How It All Began

Firstly who am I? Well, I'm Vicki, I'm a wife and a mother to 2 young girls and now owner of Handbags Just 4u, making handmade bags in beautiful fabrics.
 

I didn't really start out intending to set up a handmade handbag business. So how did I get here you might ask? It all began with some handmade children's aprons. My daughters both needed new ones and I thought I'd make them. I'd not used a sewing machine since I was a teenager but with some training from my mum I was up and 'stitching' in no time.

I made the girls aprons, then some for my niece & nephew too. I had bought way too much fabric (something which has become a bit of a recurring theme for me!) so continued and made some more. Along the way I'd also attended some card-making classes which I really enjoyed. Very quickly I'd got the crafty bug & had a collection of cards and fabric items, more than I could possibly use myself & thought how about selling my crafts?
 

I set up shop on an online marketplace and also a Facebook page.  Whilst I had positive comments about my products I didn't have any sales (not counting family!) over the first couple of months.  I know it can take time to get going but I wondered if it was all a bit haphazard. I was making a bit of this and a bit of that without much of a plan & to be honest my products were similar to many others available on such websites.
 

The turning point came with one simple tote bag. I posted a picture of a tote bag I'd made on Facebook and within a couple of hours I had orders for 3! 

I then made some more and also some shoulder bags, which again proved popular.
Going by my Facebook stats, my bags were my most popular products in terms of 'likes' and comments and were therefore reaching far more people than anything else. I love handbags, as many girls do. I've spent many an hour online looking at various styles, sizes, and fabrics and enjoy putting it all together to make something that others will love and enjoy too.
 

It became obvious handbags was the way forward for me.....
 

.....in my next post I'll talk about setting up my website.