From Hobby to Creative Business: an Entrepreneurial Journey.

I opened my webshop with DIY paper flower kits at www.lovendahlhandmade.com in March 2023. It's almost a year and a half ago, and I think now is a good time to reflect a bit on my entrepreneurial journey with Løvendahl Handmade and explain why I decided to run my own small business.

 

A little about me.

My name is Mette, and I am 43 years old. I live in Roskilde with my husband and our two children. We moved here from Copenhagen and are incredibly happy with our life in Roskilde, where we have lived for 5 years now.

For as long as I can remember, I have collected and created colorful things. As a child, I saved the beautiful turpentine-scented glitter from New Year's Eve party poppers and collected glossy flower stickers with glitter. Later, beads caught my interest, and within a few years, I collected hundreds of different glass beads, which I sorted into small ziplock bags and displayed on the wall of my bedroom.

With the beads, I later made large necklaces, and when I discovered Japanese Miyuki glass beads, I bought the smallest ones, 3mm, and taught myself to weave tiny bead flowers.

After a course with Danish florist Effie Pingel, I learned to make flowers from silk fabric, and together with my small bead flowers, I created a small collection of luxury bridal hair accessories, which I called Løvendahl Bride.

Flowers have unconsciously been the common thread in my creative journey. I make flowers from beads, silk, clay, paint, and of course, paper. I made my first paper flower 7-8 years ago, and that's when everything clicked into place. I still love crepe paper with its enormous color selection and how you can continue to manipulate it until the shape is just right.

 

The beginning of the entrepreneurial journey.

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to run my own small business. And it had to be a creative business. Over time, I have gained some experience in entrepreneurship; before I had children, I ran two bridal gown shops in inner Copenhagen; while the children were small, I sold bridal hair accessories with Løvendahl Bride, and a year and a half ago, I opened Løvendahl Handmade with my DIY kits.

It sounds impressive when I write it that way, but the reality is also that for most of the time, I have been an employee, often in jobs with tasks far removed from my actual core competencies.

Like so many others, I unfortunately had to face the consequences of pushing myself for too long, and two years ago, I broke down from stress.

In the midst of chaos, I decided to slowly move towards a meaningful working life, and I knew that meant starting a small business, driven by a creative product that I could make myself.

I had long entertained the idea of making DIY paper flower kits, but it wasn't until I myself hit rock bottom that I understood how healing it is to create something with your hands – and for me: to have a creative hobby. Despite my body and mind having been overloaded for a very long time, I still felt a rare calm and inner silence when I sat and made paper flowers.

When I occasionally hold workshops, I feel the same calm among the participants. There are often moments of silence because everyone has drifted into their own world and is absorbed in what they are doing. It's a wonderful place to be.

 

What’s next?

I have now been running Løvendahl Handmade for almost a year and a half, creating all DIY kits, photos, paper flowers, the webshop, newsletters, and posts on various social media at a deliberately slow pace.

As my resilience grows stronger, so do my plans for Løvendahl Handmade. I sell most of my DIY kits at various markets and fairs, which is wonderful because I truly love greeting those of you who stop by and say hello. But the next step is to get the webshop properly up and running and sell more kits from there. Furthermore, I am receiving more and more inquiries from abroad, so at some point, I will open up for sales to Europe. -Once I've translated everything into German and English, that is...

Thank you for reading this far. If you have any questions, please feel free to write to me below.