Madeline Bevs
Interview #39 - Madeline Bevs
Good morning all and welcome to another week! Monday’s can sometimes come across as negative, discouraging and for those that are working this morning can refer to Monday’s as the Monday blues. So let’s change that stereotype and change the way you all see the start of the week by reading this blog. Make it a habitual action to read about the beginnings of many business owners around Melbourne, around Australia and around the world. Let these interviews inspire you to start the week off with a bang and bring your business ventures and ideas to life.
For this week’s business, I had the pleasure of learning more about behind the scenes of someone who hand draws, hand paints and hand designs stationery and cards, made to make your life more aesthetically pleasing and motivating for your work. Like all businesses I interview, each has their own individual backstory to how they started and why, so I hope with this business, you will see the passion and drive of the owner like many before.
MEET MADELINE!
Madeline is the face behind the business you see today, Madeline Bevs. Her business revolves around creating beautiful stationery pieces, decorated with floral and leafy designs that make doing work more motivational and aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Madeline creates her designs using watercolour and has developed her own style and aesthetic to match the stationery products she develops. Madeline has always been into art and creative aspects during her childhood and teenage years, and has since come back to that passion with watercolour and making designs for her stationary. With a love of how watercolour moves on the page and the flow it gives, combined with creating useful and functional organisational tools that allow for her customers to feel more motivated while doing work.
As a teacher, Madeline knows the importance of being prepared, planned and organised so by having her products as a way to make this easier, is a huge benefit. Before starting her business, Madeline was frustrated with finding the appropriate stationery available to buy and were never quite what she wanted. So all the time, even without realising, she would draw her own planners and use a lot of sticky notes for reusability. With this, she knew she could definitely make something of this, and since, Madeline Bevs was developed to help like-minded people with their planning.
What’s the aim you have for your business?
“I want to be able to provide for my customers with beautiful stationery that makes them excited to be more organised and to love the work that they are doing”
The idea to start selling her work and actually getting into the business side of things, Madeline saw it as more spontaneous and gave it a go. If you know Madeline as a person, you would know that she is normally a very organised and planned person but when it came to starting her business, she dove into the deep end and made it successful and work for her. It all came to her while sitting around one night and thinking about what she can do, and with the inspiration she had for the business, it made her decide to fill a gap she saw in the products she can create. For a while, Madeline was listening to a podcast called the Rural Compass, exploring the successes rural women have had in business. While listening, it ignited something in her so when she started getting back into watercolours and found that multiple people were wanting to purchase her designs, she took the leap and her business was created.
Madeline is not alone when it comes to doing the research before starting her business and most other business owners learn as they go and get advice from people closest to them, and Madeline did just that. She first started small on Instagram, simply selling some of her card designs and from there, the business started booming. She had gotten advice from fellow friends who have their own businesses about platforms they use and other tips they have been able to give Madeline but other than that, everything has been a learn on the job kind of deal. And there is nothing wrong with that, everyone’s journey is different but they all end up to where they need to be.
Madeline uses art as an escape from teaching maths and religion on the day to day and allows this for her own time to be as creative as she wants. Being creative and passionate about what she is able to create and by doing so, Madeline creates an experience for her customers to have. When they buy her stationery items, she hopes that they feel happy using them and they can have the benefit of feeling planned, empowered and organised knowing that the user has the calming feeling when they know that they have everything under control. Especially with the cards Madeline designs and paints, each individual one is special and unique, just like her business.
What tips would you give to someone starting their own business?
“I think just give it a go, and if you want to start small, then start small. You don’t have to do a massive thing to start with, and with social networking and everything like that, it’s good to start things on a small scale without having to outlay too much, and to overall just give it a go.”
“My motto is to do what you want to do, and to just do it, so I find that those two quotes motivate me so much.”
When you look at the designs and patterns that Madeline takes her time doing, you can tell that she focuses on more leaf and fauna designs, sticking with both neutral, natural and bold colours. Everything that she creates, the plant scenes, being all hand-drawn and designed illustrates a point of difference in her business. Rather than creating something everyone else is, with stock standard neon prints and more graphic designs, she sticks to the basics and provides a more aesthetically pleasing look by making everything blend and flow together seamlessly.
By being able to provide this particular look that is quite unique to Madeline, it also shows in her environment how influential a good stationery set can be. I’m sure, most people who work are like Madeline, where your workspace affects your mood and how you perform, so having the right utensils and creating that perfect environment is crucial.
If you are able to have the little things be that extra bit special, what you are doing or what you are creating can feel that little more valuable, making your motivation soar. And that’s what Madeline does for herself and others who go through her and purchase her designs and stationery sets. Even though there was doubt in the beginning about whether or not this would be something that people would want to purchase, that soon flew out the window when the stock was rushing out the door just as it is coming in.
How would you describe your business in one sentence?
Warm, aesthetic and individual - that’s thinking about the products and the experience that I want customers to have.
I hope that you all enjoyed this week’s business featuring Madeline from her business, Madeline Bevs. She creates awesome products that everyone can use to improve their day to day planning. To keep track of her newest products and designs, click HERE for her Instagram or the button below to her website!
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