Melbourne teen made $100k in 6 months from lockdown hobby

A Melbourne teenager made $100,000 in six months after turning her self-taught lockdown hobby into a thriving business.

We all took up a new hobby during lockdown — baking sourdough, doing puzzles, or in my case, cross stitching — but one Melbourne teenager turned hers into a successful business.

When her uni degree was forced online and she was desperate for something to keep her brain busy during lockdown, then 19-year-old Nina Alston took up jewellery making, getting tips from YouTube videos.

She made $100,000 in six months from her lockdown hobby. Picture: Instagram / @ninalston

“I really wanted to do something valuable with my time,” Alston told news.com.au. “I was fortunate to be living at home with my parents throughout the pandemic and only had my online university course to fill up my day, so I had a lot of spare time to dream up new ideas.

“I love jewellery, have lots of piercings and I was always on the hunt for fun, high quality, low cost earrings — and so I decided to start marking my own jewellery for fun”.

Thanks to an excess supply of materials, she decided to make a few extra pieces and start selling them on Depop under the name The Messy Archive (TMA), later moving onto Etsy. In 2021, she took her one-off gold plated and filled pieces to their own website.

She learned how to make jewellery using YouTube tutorials. Picture: Instagram / @themessyarchive

“I started accepting custom designs and then was able to purchase my own packaging,” she explained. “[Being] forced to stay at home enabled me to create this business, so without Covid-19 I don’t think I would have the business that I do today”.

Now that she’s 21, the jewellery brand she created from her bedroom out of boredom earned $100,000 in just six months.

“In the first six months of selling on our own website, we made over $100,000 in sales and we hope to triple that figure in 2022,” she said.

She’s even caught the attention of a range of influencers — including Olivia Rogers, Tammy Hembrow and Isabelle Mathers — who have all been snapping sporting a piece from the TMA collection.

Her designs have been worn by a lot of influencers, including Olivia Phillips and Tammy Hembrow. Picture: Instagram / @oliviaphillipps / @tammyhembrow.

“I have a lot of amazing influencers who reach out to us directly with requests of gifted and paid collaborations,” Alston explained. “Having an amazing group of influencers to help us create amazing content for our socials and websites has been so helpful.

“A lot of influencers also purchase from us directly which is mind-blowing. Its lovely to have so many industry leaders following our social accounts, including stylists for Olivia Rodrigo, Hailey Bieber and Willow Smith”.