Mama Tried & Recently Finish Design Your Own Orders
Photo of a Mini Melissa Convertible Bag on Jenna @Vichcraft & Chris’s Wedding Moto Parade by Anna Zajac Weddings
Hi all! Alexz here.
Your founder & leather lover.
2023 year is already flying by.
To start this post off right, I’m sharing a few photos of my friend’s Chicago Wedding Moto Parade.
February is halfway done. We’ve already had the best month of revenue that Bird Trouble has ever had. January! Who’da thought?! Our online customers are amazing and our exclusive retailer Tarnish Chicago is the bomb. It’s perfect timing and maybe we madly manifested it because our inventory needed to build from nada to A LOT before this weekend.
I’m extremely looking forward to taking Bird Trouble to Milwaukee Wisconsin this weekend. It’s Mama Tried!!
A full show in a cool venue featuring custom built motorcycles and motorcycle riding lifestyle vendors. We’ve done it a few times and always have a good time plus we see Bird Trouble on so many attendees. It’s truly where our customers are since they can wear our bags as a backpack on their motorcycle, and then a crossbody off of their motorcycle. This year we’ll be set up next to our friend Tarnish Chicago!
We’ll have a full tent with 200+ USA handcrafted leather goods. I tested out the look of my tent in our workshop and took a few photos I’ll share below. Also below is a photo of Mama Tried from a previous year.
We sold out of the small batch exclusive Valentines Day Collection through online orders before February 14!
This is a big recognization because I launched this collection online super early, as a test, and I can see it was helpful to launch that early. I also had a lot of fun curating the photos to market this collection online. Fun over-all way to share the last of the limited red Crazy Horse cowhide leather. Thank you so, so much to those who placed orders from that collection!
So, the steady flow of orders is keeping the flow of production going too. Of course I’m making all Design Your Own orders but I also fit in some Ready To Ship fringe goods. All in my basement workshop. My week is filled with deep craft-work… I call it this because I’m in a definite flow when I’m creating… shipping orders, ordering materials, doing customer service, and much more admin work.
Being at home with my work means I work a lot but I enjoy what I do incredibly. I enjoy being home while I work. I like to work online while I enjoy my personal life. I feel that I batch hours of work in clusters so I can allow myself a break before burn out. Sometimes I’ll work from 8am until 9:30pm for days but then I’ll take full days off or I’ll make one bag in the morning and then take the rest of the day off. I’m very proud of the life and career I’ve designed and I’m even more proud that you all love Bird Trouble.
What also helps me with burn out as a solo entrepreneur and maker has been… out-sourcing. Hiring other leather manufacturing teams for private label, slapping the Bird Trouble logo, gives me a lot of purpose. I also look forward to the emails and the phone calls with them since I work from home alone during the week. My Chicago partnering team has finished one small batch of black bison fringe leather Ready To Ship goods and my Ohio partnering team has finished one small batch of Timeless Collection Ready To Ship goods.
To finish off this blog post, here is a fun slideshow of recent finished quality leather products Bird Trouble has produced.
The following specifically are Design Your Own orders I completed in my workshop over the last few weeks.
