We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lesley De Abaitua. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lesley below.

Lesley, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I work with a lot of power tools, and I am very fortunate to have a husband and father who were willing to show me how to use many of the tools I now use on a daily basis.

However, my main tool is a scroll saw, and that is something that I was able to teach myself. Through a lot of trial and error, I was able to find what worked best for me. When I started, the biggest obstacle was the lack of resources on how to learn this tool as well as many elements of the sign making process. This is also what motivated me to create content that would help others in the areas I couldn’t find help.

The skills that were the most important to have when learning were the willingness to learn from mistakes, patience and a general understanding of how tools work.

To speed up learning, for people wanting to start now there are so many resources which is amazing. For me, I’m proud that my journey took me a bit longer since it was worth it to help pave the way.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Lesley, and I am a mom of two young girls. I started my wood sign business in 2017 as a way to generate some income so I could stay home with my first daughter and as a way to cope with my PPD/PPA. At first, my business was all word of mouth, but social media really allowed me to reach a larger customer base. I create custom, hand made, one of a kind wood art primarily using a scroll saw. I design all of my signs for my customers, and the thing that sets me apart from most is all of my products are fully hand made by me. I use power tools, but everything is made on a scroll saw without the help of a laser or CNC which is what many people use to create similar products to mine.

In 2017, I was meant to head back to my corporate job in project management after my maternity leave, but I knew I wasn’t ready to leave my young daughter at daycare. I had always been crafty doing things like knitting, crochet and cross stitch for fun, but my sister asked my if I would be able to help her make a card box for her wedding. I had never used power tools so I got my husband to build a box and I painted their name on it. After her wedding, several of her friends asked for boxes, so we made those as well and I decided to open at Etsy shop to make some extra income in the hopes I could make being a work at home mom a reality.

I got a few orders from Etsy, and then I started an instagram page and got a few more. It got to the point that my husband couldn’t keep up making the boxes with his full-time job, so he started to show me how to use his power tools. The miter saw, drill, jig saw, router and sander were the first tools I picked up and slowly I gained confidence in making things myself.

By the end of 2017, I had learned so much and decided I wanted to give the scroll saw a try. It was a tool I had never seen in person, but I wanted to continue to learn and my parents gifted me one for Christmas. And at that point, I had to teach myself. 3D signs were not that popular when I started and there were very few resources to learn how to use it, so through trial and error, I taught myself. I shared my journey of learning through my social media and quickly found a community of other makers trying to learn new things and together we were able to lift each other up and push each other forward.

The thing I am the most proud of is the authenticity I share through my social media and in my business. Running a business as a mother is no simple feat and I never try to make it seem that way. I share my failures in addition to my wins, I share what I know in the hopes of helping others to pursue their passions, and I share my journey with mental health to encourage others to get the help that they need. What I’ve created is more than just a business, it’s also a community.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

Social media is where 100% of my sales come from, and it is such a powerful tool for creatives today. I started on Instagram and Facebook in 2017, YouTube in 2019 and TikTok in 2020. Having multiple channels is one of my first tips as you never know which platform will work best for you and it’s also good to never have your eggs all in one social media basket.

When I started on social media, I was surprised to find so many other people doing exactly what I was trying to do, and at first I did find it discouraging. I didn’t want to be like everyone else, but I wasn’t sure how to make myself stand out. At first I posted my work, but really tried to sell things, which didn’t work very well! Once I started sharing my journey of learning and simply being myself by sharing snippets of my every day life and behind the scenes of making signs, I started finding people who connected with not only my business, but also me as a person.

Being consistent, posting often, and being myself were the main factors in how I built my following on social media. As someone who is fairly introverted, a lot of the times I post things as if I’m posting for myself, sharing advice I wish I’d had or things that I need to hear. When doing things like stories, I always pretend I’m talking to my sister or a friend so that it feels more natural.

Social media can be tricky, and there is no perfect way of growing an audience, but being yourself is something no one else has. Try not to compare yourself to others (even though it can be hard) because we are all on our own journey.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Although this is a story about my journey as a business owner, one of the major reasons I have my own business is my battle with postpartum mental illness. In 2016, my first daughter was born and I struggled with PPD/PPA silently. It wasn’t until I started my business in 2017 that I finally started to feel like myself again that I realized how badly I had been suffering. I shared some of struggles on my social media, but it wasn’t until I was pregnant with my second daughter in 2018 that I truly began to share my journey with mental health. By sharing my truth, and the issues I faced as a business owner and a mother, I found a community of women who related on many levels. I had my second daughter in 2019, and after she was born I experienced PPA again, and this time it was much worse. There was a period of time where I was unsure if I would ever be able to balance my family and my business but over time, once I got the help I needed, I was able to come back, stronger than ever.

I shared many aspects of this on my social media, and the response I received was overwhelming. Women from all over the world related to my struggles and shared their own with me. I had many women tell me they started their businesses because of me, but more importantly, I had women tell me that I saved them, that because of me they finally got the help they needed with their own struggles with mental health. This has truly made being vulnerable absolutely worth it.

Contact Info:

• Website: oakandfeatherdecor.com
• Instagram: oakandfeatherdecor
• Facebook: oakandfeatherdecor
• Twitter: oakandfeather
• Youtube: youtube.com/oakfeatherdecor
• Other: TikTok: oakandfeatherdecor

Image Credits
Lesley de Abaitua