Turning a Hobby into a Full-Time Job

Have you ever tried turning a hobby into a side-gig or even a full-time job? Well that’s what I’m doing with SK Leather. Since getting out of the truck we still need the second income and I have been working with leather since I was a kid. I learned the basics of leather as a child and for about 20 years I have sold belts and wallets and other items on the side

Back in southern Illinois my grandma taught me how to work with leather. She was a 4-H leader for years. As long as I can remember, she was teaching me how to make little leather projects. Her health started failing before I was even in high school but, luckily she had already instilled the basics in me. After she left the farm to go to a nursing home I kind of put leather work to the side for years.

Then years later while in college a number of events triggered me to pick up the leather tools again. The main driving force was that I was a broke college student! I tried working part-time and odd jobs but they never seemed to work out. I was always in class or at some rodeo. At some point one of my long time friends asked me to be best man in his wedding. Man, I was ecstatic, other than I was a broke college kid with a bad rodeo habit.

I couldn’t afford a gift, so I made him one. I found the nearest Tandy Leather and scraped together enough money to buy a side of leather and some dye. After that I went home, busted out grandma’s old leather tools and made him a photo album. It definitely wasn’t high quality craftsmanship but it meat a ton to him to have it made by his best man!

This inspired me to start practicing as much as I could. I started making little things for my buddies in college just to get experience. After some practicing, I was down in TX at some rodeos. We went to a western store where I saw these fancy belts all the girls were raving over. They were all priced right around $400!!! I thought that was crazy to give that much for some blingy belt made of thin stretchy leather. So right then and there I set my mind to start making belts similar to those I saw but mine would last.

I took the money I won in TX and went back to Tandy Leather. This time I bought stuff to make my long-lasting blingy belts. This went over phenomenal! This led me to having SK Leather as a side-gig from then on. For the rest of my rodeo career I always had belts and other leather goods with me to sell. This really helped support my rodeo habit and grew a dedicated loyal customer base.

Fast forward nearly 10 years. I was working an ag office job using my college education. Terrible idea! I was frustrated and bored but luckily I had a ton of leather work. By this time I had shifted almost exclusively to custom work. I had enough work that my wife and I decided to take it to the next level and tool leather full-time.

This was actually working out fairly decent. Fortunately my wife has a good job but I was holding my own. After only a couple years I got the call that my father-in-law needed a part-time driver bad! I have a hard time turning down money and he really needed the help. Well, the part-time thing was pretty short lived and next thing I knew I had quit taking leather orders and was spending 3-4 nights a week in the truck.

Now after 3 years back in the truck and 2 more kids, it was definitely time to go back to the leather shop full-time. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about the steady paycheck. However, trying to juggle the family, farm, start a blog, and build my leather business back up, it was just too much. There was never time to sleep unless I was laid over in the truck. I seemed to always have to leave in the middle of the night and getting sleep in the afternoon with 3 little boys in the house is impossible.

I guess it was kind of a shock to most of our family that I would step out of the truck and back into the leather shop full-time. The transition has been a life-saver to our sanity. Sometimes family needs to come first, along with doing what you’re passionate about. I actually get some sleep now, as much as you can get with a 5 month old at home.

The leather work has been coming in steady. I always want more or need to make more but in reality it’s plenty steady. Someday we would love to put up a building so I could have my own space for a shop. For now though I’ll keep creating stuff, that even amazes me sometimes, in our dingy old basement. If you haven’t already noticed, there are links to SK Leather throughout thetinyrancher.com and in the last sentence of every post. So remember, shop SK Leather and eat beef!