Today we’d like to introduce you to Stephanie Lucas.
Stephanie, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
My grandma Barbara taught me how to sew and crochet when I was about five years old. When I was 14, I taught myself how to knit after I decided that I should start a business. When I turned 16, I started to teach crocheting and knitting at the nursing home my grandmother worked at. I would stay with her in Virginia over the summers while school was out and spent a lot of time hanging out with the tenants while she worked. Let’s just say we got a lot of practice time in.
In 10th grade, I took Stagecraft and had two teachers. Katherine Alexander, or Miss A as we all called her, gave me a crash course in costuming and wardrobe and Mr. Sturgess taught me about set construction, lighting, and sound. Most importantly they taught me how to be professional, how to set my priorities, and helped me develop a good work ethic.
Halfway through the school year, my family moved. At my new school, I met a girl who introduced me to live action role play, or LARPing. I started making costumes to sell to the other players but stopped attending the events due to developing health concerns.
After I stopped LARPing, I got into making fairy wings for a while with my friend Ashley, who helped me come up with the name Mystik Designs. I was starting to become a little more comfortable with knitting and began making hats inspired from my favorite video games or popular culture. Those started to really take off and eventually I launched my own website. I started teaching again around 2011 at Hobby Lobby or I’d offer private lessons.
Has it been a smooth road?
Not at all. I’ve had to teach myself everything about running a business. Back in the day we didn’t have the kind of resources we do now and people weren’t as forthright with their information. Not to mention microeconomics was such a new concept that the term hadn’t even been coined yet. Now there are helpful communities aplenty and all kinds of resources available for just about any field you can think of.
I grew up during a time of innovation in early internet culture. When platforms like Etsy were new, no one really knew how to go about selling their stuff online, much less how to make a consistent living. There were a lot of growing pains and humble beginnings.There were a lot of shops that clearly had no idea what they were doing, especially mine.
There was a lot of trial and error to figure out how to take pictures of products, set the right price point, create a listing that gave out the right information for the customer, or how to tag items. A lot of these concepts were completely brand new to people, so we were all learning together and sharing what we came up with.
For some reason, my second high school had it out for me. At first I thought I was being paranoid, but after I ran for class president, they pulled me aside and gave me this huge speech about Columbine High school and how scary goths were because they might shoot up the school or do something dangerous to the other students. Again, directly after my speech for class president.
Once they found out that I had a business, the faculty kind of backed off, but then they made it an official school rule that knitting wasn’t allowed because the needles could be used as a weapon. So, I crocheted or used my pencils to knit with instead.
That isn’t the only time I’ve gotten into trouble for knitting either. You’d be amazed how easy it is.
Over the last several years my health has been on a steady decline and my left shoulder suffered a lot of wear and tear. This has made it very difficult to remain consistent and come out with new listings while maintaining an online presence. When you stop posting on a regular basis, you quickly lose everything you’ve been building up for years.
The recent onset of my chronic illness has definitely set me back. I’m in too much pain to make most of my products because I’m always flaring up, so I’ve had to shift my focus onto designing rather than creating. I’m not going to let any of this hold me back, so I’ve been exploring other mediums to create with.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Mystik Designs story. Tell us more about the business.
I started my business in 9th grade. I got my first commission from my history teacher, Mrs. Black. She asked if I could make a red scarf for her that was soft and fluffy. I made $15 and before I knew it, I was getting more commissions than I could handle from other teachers and kids with allowances.
I specialized in LARP costumes for a few years, but stopped when my health couldn’t take it anymore. I started to become more comfortable with my knitting ability and began to focus on making hats. I experimented with a bunch of other products like fairy wings, corsets, hair products, and anything else I could get my hands on. The hats, scarves, and chokers were what seemed to stick, so I kept going with that.
I started getting involved with other side projects and gigs. I started doing wardrobe for indie movies and even helped with a web series or two. I have a lot of friends that are performers, mostly in the drag and burlesque scenes, so I started making costumes for them as well.
This lead to several other collaborative efforts, mostly modeling, and somewhere along the way I caught the eye of cartographer and pyrographer Deven Rue. She took me under her wing and began to mentor me. It started off with an art trade, but she’s the one who eventually talked me into getting my own website and even made one for me. Deven has done so much to help me and Mystik Designs that it wouldn’t be what it is now without her.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
I think we’re only just beginning to see what people are capable of in terms of creativity. The sky’s the limit.
As for me, I hope that I can find the right treatment for my chronic illness soon so that I can get everything back into full operation again.
I’m starting to shift some of my focus into developing video games. I don’t just want to play video games, I want to make them too! It’s been a lot of fun so far. I’ve been learning how to dev in RPG Maker VX Ace and MV, Game Maker Studio 2, and Unity. Who knows? Maybe that’ll be my main focus one day.
Pricing:
- Chokers – $20
- Leggings – $40
- Skirts – $35
- Hats $15-40
Contact Info:
- Website: www.mystikdesigns.com
- Email: slucas.mystikdesigns@gmail.com
- Instagram: MystikDesigns
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/magicineverystitch
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