The Wild Reindeer: Meet the 22-Year-Old Egyptian Mother That Turns Wood into Art
Another week, another shop feature! This time, we’re going a little bit outside the box. We’re featuring The Wild Reindeer – an online business that sells slices off the wilderness at your home.
The Wild Reindeer is run by Hadeel Magdy; a 22-year-old who’s accomplished so much, she’ll put some 60-year-olds to shame! Hadeel is a business woman, photographer, food photography stylist and instructor, a wife and a mother! She started as a photographer and quickly built a man for herself. Everything else fit like a puzzle in Hadeel’s life.
As an old follower of hers, it’s always been very interesting to me to see her personal growth through the years.
“I fell in love with photography since I was 16 and always been a photographer since. I do a little fashion, portraits, weddings and even babies. Basically, any field that could cross your mind, I tried it.”
Hadeel got married at the young age of 20 and got pregnant shortly after. Hadeel didn’t “leave the party early” like some memes call early marriage. Hadeel continued doing her thing.
“You can imagine all the fears rushing to my head. This is going to be the end of my career, no more photography, my life is over. Through the 9 months, I somehow found my peace. I was no longer worried about my future; I knew that Allah has the best plan for me and that I should just trust him. 9 months later, Farid came to the world! Somehow, having him made me keen on photography more than before, I don’t know why.”
Hadeel started as a portrait photographer; that’s how she rose to fame. She’s now known as a food photographer, and the transition was quite fascinating.
“I started taking more care of cooking! I’m a mom now; of course being in the kitchen was hell to me. Until one day a friend of mine gave me the advice to cook the fun meals on Pinterest, which led me to food photography and styling. I fell in love with it, and one thing led to another, I am now a food photographer, stylist, and instructor who were lucky enough to give three workshops.”
Hadeel doesn’t just do photography, she runs a business called The Wild Reindeer, and it’s basically a shop out of Pinterest. The Wild Reindeer is basically art drawn of slices of wood. It’s not just an outside of the box idea; it’s out of this world! We asked Hadeel how she came up with the idea behind it, and here’s what she had to say:
“One day my husband and I were on a road trip when we came across this big field of cut trees. They burn them and turn them into coal. The view of the trees was so perfect I asked the lumberjack to cut me a “slice”. I took it home, painted on it and posted it online. IT WAS A HIT!”
The online support gave Hadeel the idea of selling them.
“Then it came to me, I can sell this! Thankfully I have the most amazing and supportive husband in the world. He always believes in all of my silly ideas and never once said no to any of them — except those ideas that come to me after 3 am.
Now, together we own a small online shop; we have three artists working with us, we ship all over Egypt and we have two companies wanting to sell our product.”
Hadeel constantly posts on social media, and they’re all fun and very personalized. She even told us that a man ordered a slice with “Will you marry me?” and proposed to his girlfriend with it because she likes the slices. And yes, she said yes.
Hadeel is a great inspiration for anyone who wants to start a business, especially mothers. The birth of her son didn’t stop her; it was only the beginning for her.
“Once again, I was blessed beyond words. I like to think that all of this came with Farid’s arrival. I trusted that he won’t be the end of my career, and so he was; he was the beginning of it.”
WE SAID THIS: You can follow Hadeel on Facebook and Instagram. Oh, and don’t forget to check out Fairy Dust: Egyptian Stay-At-Home Mom Turned Businesswoman by Social Media.
