We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Charli Lindley-Hamlin a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Charli, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Alright, so you had your idea and then what happened? Can you walk us through the story of how you went from just an idea to executing on the idea

Starting was sort of organic; I wasn’t actually intending on becoming a little business when I created my Instagram account @wildflower.wares.made (formerly @wildflowerwaresmade) in January of 2018. Jen Matthews, our church’s Creative Team lead pastor, told me to take over when I asked her if I could write a little welcome message on the chalkboard one Sunday morning. I’d say she was the initial launcher of me rediscovering my artist’s brain and heart after it being shut off from about ages 15 to 33 or so, while I played high school and college volleyball, got married, bought a house, my first job, earned my masters degree, coached volleyball, and had our first daughter. Life just happened and I almost forgot how much I loved drawing and making things, except for the occasional present for a friend or family member. The account was initially more of a way to document all of these pieces and items I was making and giving (I am a handmade gift addict!), and of the chalkboards entry signs I drew weekly for my church. As the months went on, a few people who saw my posts and the chalkboard started asking for me to hand letter on their signs, and I thought, “people want to buy the things I make??” I’d always reserved my art and creative process for gift giving and not much more.

Then, my mom, who I’m very close with and is the designer brain I always refer to for advice or opinions, came to visit me in Alabama in November of 2018 from my home state of Idaho. She found out that a friend had invited me to have a booth in a holiday arts and crafts fair at a local barn. I had initially said no, because it was football season (my husband is a coach), I’m a high school teacher full-time, and the fall is already pretty wild for our little family. I had nothing ready and made; I had just been doing one or two pieces at a time on commission for friends that year. In true Mom fashion, all it really took was for her to say, “I’ll watch the kids; see what you can make in a week and I’ll help you do it.”

I ended up staying up late every single night after work for five days straight and cranking out signs, ornaments, wood-burned ax handles; anything I could make that would work for the holiday season. My mom, being the design genius that she is, went around my house and took up my cowhide rug, wooden boxes, crates, plants, antique decor pieces, candles, and put together enough for us to have a fully decorated booth at this holiday fair. My sister-in-law and I brainstormed back and forth to come up with an actual name that meant something to me (all businesses need a name, right?!?), I whipped up a little wooden business sign that night just before midnight, and we woke up at 5:00 AM to head out with a completely loaded down truck and drove across town to the barn where the art festival was being held. Our only mishap was the tailgate flying open on the road! We ended up being the biggest seller and people bought almost everything I had. I was totally blown away, and that finally got me thinking that I could do this consistently.

The rest is pretty much history. People saw the posts I made of our items (my husband was my cutter-sander-stainer for signs), I started getting tons of orders for holiday and family signs and ornaments, and word of mouth traveled locally. I do ship things occasionally, but I mostly do local items for my true blue, loyal customers.

A few months after that initial fair, one of the pastors at our church, Brandon Doss, gave a really great message on how, if you can influence strongly just a few people (think 500 or 1,000 followers who actually see your posts/items and buy them, share your work, refer you to friends, etc), then it’s worth far more than having 500,000 followers who just follow, but don’t actually look at your page. That has been so true for me. I hover around 500 followers, and most of my business doesn’t even come from the Instagram account. It’s really more of a catalogue for potential clients to check out, and word of mouth takes care of the rest.

I intentionally don’t post a lot during my really busy seasons of life, so I can keep it small and manageable, since I’m also a full-time teacher, coach’s wife, mom, athlete, and friend. My local folks keep me in business and it’s just enough to keep it enjoyable, and not overwhelming. The holiday season gets pretty crazy, but I prep a lot in the fall to prepare for that.

Charli, 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 am the continuously learning artist and the worker bee behind Wildflower Wares Made. I focus mostly on hand-lettering and drawing on different items (hats, signs, ornaments, cutting boards, etc.), and do a little bit of sewing and painting. I am addicted to giving homemade gifts, nothing tops giving a piece of your time, love, and energy. I don’t feel like I can ever turn my creative brain off or sit still. I’m always trying to figure out what I can make from things I find, and how to turn it into a great gift for someone. Giving gifts is my love language to others. I specialize mostly in hand lettering, drawing florals, mountains, and trees, and my favorite items to make are burned or “tattooed” flat brim hats. I work hard to come up with new items each year, which gives my return customers a chance to purchase something different.

I can be contacted at @wildflower.wares.made on Instagram. Potential clients can also see my previous work there, including all of my hats!

I have always loved writing letters, calligraphy, and drawing, even as a young kid, and I grew up with parents and who are both artists in their own way and incredibly creative brains. We were always making homemade Christmas gifts for family members, and they were always making sure that I had supplies or could forage outside for what I needed to do whatever creative project my little brain dreamed up. They took me and my brothers to grow up in the most beautiful, wild, creativity-inspiring place in the world, the Wood River Valley in south central Idaho, and I credit them and the land with being my big influences. I come from a long line of makers and trade workers: farmers, custom cabinet-makers, carpenters, mechanics, interior decorators, and people who work hard with their hands. I have one incredibly talented grandma who has been a tailor all of her life. She has taught me so much about how “anything worth doing is worth doing right the first time,” how to measure twice and cut once, and how slowing down actually speeds up your efficiency. She gets a huge amount of credit for a lot of my values and skills, and my love of sewing and creating. Another grandma has her own little side gig selling macrame home decor and gifts at age 83! The generations before me definitely inspire me to keep the skills of working with their hands alive for my girls.

I do a lot of hand-lettered signage and mirrors for weddings and home decor gifts. A good friend of mine who is a real estate agent buys all of her closing gifts from me, so everyone who buys a home from her gets a hand-lettered or wood-burned cutting board or tray, or some sort of welcome sign for their home, and she orders hand-lettered ornaments each Christmas for all of these folks with their new address on it.

I’m constantly trying to have a new item each year for the holiday season; something that my return customers can purchase and add to their collection. Last year, after several years of wanting to try it, I started handburning florals, mountains, trees, and other wildlife into wool and felt flat brimmed hats. This fall, I’m adding in burned suede baseball caps! My style is definitely a mix of outdoors and western, which reflects where I grew and the way of life in the West.

My favorite thing ever is when someone calls me and says, “hey, I need a gift for someone and I thought of you. What do you have?” The customers who let me use my own creative freedom are the ones who get the best of me, in my opinion. I try to keep a good stock of home decor or gift items in my studio, so I’m always cranking out different things. It really fills my cup when someone calls and tells me that a friend told them my name, sent them my Instagram handle, or told them to call me. I get far more business by word-of-mouth then I do on social media, which I love. The Internet and technology have done wonders for the world, but have also taken away a lot of really important aspects of human communication and interaction.

The one thing that I want potential clients or followers to know is that everything is handmade and a part of my soul. If this little side gig ever got to the point that it wasn’t lighting a fire in me, I would just stop doing it. It’s incredible to be able to send my kid to volleyball camp or buy an extra plane ticket home to the mountains with the money I make, but it’s so much more to be able to fulfill my intrinsic need to be a maker and let my creative flame be lit.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

When I first decided to actually sell the things I made, as opposed to simply give them as gifts, I was always following Becca Courtice of the Happy Ever Crafter. She teaches online hand-lettering courses, as well as a variety of other courses that you can pay for,but she is also a wealth of knowledge and shares so much of it freely for others via her Instagram and YouTube channel. I have just really always respected her business model of growing the community as opposed to seeing everything as competition. She has a course out called Panic Free Pricing that deals with pricing hand lettered work and how to gauge what you should be charging. I saved up enough money from selling items that I bought myself the course, and I can’t even tell you how much I learned from it. I refer back to it from time to time, just to check up that I’m continuing with sound business practices. I’m a really small enterprise, and it’s just me over here, but I have learned so much from Becca‘s courses. Another artist, Chalked by Mabz, sells a course on floral drawing. Becca and Mabz are good friends and share a lot about getting started in these businesses, as well as artist tips and tricks, and I have gained tons of information from their experiences and applied them to what I’m doing. Both are purveyors of the “community over competition“ way of doing things, and while they both work hard on their own gigs, they teach so much to others.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Since I keep a lot of of my business local and small so that it’s doable around my full-time job, friends, family, and community members sharing my name and my work are what keep new clients coming in. I work hard to treat my people like gold so that they come back to me and share my name, but also so they have great memories attached to the things they buy from me.

I want them to look at ornaments on their tree and remember the year that something wonderful happened and they ordered that piece.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @wildflower.wares.made

Image Credits

Charli Lindley-Hamlin