Insert cool title here

Holy Pete's. 

How are you? You might just be the only person who's read this. 🤣 I suck at posting here, there never seems to be enough time in the day to get everything done including blogging. Is blogging even a thing anymore? Oh well.... let's just do this shiz anyhow. Today let's talk about my back story and my why, okay? Ok! 

I was born in Georgia to parents that bred and raised red nosed pitties who named me Stevi Rae, and yes I did in fact have a mullet. Well actually my government name is Stephanie due to my mom who had sense enough to make sure I had a business like name if I ever needed one. oh and my favorite song was achey breaky heart, and there was no stopping that cassette. Ok let's fast forward. 

At some point I end up in Michigan ( I think mom was running from the law...JUST KIDDING) ANYWAAAYYYYSSSS... so yeah I'm here in a frozen ass state growing up. Mom was a single mom and that meant getting away with lots of shit like rollerblading in the house, having a goat in the house, having my dog and my goat in the house, rescuing stray cats to bring in the house... you see where I'm going here? Mom decides I need to join 4h. I'm 4 and probably full of shit and she needs someone to knock some sense into me so I start showing a big Ole pittie named Dixie then my goat Dylan. That progresses into showing horses and dairy heifers (my family are multigenerational dairy farmers, theyre pretty badass) as well as competing in demonstrations earning trips to QH congress, Arab Nationals and Youth Nationals. Oh and I competed with a horse judging team for a while until I became disgruntled about the way things were being handled and started my own judging team called the OUTCASTS, just to piss the other group off. Stole a beef kid from the steer barn, an Arab showing gal and another freak and had some fun lol. During this time all of the 4h groups I was in would do craft nights.... I HATED craft night...  crafts were my moms gig, not mine.. on the rare occasion I tried anything crafty it was hidden away and I was doing oil pastels of mesa I would see in my moms old travel magazines, but I NEVER allowed them to see the light of day.. Ok fast forward. My show career is over. I attempt community College, I hate it. I'm working multiple jobs, riding horses, training dogs, and doing everything but school work. I meet a guy, way older than me (stupid move, but whatevs) get married. Have a honeymoon baby, and get SUPER bored. Beyond bored. You can only clean the house so many times in one day. So I start knitting and crocheting, made some cool shit but felt like an old biddie. Somewhere along that knitting train my mom and I run to this horse expo and I see all of these girls wearing the coolest cotton and leather headbands. *insert headband craze here* I want one but I know my captor at the time *cough cough wusband* wouldn't allow me to buy one, so I decide to make one. My mother is listening to me prattle on for the drive home and calmly asks me when I learned to sew...... uhm... what? Sew?! Oh yeah... I'd have to learn to do that to make the headbands.... so I full sent it into the land of learning to sew by trial and error (pre me having internet days so there was no youtubing this) sold my first headband I made. Sold a shit ton after that. Then decided to delve into full leather headbands. Sold those too. So a few months into that I'm at my local tandy talking to the manager and learning as much as possible. Saved up for a $115 dollar side of leather and mom gave me 5 leather stamps and a rusty old swivel knife from her FFA days. This is where I got stupid. So remember back when I said I wouldn't ART? yeah... so I never developed my own style. I copied someone who's incredible a handful of times. Anyways. After a handful of copies she called me out. THANK YOU JESUS SHE DID! It made me feel like shit and lit a fire in me to find my own flavor. Find what I loved and get good at it. So I pulled out my mom's old travel magazines, art books and keepsakes and found the pics of monument valley I used to oil pastel when I was a child and got to work building a style off of what I've always loved and dreamed about. Did I mention I did most of this in secret? Oh yeah. So uh... Wasband was not a fan. Wasband had to be begged for darned near a year before I could get a DBA, then he put so many stipulations on it that I couldn't hardly do any leather. So in secret I went and made and sold things 😅😅😅. At some point I leave, (wasn't a healthy relationship...Girls don't marry the older guy at the bar, I promise he's not THAT cool once you get to know him) and I move into my grandparents house. YAYYYY now I have time to build a business and spend time with them and learn how to be an adult. I was 27 feeling like an 18 year old lololololol. Ok lets move forward some more. I bring a booth to the NFR, eat a slice of humble pie, come home work my ass off to recover and buy a shop. There's more but I'm running out of time. Moral to the story is. I do leather because it's my passion. I do leather because I fought my ass off for it. I do leather because I was told I couldn't. Any nobody tells me I can't do something. And I do leather because it's challenging AF. 

probably should spell check this and fix the rushed ending but I have spur straps to build, so suck it. Adios 😘