Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Chelsea Wydra . We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Chelsea thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

My name is Chelsea Wydra am have been a Military Spouse for 11 years and a mother of two beautiful boys. I have moved around a lot over the last 12 years and holding a job is very difficult to do which is why I ended up creating my business selling Macrame. It is something I can take with me wherever I end up in the world.

Chelsea , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am from Colorado and graduated from the University of Northern Colorado with my BA in Health Sciences. Shortly after graduating I got married and moved to Virginia. I was never given the opportunity to settle into a job in my career field so I became a Server/Bartender for a few years. At the time I created this business I had just moved across the country to Japan with two very young children and my husband was deployed to Afghanistan for 9 months shortly after. I have always enjoyed working and making something for myself and my time. Since both children were not school aged I decided to teach myself how to make Macrame with a few short YouTube videos. I dove right in and bought some high quality cord and made a few items to hang around my house including plant hangers and dream catchers. With the motivation from close friends and family, I then went through the legal steps to create a home business that operated from my house on the military installation I was at in Sasebo Japan. I then created social media for my product and the military community jumped all over it. Soon after that, was known as the Macrame Lady.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I make one of a kind pieces some with driftwood from Japan with organic cotton cord and some cord I dyed myself with plant based colors. I make plant hangers, shelves, dreamcatchers, wall hangings (small to large), ornaments, flowers, and much more. I also started teaching classes before I left Japan and would love to teach larger audiences now that I am back in the states.

Living in Japan as a military spouse has its obstacles and one of the hardest ones for my business was select customers. Per hoe business codes, I was only allowed to sell my product to other military members. So I found it most effective to post content everyday of what products I had available, what products I was planning on making, and videos of my creating some of the decor. I also was a huge part of the community by being a Family Ombudsman and I held a full time job at the Naval Clinic. So it became very easy for me to verbally promote my business that way as well.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Resilliance is very familiar for me with the lifestyle I live. I have had to overcome difficulties with every move I made and starting from scratch with jobs and friends. Being a military spouse is not for the weak. Although I wasn’t doing something in my career field, I found this business to be something I fell in love with. I enjoyed creating art for myself and for the community. People loved everything I made and I felt a sort of accomplishment in that. I always thought if I wasn’t in Japan I could have a larger clientele by attending farmers markets or swap meets where id have my very own booth but I took what I had a still made something of it. One of the busiest times of year for me was Christmas. I would take orders for ornaments and within an hour I would have to close the orders simply because I had over 100 orders. It was amazing and with my full time job I had to find time at work on those orders.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Macramazing Designs By Chelsea.
• Facebook: Macramazing Designs By Chelsea.
• Email: [email protected]

Image Credits
Jon Deanon