We recently connected with Mary Tyler and have shared our conversation below.
Mary, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?
My husband has always wanted a CNC plasma cutter, and we decided 2022 might just be the year to get one… He had wanted one, since he was in high school, and with his experience in metalwork, welding , and just over all ultimate handyman, and my love for decorating and crafting/creating, we decided to blend those things and buy our machine and open an Etsy shop with home decor we designed and made with our plasma cutter.
It was a risk because there was definitely cost involved, he had just started a new job, and we knew it would take time and effort. I stay home and homeschool our three girls, run a homeschool co-op with some friends, and we work together on our little homestead. But we knew we wanted something different and eventually the possibility of our own business that we could invest in for our family, so in June of 2022 our CNC plasma cutter made it way to our home. As he worked to learn the machine, I worked to learn Adobe Illustrator better to design our products, and we both learned Etsy, as we needed this to begin making us some money as quickly as possible.
Mary, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I have always been creative and enjoyed making things, and when I met my husband, it was the same for him – he grew up welding and woodworking and pretty much being able to do anything he set his mind to. I learned to make stained glass and had a business making stained glass jewelry and smaller panels white I taught school for awhile before we had children. and he has always had some side gigs like working on friends cars, welding something or building things for our home. We knew we would like to take the experience and skills we had to start our own business one day.
Since my husband had wanted a CNC plasma cutter for so long, and we could come up with some ideas of things we could make with it to make some money and help support our family, in 2022 we finally decided to take the plunge and order our CNC plasma cutter. I have always loved home decor and crafts, so we set to work researching and designing signs and pieces to sell in our Etsy shop.
So now, with our three beautiful daughters, we work to create beautiful pieces of home decor with our CNC plasma cutter. A few months after the launch of our Etsy shop, we added our our laser cutter machine to really enhance some of our pieces. It has been a great journey so far. Our most popular seller has been our metal family tree in a beautiful wooden base that can be engraved with a family name or saying, with heart magnets with the name of your family members or grandchildren. We love this product, as it is so unique and can be so personalized. My husband builds the beautiful oak bases from wood from trees on our property. We have a growing collection of interchangeable metal signs for different seasons and styles that can be displayed in one of these bases as well. There is also a family tree option of the wall that has been popular so far.
We take great pride to create unique and quality pieces and are exited about new designs we have ahead. We are so thankful for how God has blessed us and look forward to whatever lies in the future of our business.
Do you sell on your site, or do you use a platform like Amazon, Etsy, Cratejoy, etc?
We made the choice to begin selling on Etsy, because it seemed to make the most sense for us at this time. It allows us to focus on our products and have a known platform that most people seem to feel comfortable with, rather than trying to build our own site and put lots of effort into that and building an inventory. Many of our products are customizable, either with text or color choices, so being made to order is important for us. We also didn’t want to spend our weekends doing craft shows and such, so an e-commerce platform is what we wanted.
What’s worked well for you in terms of a source for new clients?
This is definitely something we are still figuring out, but again one of the reasons we chose to use Etsy as our platform was so it would help with this. We are working to learn SEO to bring more people that way, but we are also using Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok in addition to running ads on Etsy at this time. We have had wonderful support with our local community as well.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.wildandfreefarmhouse.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wildandfreefarmhouse/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WildandFreeFarmhouse
- Other: Pinterest – just getting started there! https://pin.it/5tZCSR5 TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@wildandfreefarmhouse