Today we’d like to introduce you to Rei Pincombe.
Hi Rei, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Creativity has always been woven into my life, even before I really understood what I was going to do with it. I grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, and moved to Virginia after high school, but Knoxville never really stopped feeling like home. I still carry those roots with me — in my humor, my creativity, my sense of home, and in the way I tend to build things to feel personal and full of character rather than polished just for the sake of being polished.
My first real creative career was in the hair industry, where I spent about 16 years and eventually became a salon owner. I loved the artistry of it, but I also loved the freedom that came with creating something of my own. Running a business taught me a lot, not just about work, but about myself. I learned pretty quickly that I was happiest when I could take an idea, shape it into something tangible, and make it feel uniquely mine.
As life changed, so did the way I wanted to work. I became a mom, my priorities shifted, and I found myself wanting something that gave me more flexibility while still leaving room for creativity. That eventually led me to Little Rei’s of Sunshine, my in-home playcare.
What started as a childcare business quickly became much more creative than I expected. I was constantly dreaming up activities, designing learning materials, rearranging spaces, making signs, creating printables, and finding little ways to make everyday experiences feel more fun and thoughtful for the kids. Somewhere in the middle of all of that, I realized I wasn’t just running a playcare — I was building an entire little world around it.
That realization eventually grew into LROS Creative. I started turning some of the things I was already making into digital products, and from there the ideas kept branching out into books, coloring pages, artwork, writing, design, and whatever else happened to grab my attention. One idea tends to turn into five more for me, so the creative side of what I do has grown in a very organic, slightly chaotic way.
Today, I’m still running Little Rei’s of Sunshine while continuing to grow LROS Creative and my work as an author and designer. Looking back, the path from Knoxville to Virginia, from hairstylist to salon owner, then into motherhood, childcare, writing, and design probably doesn’t look very linear on paper — but to me, it all connects. The medium has changed over the years, but the thread running through everything has stayed the same: creativity, independence, and the desire to build something that feels genuine.
I’ve also learned that I don’t need everything I do to fit neatly into one category. The overlap between childcare, art, storytelling, humor, design, and entrepreneurship is actually where I feel most like myself. Knoxville may not be where I live now, but I still carry those roots with me in the way I create, the way I connect with people, and the way I try to make everything I build feel warm, personal, and full of personality.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Not at all. Most of my path has been less of a straight road and more of a series of detours that somehow kept leading me somewhere useful.
One of the biggest challenges has been learning how to start over without feeling like everything that came before was wasted. Leaving the hair industry after spending so many years building a career and eventually owning a salon was a huge shift. That part of my life had become such a big piece of my identity, so moving into something completely different meant figuring out who I was professionally all over again.
Motherhood changed a lot too. It made me rethink what I wanted my days to look like, how much flexibility I needed, and what kind of work actually fit the life I was trying to build. Starting Little Rei’s of Sunshine gave me that opportunity, but running an in-home business comes with its own set of challenges. When your home is also your workplace, the lines between work and life can get blurry very quickly.
Like most small business owners, I’ve also had to become a little bit of everything. I’ve learned design, marketing, websites, product development, publishing, photography, branding, and plenty of other things simply because they needed to be done. A lot of it has been self-taught, usually by jumping in before I completely knew what I was doing and figuring it out along the way.
Probably one of my biggest personal challenges is that I rarely have a shortage of ideas — the harder part is deciding which ones deserve my attention first. I can see the finished version of something in my head very clearly, which is great creatively, but it can also make me spend far too much time trying to get every little detail exactly right. I’ve had to learn that sometimes finished and growing is better than perfect and sitting on my computer.
There have definitely been periods of uncertainty, financial stress, changes in direction, and moments where I’ve wondered whether I was trying to do too many things at once. But I think those harder seasons have also made me more resourceful. I’ve learned how to work with what I have, change direction when something isn’t working, and build things in ways that make sense for my actual life instead of following someone else’s version of what a business is supposed to look like.
I’m still figuring plenty of it out, and I think I always will be. But I’ve become much more comfortable with the idea that changing direction doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve failed. Sometimes it just means you’ve learned enough to know where you want to go next.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My work lives somewhere at the intersection of creativity, storytelling, humor, childhood, and design. Through LROS Creative, I create digital products, printables, artwork, coloring books, children’s books, and other projects that usually begin as an idea I can’t stop thinking about until I figure out what it wants to become.
A lot of what I create is inspired by real life — the funny, messy, sentimental, slightly chaotic parts of it. I’m drawn to things that feel playful and full of personality rather than overly polished or generic. Whether I’m creating something for children, parents, or adults, I want it to feel like there’s an actual person behind it.
I also have a unique perspective because so much of my creative work has grown directly out of other parts of my life. Running Little Rei’s of Sunshine has given me a front-row seat to childhood — how kids play, what makes them laugh, what holds their attention, and how much imagination can transform something simple. My years in the hair industry and as a salon owner gave me a completely different kind of creative experience, but I still use a lot of what I learned there about visual balance, individuality, and making something feel personal.
I think what sets me apart is that I don’t create from one single lane. I tend to look at an idea from a lot of angles and ask what else it could become. A concept might start as an activity, turn into a printable, inspire a book, or grow into an entirely different project. That can make my creative process a little unconventional, but it also keeps the work from feeling repetitive.
I’m probably most proud of the fact that I’ve built so much of this by teaching myself as I go. I didn’t follow a traditional path into design, publishing, or creative entrepreneurship. I’ve learned by experimenting, making mistakes, changing direction, and trying again until the thing in front of me finally looks or feels the way I imagined it.
More than anything, I want the things I create to make someone feel something — whether that’s laughter, nostalgia, curiosity, comfort, or simply the feeling that somebody else gets it. If something I make can brighten an ordinary moment or make it feel a little more fun, imaginative, or human, then it’s done what I wanted it to do.
Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
I probably have a slightly unconventional answer to this because I haven’t built my career through traditional networking, and I’ve never really had one formal mentor guiding me along the way.
Most of what has helped me has come from paying attention to people whose work I genuinely respect, learning from what they share, asking questions when I need to, and being willing to teach myself the rest. I think mentorship can take a lot of different forms. Sometimes it’s one person you know personally, but sometimes it’s a collection of people, resources, conversations, and examples that shape the way you think and work.
I’ve also found that genuine connections are much more valuable than trying to “network” just for the sake of networking. I’m not naturally someone who loves walking into a room full of strangers and introducing myself to everyone, so I’ve learned to lean into smaller, more organic connections instead. Online creative communities, other small business owners, local connections, and simply reaching out when there is a real reason to connect have all felt much more natural to me.
My biggest advice would be not to wait for the perfect mentor to appear. Find people who are doing something you admire, pay attention to how they approach their work, ask thoughtful questions, and learn from multiple perspectives. At the same time, don’t assume someone else’s path has to become your blueprint.
I think the best relationships happen when you approach people with genuine curiosity rather than immediately thinking about what they can do for you. And sometimes the most valuable connection isn’t necessarily someone far ahead of you — it can be another person figuring things out alongside you who is willing to share ideas, encouragement, and lessons learned.
For me, the goal has never really been to build the biggest network. It’s been to build the right connections and keep learning from the people and experiences that cross my path.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lrosbrightcrew.com
- Instagram: @littlereisofsunshinellc
- Facebook: @littlereisofsunshinellc
- LinkedIn: @LROSva
- Other: https://www.pinterest.com/madefrommaybes
