How selling what we love lead to our success

It has been a while since writing my last post. Spring is here and I am finally out of the winter funk that has consumed me. I don’t know how many out there get the winter blues, but I get the blues pretty hard. Feeling the temperatures rise and seeing buds on the trees give me a sense of renewal and the want of finally doing things again. One of those things is dedicating myself back to my blog.

I want to kind of pick up where I had left off from my last post. One of the things that I have been writing about in the past is the beginning of being self employed and how that has changed my life. Now I would like to share how I have morphed in to selling as well as continuing my bag making business.

Over the next few years some additional big changes came along to make me grow and stretch what I was doing. One of the big changes was that I was introduced to the SCA, Society for Creative Anachronism. The SCA is a medieval re-creation group focusing on pre 17th century skills, culture, arts and combat. My life has been enriched by meeting lots of new people, friends, learning about history, new skills , medieval camping, and so much more.

Through this new group of friends I met my husband as well. He had already been a part of this community for a few years before I discovered it. Once we were together and an official couple we decide to try our hand at being merchants. We began with things that we had made for ourselves and needed. We figured others might need these things too. To our pleasant surprise our little shop took off. We decided to go with our SCA persona names to come with the name for our shop, Sigrid and Magnus Leather Emporium. Now we are kind of like a staple at most of the events we go to. We have found that the things that we sell are things that we love to make the most. We also found that the most basic things that new people to the medieval world need is one of our major driving factors as well. People always need a belt, a pouch and another trinket to complete their look.

This medieval business did not take the place of my bag making business it has been just an added bonus to the business I already have. It has definitely challenged my creativity level where making bags for others does not do that.

We make a lot of different medieval things like pouches, haversacks, leather haversacks, arm guards for archery, quivers, medieval game boards, Viking hats, medieval hoods and some jewelry. In addition to all of those things I do make all of the medieval clothing we wear to these events. I don’t sell the clothing because I don’t want to have to worry about different sizes.

So to that end I have decide to add a little shop to this blog of some of the things that I make. My husband and I do have another website that sells other products . However, some of the products we make don’t really relate to my girlie sense of taste. The things I like to make are a bit more feminine and a mix between my medieval world and my mundane world.

Shimmer Lilac Bracelet

This is just a little taste of what I am going to be selling. It is an all leather bracelet that wraps comfortably around the wrist. The leather is super soft. I am going to be making necklaces in the future to match some of the bracelets.

I am really excited to soon be selling these and see where it takes me. So look for a subtle change to my blog. I will continue to blog about all kinds of different things that relate to my life in the medieval world and my mundane world.

So final thought is that do what you love. It’s not earth shattering advice , however it does have a huge impact on how you succeed and your overall happiness. Life is too short to be wasted on not being happy.