Handmade Pedestals
The day I first came up with the idea of creating beautiful lockers I was walking along the beach with my sister, we were dreaming out loud about what might be next for me after having a baby. The seed grew rapidly from there and it didn’t take me long to get lost in cyberspace trying to learn all I could about how to get lockers made, who makes them and where. You see, having grown a micro handmade business from scratch with not much more than a hammer and some old cutlery, I had learnt a few things that guided where I wanted to go next.
I love handmade, I love the connection to a person whose fingers have been all over my new mug, necklace or candle. But the thing I came to learn is that although I put ‘made by hand’ all over my products and put the concept on a beautifully crafted pedestal, I’m not really a maker. Don’t get me wrong, I can make. But I’m not an artist. I’m an ideas girl and I get my kicks from the spark of creating not the act of making over and over. I don’t get that meditative state thing I hear people rave about and due to a recent new baby arriving quite literally on my bathroom floor, I very rarely have much time or two hands to use either.
It had surprised me to discover that I really enjoyed aspects of business life that I had initially overlooked. Creating content and manifesting the brand values into the products, packaging and social media became things I actually found ‘fun’ whereas the labour of making the products felt a lot more like ‘work.’ Ultimately, making is not where my strengths really lie.
It was with these newfound insights buried within me that I could build a picture: starting a new business where my time was spent creating the business and caring for my customers rather than creating the product myself. I came to see that by enlisting help in the handmade department it would free me up to build a stronger business than I was able to do by myself with my one baby free hand.
