Day in the Life of an Intern at a Leather Craft Atelier

Hello hello fellow leather crafters! 👋🏻 I am Dawn a student studying Business Management at Singapore Management University and I am a marketing intern at Crafune. Whenever I tell others that I am a marketing intern, interning at a leather craft workshop their first reaction is to ask "Huh, so what do you do? 🤔", so to answer that question, I will be sharing my experiences of what I do and what happens at the atelier everyday. 

First day at work

With completely no background in leather crafting, I was nervous and had no expectations on how my internship will be like. Despite having no knowledge on leather crafting, I definitely felt excited to experience and learn more about leather crafting, since I love doing crafts like crocheting as my hobby so learning a whole new craft excites me! 

For a start as a marketing intern, I have to better understand the leather industry and how the business works, thus my first task was to learn the basics of leather crafting. I had a first-hand experience of the 3 accessories workshop which includes making a triangle coin pouch, a name card holder and a keyring. 

The whole process was eye-opening and fun for a first-timer (my hands gave up on me after I finished the crafts 🥲). Although the curves were not perfect and my stitches were crooked, I was happy with the end product. I think what makes the whole process fulfilling is the fact that these crafts were made by me and not someone else or a machine.

One part I enjoy the most from the workshop is choosing the colour of the thread🧵. I feel that the colour combination really shows ones personality and it is interesting to customise the craft to my liking (There were so many colours, was spoiled for choice!).

Conducting Workshops

Although I don't usually lead the workshops, at times I do help out with the teaching and for me the joy of teaching workshops is to see customers bonding together happily. It is also interesting to be able to interact with people from different backgrounds and how they have their own way of understanding and doing things. One of the workshop that left a great impression on me was one where I went down to the Lion Befrienders. 

Unlike the customers that I met before, these elders are aged up to 80 years old. I I found it amazing how they still have a heart to learn something new at that age. They also have a harder time trying to cut the leather as their eyes has deteriorate through the years and they also do not have as much strength. But the elders persevered to complete the crafts which was quite touching to me 🥺.

I also realised that with different audiences there are different ways of teaching. For example while teaching the elders, instead of explaining the way to cut curves using tangents, as something that is taught in school which is usually taught to customers, it can be explained through a common experience of cutting a carrot round since most of the elders cook and will better relate to this example.

Although it has only been a few weeks since I started as an intern, the amount I learn was immense. Having to learn and experience new things everyday makes me look forward to what would come in the next few months 😎