in our center). I have a BFA in studio art from Michigan State University, with a concentration in design and photography. I do a lot of ceramics, hand building only right now since I don’t have a wheel, and I’ve been doing some letterpress classes in San Francisco. When Ian gets out of law school and we are more settled, I am going to open a chocolate shop/dessert bar—modeled like a combo of Pix Patisserie in Portland and Vosges in Chicago (all of our friends/relatives get chocolate for the holidays--one year I did white pepper balsamic, apricot lavender, and black currant sage, and my coworkers were too afraid to try them! Punks!). I love to cook, I love to bake and I make a supremely excellent apricot tart with lime/lavender cream.

Note from Shawna: We'll have to have her do the desserts for our convention!

I saw the UB post on Something Old, Something New, took the personality test, thought it sounded really neat, and asked Kelsey for more info. I was reading Shawna’s and Kelsey’s blogs, and got more excited and Kelsey was so encouraging and enthusiastic and I decided not to wait!

I am sort of marooned out here, no family or anything. We have a pretty decent sized circle of friends, some of whom are excited about my UB venture, some apathetic. However, I don’t really care, since I want to be successful and won’t let anyone stand of the way in that. As far as support to and from the Hive, just ask! We won’t get anywhere without communication, and I am not afraid to ask for help and more than willingly to give it in anyway I can.


My results were:
Floral 22%
Fruity 12%
Herby 16%
Leafy 19%
Spicy 11%
Woodsy 20%

Which makes floral my strongest by a small margin. I do agree with most of it—I am a perfectionist, sensitive to moods of the people around me, and I absolutely have a healthy appreciation of the finer things in life, as evidenced by my Kaboodle wish list. Also, I am most drawn to scents with a strong floral note—I wear jasmine and geranium a lot. I do have quite a bit of the woodsy and leafy characteristics too—I am very independent, ethical, and creative. I do seek out information pretty much constantly, and I am very good at organizing said information. I do also agree with the idea that Leafies like solitude when they are stressed out—that is totally true for me. I need a little time and space to decompress sometimes.

My ultimate goal for my UB business is to earn enough to pay off my student loans and upgrade my Mac in the next three years. This means I will need to bring home about $30,000-$35,000, eek! I think I totally will be able to achieve this with the support I have gotten already from the Hive and Kelsey personally! At this point I figure I have nothing to lose by trying.


I think probably my creativity will be most helpful. Having a background in design really prepares you for handling crises with grace and efficiency, and trains you to look for solutions in unexpected places. Plus I am pretty good at persuading people to do things, so that should also be an asset.

If I were a dessert, I would be an Amedei Porcelana chocolate bar, because it's the most delightful experience you could ever have; simple, elegant, and refined! And dark chocolate is extraordinarily good for your health. :D

When I was a tiny child, I ALWAYS wanted to be an astronaut. Until I found out astronauts had to have perfect vision (my vision is really really terrible). Then I decided I would be an engineer, which is kind of a strange choice for a child, but I really was into science fiction (like Ender's Game) so maybe that was the influence there. But now, if Stephen Hawking can go into space, I figure I will have my chance someday!