Hemp Surf Necklace
Skydiving And Lifestyle Design
Okay, so we are all familiar with skydiving but what about lifestyle design? What is it? How does it apply to us as skydivers? It is no secret that as skydivers, we are a very unique breed. Most of us are a little bit daring and risky, we thrive off of that. The problem is many of us get caught up in life, work, and bills. Before we know it, it’s been six months and we haven’t done a single jump. I’ve been there many times, skydiving is a very expensive sport and it takes a lot of dedication (and debt) to keep doing it. Does it really need to so hard? Wouldn’t be great if we could skydive all the time and still afford to pay all of our bills! In comes “Lifestyle Design”.
Lifestyle design is simply the art of (sometimes radical) lifestyle configuration and has been practiced for quite sometime by liberated people from all walks of life, not just skydivers. This isn’t for everybody but like I said… skydivers are a unique breed. Now we need to ask ourselves, what changes can we make to our lifestyle that will help us lead a more fulfilling life? First, some examples. How about the girl that lives in a trailer next to the DZ and packs parachutes all day in order to pay for jumps. Or what about that couch surfing guy that travels and jumps all over the world. While these individuals are notional, you see people like this all the time, living it up. What they have done is eliminate almost all of their financial obligation and now they can just focus on what they love.
Alright, but what about the rest of us that want to live our lives a little more normal. I understand, the important thing is that you are doing what you want to do. If your perfectly happy just working a 9 to 5 and you get a lot of satisfaction out your work, then by all means stick with it. However, if you are like most people, you hate your job and your desperately looking for an out. It’s sad but truth be told, most people will probably stay there for the rest of their miserable careers simply because of fear. Fortunately for me, I realized all this while I was still fairly young (24). Fresh out of the Marines I had a good job up in Washington, I liked the people that I worked with, and at times the job was actually a lot of fun. The problem was, I wasn’t happy. I was unhappy partly because of my job and the long hours that I worked but mostly because I only had about 3 months of good skydiving weather. Finally I said “screw it”. I quite my job, started a business, and moved in with an old Marine Corps buddy in California that lived about 5 minutes from a dropzone. That was over a year and a half ago and I have not worked since, I could not be happier. My business does not make me rich but between it and a few Marine Corps assignments here and there, I do okay. The business I started was www.dzpins.com which some of you may be familiar with. Before I started the business I wanted to create a men necklace that would appeal to skydivers. Naturally, I started making closing pin necklaces and people really liked them. While initially my main focus was to make a cool guy necklace, I noticed that a lot of women were ordering them too. I was surprised at how much people liked my products. They would even write me about their new cool necklaces and the comments they got about them. I was thrilled so I started making more designs and marketing a little more aggressively. I started making a hemp necklace which I had never done before because it was so labor intensive but now I have several hemp designs. I have had a blast building this business and I have learned a lot, I even have a couple of other start-ups that I am working on. This is my lifestyle design. I have eliminated a part of my life that made me unhappy and replaced it with something that fills me with joy, you should do the same.
About the Author
When I first started I was mainly focused on making a cool guy necklace but now I offer plenty of designs that cater to both men and women.
Teen jewlery business help !?!?!?!?
my two best friends and i are starting a jewlery business ( we are 14) and we need help we are going to sell beach/ surf kind of jewelry like bracelets and necklaces and stuff that are braided have sea shells wood beads like hemp jewlery beach/surfer kind of things so any tips ideas websites help? we also need a website where we can print out teen jewlery business cards and another website that sells these beach/surfer kind of beads in bulk or large amounts for low prices thanks alot any help will be appreciated =)
I suggest joining Etsy.com and sell your jewelry off there. Etsy is dedicated to selling handmade crafts and alot of people know about it. You may have to have your parent’s help with setting up the account and payment options, since it does cost about 20 cents to list items.
You should also start a blog (via blogspot, tumblr, wordpress) and start posting about your jewelry there. You should also visit other bloggers and start leaving comments and starting discussions about jewelry at their blog to get some traffic. You should also join forums too. Make sure the blogs and forums you visit are relevant, i.e. other jewelry makers/crafters, beachy type people/surfers, etc.
You should consider zazzle.com for printing business cards. If you want “free” business cards, most major online printing companies offer them like vistaprint.com offers 250 free I think. Most do require you to pay for the shipping costs and they will likely print their logo or something on the back of the business cards.
Usually you can’t really buy beads in the wholesale price unless you are actually a retailer and have paper work to prove it. But some people are willing to sell them in bulk at near wholesale prices. The best place to buy the beads in bulk is ebay or even etsy.
Good luck! I hope you make gobs of money!
Hemp jewelry by Auntie Emmy
