The Story Behind The Lightning Bolts
By Sophie Scaplehorn
When I was at school (I think I was 17… ish) my friend Lindsay and I created The Lightning Bolts Bicycle Club. Here I am:
Yeah, we thought we were cool. We were both really creative, I did art and Lindsay did music, illustration and design. We started making badges and wallets to sell at her band’s gigs in pubs in Bristol and we just sort of got carried away!
A year later I went off to Uni to do my Fine Art BA and I only saw Linz once or twice a year. We both carried on doing our thing and we slowly became The Lightning Bolts Collective. New ‘members’ (basically a raggle-taggle group of friends who were insane enough to want to hang around with us) started to get involved and after graduation Linz and I were reunited, along with 4 other Lightning Bolts in a big cozy house in South London. There was now Linz, Me, my boyfriend Neil (T-shirt printer), Bonnie Paddle (sculptor), Jamie Ruth Hatch (knitter, stitcher, baker extraordinaire) and Ina Dorthea Thuresson (crazy Norweigan artist who we mock, but love really).
It was in our big, crazy family home that I started making my je
welry and set up The Lightning Bolts Etsy shop.
Unfortunately, the Etsy shop never really got going whilst we were in London as we were all out at work all day, every day and never had the time to spend on it. Living in London sounds so glamorous but when you’re working 7 day weeks for less than minimum wage and barely making the rent payments… yeah, not so great. Everyone was really struggling with money issues so it was decided we would all go our separate ways as we couldn’t afford our house any more.
It was sad but my debts were getting worse and worse and I couldn’t afford to stay. Neil and I quit our jobs and in October we moved back to my hometown of Bristol (which is NOT in Wales!) to live with my Dad, rent free.
Now we live in my childhood home in Mangotsfield… it feels weird to be back here after London! We’ve gone from this:
To this:
It’s proving to be pretty tough. The idea was to get jobs in Bath and get a little flat there, our first place with just the two of us! But… getting jobs is not easy at the moment. We’ve been struggling for 3 months now and can barely buy our own food any more. Neil just started a new part time job in a bookstore in Bath this week but I still have nothing. So recently I’ve overhauled the Etsy shop, got really passionate about my jewelry making again and am setting up a few craft fairs this year to get my stuff out there! I’ve even got my Mum making jewelry!!
And yesterday… I made my first sales! So now I can eat this week. YAY!
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So literally, Sophie and The Lightning Bolts "Will Craft for Food." Visit her shop so she can eat!
Good luck Sophie!
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean about moving out of London to somewhere smaller - I used to live in Stockwell and now live in a village with less than 2000 people, where everyone says hi to each other when they walk past each other in the street. Quite a change - and the internet is a thing of beauty that I didn't fully appreciate when I lived somewhere where there was always something going on and people to go to the pub with!
Hey, nicole, i lived in Oval! I did my shopping in Stockwell!
ReplyDeleteI know you may think this is crazy, but I'd love to live in a small English village like that!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your story Sophie!
Good luck, Sophie!
ReplyDelete