Erica is an author, magician, and balloon artist. She’s also a mom, wife, sister, daughter, and friend. Her goal is to be a positive and uplifting person to those she interacts with and help create fun memories.
The beginning
Erica began her balloon twisting adventures as a teenager in Dayton, Ohio, with her sister, Lea, and brother-in-law, Dan. The business originated with Dan’s parents who passed down their talents to the family.
School and work
Erica honed her talents at twisting balloons at various venues throughout high school and college. After graduating with her Bachelor of Arts in English and her Master of Education degree in Integrated Language Arts from The Ohio State University in 2008, Erica taught full-time to students both with and without disabilities.
The business grows
After finishing her third year of teaching in 2011, Erica decided to pursue her business full-time. Sedgie the Hedgie, the live hedgehog, joined the business as the star of Erica’s magic and storytelling shows. She became a performer with many library’s summer reading programs and wrote original shows with many handcrafted magical props. She kept honing her balloon sculpting abilities at various events over the years and building a solid client base. She shifted from face painting to airbrush tattoos. She added balloon décor as another skill during the pandemic. With the right mix of hard work and luck, her female-owned business made it through a pandemic and is stronger than ever. Her eclectic mix of offerings give her a solid excuse to do her favorite thing: be around people.
Becoming an author
In 2020, Erica began writing her first book Sedgie the Hedgie Finds the Treasure, which is based on her Rockin’ Pirate Magic Show and features her dog Clover as the second main character next to Sedgie. After attempting to illustrate the book herself with felt art, she asked the talented Drew Dittmar to be her illustrator to which he replied, “Absolutely!” Their book was published in 2022 and has sold over 1,200 copies. Their second book called Sedgie the Hedgie Solves the Case (2024) is based on her Balloon Mystery Magic Show. There’s even more to come in The Adventures of Sedgie the Hedgie series. Erica is fueled by the idea of making reading magical for children so they feel an excitement to pick up a book and dive in.
Family life
With just the right mix of silly and serious, Erica uses these traits to help her both bring the fun and stay organized with her varied schedule. Her husband, Tim, helps her run the business by doing most of the marketing and web design. Tim and Erica have three children: Suzie, Linus, and Fletcher. When not working, Erica enjoys spending time with her family, bike riding, running, watering houseplants, competing in family lip sync battles, making banana bread or green soup, crafting, reading poetry or books, volunteering at her children’s school, or playing Scrabble. She loves a good joke and will never steal your punchline. Owning her business has been such a blessing to her family and she is forever grateful to all those who have supported her over the years.