Since we started Mally Designs in 2005, we literally have not thrown out any quantity of useable leather. We are the non wasting types, and you could imagine what 13 years of scrap leather accumulation looks like. The amount of remnant leather we have neatly stored away has always been somewhat daunting, and in fact, it is a big reason we added moccasins to our collection as well as our accessories in past years. When we moved from our warehouse to our new home studio 5 years ago, we brought a truck load of that scrap home with us. I guess we always knew we would find a way to put it to use. It's perfectly useable, beautiful leather, after all. Last year, we thought it might be fun to see if our shapes would be something that other crafters or leather workers would be interested in, so we listed them on our Mally Designs Etsy Shop. We were pleased to see that the answer was an overwhelming YES - other makers were most definitely interested in our designs for their own crafts! It made us feel pretty good about putting it to use and after about 8 months of selling our leather applique on our first etsy shop, we knew we had a good little side hustle going and we decided to give our leather supplies a shop all of their own.
Introducing Mission Leather Supply
Here's a little sneak peek of some of our most popular listings thus far. Just click each image to learn more about the options:
This listing was our first etsy sale at Mission Leather Supply and it continues to be a popular one!
Since we launched 1 month before Valentine's Day, these ones were a hit as well!
This mini color swatch set has proven to be an essential tool for our regulars.
By request, we added 8x10" leather sheets and 4x7" leather sheets, perfect for a multitude of projects.
Our Rose Gold, Gold and Silver leather sheets are on trend and flying off the shelves.
This diamond shape, aka geometric teardrop, has really made an impression.
We also offer a symmetrical diamond shape, also a great choice.
We have also created leather earring supplies sets for our jewelry designer customers.
This is another example of what we offer for earring makers, perfect for making bar earrings.
Leather circles of all sizes and colors, available in smaller circles and larger circles.
Looking for rectangles? We have those too here and here.
Okay, you get the idea. We have options, and yes, even our cute animals, bugs, transportation designs and more are listed. You can check out all of Mission Leather Supply's leather supplies here. You can also subscribe to Mission Leather Supply's Email Newsletter here.
We gave this side business the simple name of Mission Leather Supply because Mission, BC (in the Fraser Valley) is our home and because really, we are on a mission to supply other creative types with our leather - everything from tiny little stars and flowers to embellish their crafts to our current largest 8x10" pieces. So far we have discovered that our customers range from jewelers to crocheters, moccasin makers, purse makers, wreath makers, people working on small repair jobs and more. It's really quite a thrill to see our designs used in the creations of other makers. Throughout the years, all of our designs were hand drawn by myself, so aside from the basic shapes, you really can't get most of them anywhere else. Since our shop opened 3 months ago, we have really just begun and we will continue to be adding new listings and offerings throughout the rest of 2018. It's just a start, and we are really proud of it so far. We look forward to seeing our side hustle grow!
I'm not much of a numbers person, but I have been exercising that side of my brain a lot lately. I'm learning you have to be quite creative yet analytical when it comes to figuring out algorithms and growing a new etsy shop!
Since Etsy is pretty transparent with this stuff anyhow, here are some numbers from our first 3 months on etsy:
* 43 x 5 star reviews - we must be doing something right!!
* 367 sales, many have been repeat customers
* orders shipped to 5 countries (Canada, USA, Australia, the UK and Ghana!)
* 192 shop favourites - thank you, thank you!
* 122 listings
Another highlight was being featured on the Whistle and Ivy blog with our maple leaf applique!
This is the amazing Team Canada 'Chinook Toque' design made by Whistle and Ivy which includes our maple leaf applique purchased from the shop. The pattern is available here:
This feature gave our Maple Leaf Leather Applique a big boost in sales! This community is so wonderfully support of each other! Big thanks to Whistle and Ivy for this feature!
I hope one day to look back at these stats and think how far we have come, but for now we are enjoying the growth of this new shop. There is actually big potential and possibilities with etsy and this is just the beginning. We are motivated and inspired and really excited about this side hustle!
If you're thinking about starting an etsy shop:
I want to encourage you to GO FOR IT! Seriously, this little shop has been almost fully found just through Etsy searches so far. We have not really done any other promotion other than a brief mention on facebook and a few posts on instagram. That is it! We owe it to the etsy search algorithm for getting us found. If you're thinking about starting a new etsy shop, please use this link to get your first 40 listings free. You won't regret it! We have lots to work on to getting it found in other ways, and this blog post is one of them, but we are very much thankful that just through etsy alone, so much can happen.
