A little over seven years ago, I did my first ever project with leather
I was very much part of the cosplay scene at that point with part of a charity costuming group who were invited to attend events to raise money for our chosen charities. It was a lot of fun... but I get bored only replicating costumes from screen and comic book (don't get me wrong - I loved my Pfeiffer Catwoman, Poison Ivy, April O'Neill and Dark Phoenix. I just needed something that allowed me to create from my own ideas)
So for an event I was attending socially rather than as part of our group, I put together what I called a battle fairy. Basically a leather clad, glitter-gun toting flower fairy with attitude. And a creative challenge, I had never worked with leather before.
A year or so later I started my second project, which was armour for a significant person in my life who left before I'd finished it. It sat ignored and partly done for a long time until I met someone else who would be excited at the thought of receiving it. It was finally finished just over three years ago
Thanks to Wyvern Photography for the pro pics!
In the months after that after that, I started making a few bits - with a LOT of encouragement from Tristan (who now works for/with me.... I see what you did there Tris) and taking them along to the larps I played. Not much but enough that I thought it might be an idea to make a go of it as a full time business (I was already self employed, it was a shift of focus rather than a quit-the-day-job thing!). I am incredibly grateful to the friends and fellow players who bought my not-terribly-good stuff in that first few months. Without you I wouldn't be doing this.
And we're just about to enter our third year of full time trading. I have a part time employee, we're just about to move to a bigger workshop and I have got significantly better at making things. And photographing them :) And am ridiculously busy making stock for events and for our online customers both here on our website and at our etsy shop
So always follow your dreams and try things. Take risks! It might not work. You might crash and burn. But if you don't try, you will never know.