Mittemot

Going on road trips is by far my most favourite thing to do here on the island.

Taking the bike only gets you so far in one day ... and it so happened that last Sunday was the most perfect day for one of those semi-spontaneous let's jump in the car and see where we end up kind of outings.

This time I sort of knew where I wanted to end up though. We were going East!

Mittemot, (Swedish for "opposite") is a new store opposite the quite well known restaurant & hotel Smakrike only a few meters away from the sea, in Ljugarn, Gotland.

They also happen to be the first store to contact me with the request to sell Ljusbringare* , which obviously made me one happy girl :)

*the awesome little eco-candles of which I'm distributor on Gotland. Contact me for shipping outside Sweden! I can make exceptions for these babies!

Even if you can resist the urge to buy absolutely everything you won't be able to resist the selection of cakes they have across the road.

I had the most delicious lemon tart but I think I probably enjoyed the setting even more :)

Oh Gotland,

you keep on seducing me ... ♥

My 2 cents on Collaboration

From the very start our business has been built on collaboration. 

Had we not asked for help from others we wouldn't have gotten anywhere.

We would probably still be dreaming out loud :)

If I could give any advice to aspiring business owners it would be this:

Open up your eyes and mind to the possibilities that working together bring.

As a small business owner you can simply not figure out or do everything by yourself.

Many with more experience are willing to give you their 2 cents. Even on very specific questions.

Just ask!

Sure, you can get burnt. 

We've learned to be careful working together with businesses without a well thought through concept.

When the lines are blurred you might see them get a little too inspired by the products or services you offer.

That said, businesses who have to steal ideas from others won't be much of a match for entrepreneurs who come up with their own in the long run anyway,

and to be honest, working together with others is too much fun not to take the risk.

 Vii collaborates with businesses with similar values.

Concepts may not always overlap on all fronts but as long as you can find common ground you have something to work with.

We wouldn't have been a part of Visby Fashion Weekend had The Body Shop not been looking for a collaboration.

They stand for vegetarian and cruelty free beauty products, we sell (among other things ;)) beautiful handmade leather bracelets.

We are drawn to the organic, the natural and the plastic-free, they choose synthetic materials for their brush bristles as animal materials are out of the question for them. 

Even though their product choices and ours might not always fit together,

The Body Shop's mission is to make a difference in their customers' lives, and there we've found our common ground!

We all make our own choices, as businesses and as customers.

The important thing (for me personally at least) is that there is a thought behind what we choose. 

Caribbean Inspiration

"Life is lived forward but understood backwards"

That was my mum's reaction to the changes I've had to make in the way I'm running my business.

Something that initially pissed me off and turned my plans upside down actually turned out to be the best thing that could have happened. 

Before we left to Guadeloupe I made the decision to leave the store space I had just moved into a few months earlier.

I left Sweden knowing that everything would be different when I came back.

After my initial anger dissipated all I felt was relief.

I felt relieved and maybe even a little proud that I was strong enough to jump into the unknown in order to get out of a situation where I wasn't allowed to grow.

The anger that had kicked me into action made room for inspiration. 

And what better place to get inspired than the Caribbean!

Golden Day

 Fårö, Gotland.

Perfection.

Celebrate the little things

Vii - Celebrate the little things from Three Stops Below on Vimeo.

This little clip was made a little while a go by some of our friends who came by for cake.
Right now I feel like I have a lot of little things to celebrate so it fits quite nicely with my mood :)
That's my hands wrapping one of our watches in the video :) Check them out here!
Why not today?
#varförinteidag?
;)

A place to call home

How nice to come home after a day out in the snow,

to open the door and put your suitcase down after a trip abroad,

to have a sofa to crash into after a long day at work.

I wish we lived in a world where everybody could relate to that feeling,

a world where everybody had a place to call home.

How lucky we are ... 

Vii goes Visby

I promised exciting news so here it is!

About a month ago I walked into this new little store here in town.

I could have been a regular customer, commenting on how nice everything was, deciding on a pair of earrings and a poster, paying & closing the door behind me again.

I'll spare you the details but instead I got talking with the owner. 

Guided by my curiosity, but also because I could see the possibilities straight away, I asked about how she got started, how much she paid in rent (not a very Swedish thing to do but I felt like I could) and when she said that she had been thinking about a collaboration of some sort to share the costs, I pounced!

I left her a Vii-flyer and asked her to look at my products and said she was more than welcome to let me know if she was interested.

I paid, closed the door behind me, but I left with much more than just a pair of earrings and a poster ...

I got a text message the same evening :)

Sara from Pattern & Grading and I met the next week. The same day I moved my stuff into her store and together we rearranged and redecorated the window display.

Now we're 3 weeks further down the road.

I've been in the store on my allocated days, Monday to Wednesday, and selling at Christmas markets during the weekend. If you follow us on Facebook or Instagram you've maybe seen we've even been able to fit in a little inauguration party to celebrate our partnership :)

Yesterday our window got its Christmassy look and we got the logo up as well!

Exciting times, as you can imagine!

Our little idea, that little charming store in that barn on the countryside just got a lot of space to grow!

Stay tuned!

//Aina