Business owner Kevin Matthew believes that if you are in a career that you don’t enjoy, you are far from stuck.
Kevin, who is back in his home town of Monifieth, originally trained as a teacher and moved to London with wife Sam.
However, after becoming disillusioned with the profession in 2013, he simply asked Sam: “Why don’t we make hearts and sell them for Valentine’s Day?”.
That was when their craft business, Made at 94, was born in the UK capital.
Kevin said: “I went back in to teaching for nine months after we sold lots of our Valentine’s Day hearts and we decided to make more things for different events and occasions.
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“Most companies take a couple of years to gain momentum – we took nine months and I came back out of teaching.
“As we started producing for December, the two of us we were making 120 items a day.
“I wasn’t doing it the way I do now – I was hand-painting each item.
“We worked out we could do about 30 an hour but we obviously had to let them all dry between coats.
“We had stuff drying everywhere in the living room, kitchen, bathroom – everywhere.
“Sam is quite crafty and my mum has her own card business too but I hadn’t done any crafts.
“I got a grade four in design and technology at school so I am definitely not from a design background.
“It was just a spur of the moment idea and now it is full-time work for both of us.”
Kevin and Sam moved from London to Brighton before moving back to Monifieth just over two years ago.
He said that although it was a gamble, moving home was the “best move we have ever made”.
“The thing that is different here than anywhere else is a community,” he said.
“We were virtually non-existent in London and now we have people almost literally knocking on the door to find out about our work.
“We have had more contact with people here in the past six to nine months than we have ever done and we want to continue that next year.
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“I would say to people: don’t think because you go into one thing that you are stuck, especially if you are not actually enjoying it.”
Personal touch for your gifts
When Kevin and Sam moved to Monifieth, they noticed a gap in the market for personalised wedding decorations at affordable prices.
They now have two strings to their bow, creating gifts for all occasions including Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and any other occasion you can think of, while with their wedding range they work closely with the couple to give them exactly what they want.
Kevin said: “We wanted to show that you can get completely bespoke and it doesn’t need to be expensive.”
To find out more about what Made at 94 has to offer, visit their site at madeat94.com. As a special bonus for our readers, enter promotion code Tele20 for 20% off at checkout.
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