From $0.77 To Starting A Recycled Revolution

Hi my name is Isabella. Exactly 4 years and 3 months ago I quit my job, sold everything I owned and bought a little campervan named Sergio. Filled with wanderlust I stepped out into the unknown, leaving behind the security of a steady wage.  I met amazing people, journeyed across Australia and started a gorgeous eco design label. Along the way I have been broke and disillusioned. I learnt to free myself from expectation.  

So today by way of an introduction, I want to share with you how I ditched my office job and embraced a new creative life.  I am so excited to discover the Steemit community. I find great solace and confidence in finding likeminded people. There is something comforting about finding your 'own' people. People that share your drive, business aspirations and eccentricity. If I can inspire just one person to pursue their dream, then this is a good yarn worth sharing.    

Stuck in the daily grind

 My story is a sweet slightly foolhardy tale, that all started a few months before turning thirty in sunny tropical Brisbane City in Australia. I believe that life comes together from thousands of small actions, thoughts and choices, the total sum of which has forged your path to where you are today.   

My husband and I were stuck in a rut, working jobs without passion. Seven years of university landed me in an international law firm, with an office that boasted an envious view across the snaking river city below. From most eyes I had it made; good pay, luxurious perks and extravagant staff parties. But life felt listless, repetitive and bland. I craved spark, expression and to stop cramming my life into a weekend. Every morning on the train commute, a little part of my soul died. During holidays,  I used to sit in cafes watching the joyous chatter and wonder who all these people are. What do they do? My husband and I called them 'daytime' people. I wanted to be a daytime person, the captain of my soul, free to roam and create.   

But the overwhelming question and lack of an answer had seen months turn into years, with life just stuck in a loop. What else can I do? I need money? How do I become one of those people that seems to live outside of the 9-5 system?

Around Christmas of 2011, I decided to make a few personal gifts for family. I have always been handy with the sewing machine. I taught myself how to sew when I rather ambitiously fumbled through making my own wedding dress. Dive in the deep end I say,  you can learn and master new things. I digress, so back to Christmas. I designed and made some fabric iPad cases. I loved them and pumped out 30. Despite not sharing the same love, my supportive husband came with me to a new twilight market in West End (a suburb with a nice edgey alternative city culture). We sold 4 that night.   

We bought a camper van and named him Sergio  

 Excited, naive and full of dreams– whatever you call it, this was the moment we decided to just leave our current lifestyle and hit the road selling my creations. We had a garage sale and sold almost everything we owned (I kept the pasta maker, tagine and wedding dress). We bought a campervan and jammed the sewing machine under the bed. 

We paid a guy $5 on Fiverr to write a short song notifying our friends via Facebook of our planned escape from the city grind. We copped a bit of flack from family and friends for not doing a proper send off – but to this day I am grateful we didn't share our plans. Being such a stupid plan it would not have taken much for seeds of doubt to be planted. I worked out that we had barely enough savings to get us through the first 7 weeks. That was as far as the plan went. Seven weeks. The rest was up to us. We went blissfully and blindly into the early sunrise on the open road on the 5th May 2012.   

 For 10 months we soared across the highways and back roads of Australia. Rolling into little towns in time for their annual scarecrow festival, outback sculpture event, lantern celebration, wood chopping competition and monthly markets. We immersed ourselves in the local scene, doing over one hundred markets. Everything we sold was made by me, in a tent attached to our campervan.  We met extraordinary people and received invaluable mentoring advice. Every Sunday night, we found a free spot to camp, bought a $3 bottle of wine, counted our takings and plotted out the next week. How much petrol could we afford? Where is the next market? It was stressful and liberating at the same time.
 

I honed my art, we honed our brand. During the week, we rummaged op-shops in small towns for recycled textiles as it was significantly cheaper than buying new material. Soon the recycled element became part of our branding, our ethos. 

We saw the wastage and loss of innovation our disposable throw away world had created.  Tea-towels, coffee sacks, leather belts, broken bags, ripped clothes, partially stained scarves were chopped up and stitched into new bags and jewellery.  The materials we found guided my designs and each piece harboured so many lost stories.   

Broke in the forest

We lived simply at times, showering in spring fed creeks, eating local grown produce from honesty boxes, and became highly skilled at finding public power points. We shared our deepest souls with each other under the stars. We explored, laughed, cried, made up songs, drunk loads of coffee, splurged on pizza and read 10 year old magazines in laundromats.  
 
At one stage we had $0.77 cents left in our bank account and had to live for a week in a free camp site in a State Forest. Camping under the pine trees, this was a sobering time. Nothing like being helplessly broke to test your spirits.  

 The end of the road 

Summer hit with 47 degree fury. Tent sewing turned into alfresco moonlight sewing and our van became a hot tin box. We lost motivation, I got sick, we missed a few markets and money dwindled. We had just enough petrol to head to a small Queensland town up in the dividing range, known for a cooler high altitude climate and wine. It also happened to be the new home to my mother-in-law.   
 Our visit extended to months and then a year, despite telling ourselves this was only temporary. Lets just say, being 30, married and living in your parents home, is hardly a grand statement of our self proclaimed liberation from 'the man.'  Deflated, embarrassed, yet still very determined to forge a new life, we rented a studio space along an old highway that had become a tourist drive in a village with a population of 270 people (soon to be 274). 

Then there was four

The plan was to use this as a base for our market endeavours. Oh life just loves to throw in little surprises. I fell pregnant...with twins. I am sure pregnancy hormones make you slightly mad. Irrational even. I threw a bowl of porridge in the bush one morning before a market and balled my eyes out listening to the song “Little Talks” by Of Monsters and Men.  We had $500 in the bank and two babies on the way. With markets out of the question, we decided to open a shop called Bridget Bunchy.  

Our Recycled Gallery

What started as a one room shop with my label has flourished into 300 square metres of wonderland, filled with over 50 local artisans, up-cycled creations and adorable vintage pieces. We provide a platform for others to make an income making things. We have inspired a bit of a recycled/up-cycled revolution in our home town.   

Through all of it, premature babies, extreme sleep deprivation and running a business on the skint , it was awesome to get that first shop sale and the delights of new parenthood warmed our hearts.    

Bitcoin and the rest of the world

 We created an online shop using Shopify, first shipping in Australia. Then we discovered bitcoin and the whole world opened up to us. Yay!!! We started offering international shipping and bitcoin payments. Ah the joy when I saw the first notification on my phone for a bitcoin order shipping to California.  

 
 I have poured my heart and soul into our shop. I don't think I have ever loved or worked for something so hard in my life. 

My budget has been tight and everything from the paint, to the shop fittings has been sourced from tip shops and garage sales. But money aside, what I have managed to achieve with recycled materials is magical.

 We rummage and recycled, wash, stitch and re-use, to help people see beauty in turning old into new.

We have earrings made from coins, blankets made into coats, old shirts sleeves made into wine bottle bags, bottle cap coasters, fence posts turned into chopping boards, broken vases fused into glass beads. Amazing original hand crafted creations that make use of existing resources.   

Our storage room has been turned into a free craft materials exchange, a place of generosity and paying it forward. 

We have been overwhelmed by the response to our shop both online and here in our village. It has not been easy but it has been so immensely rewarding. I look back at photos of my first market with those iPad cases.  I can see now that many small steps, many small thoughts, many small decisions and shifts in attitude repeatedly over four years has changed the course of my life.   

 These days our life flows around family time, creative endeavours and enjoying all that this beautiful pocket of the world has to inspire. 

 I still remember that feeling, leaving Brisbane at sunrise with all of life's possessions in tow. That wonderful heady sense of freedom and no idea of the adventures ahead.   I feel so much love for life and pride in what we have built. 

How did we end up here? Well that heady sense of empowerment never really left. From the moment I sold those first four cases and made the decision to create my own income, I have never once swayed from that. When times get tough and vision falters, I remember that I don't want plan B. This is it, be innovative, adapt. Embrace opportunity, look for creative solutions, listen to people around you, visit new places, invest in family, share your soul, be you. Don't settle and be bold.  Be confident in your awesomeness, we all have so much to contribute to the earth. Seek out like-minded people. Embrace community and connection.   

 P.S The milky way is mind blowing here on an inky black night.   

- Isabella