April 27, 2025

Steamboat Springs-based small business Smeeny Made Wild has gone through many growth phases over the last eight years, and owner Chereen Leong Schwarz’s latest community-focused plans signal the start of a new one.

In addition to making knit beanies, patterns and other handmade goods, Leong Schwarz has been building the “Stay Wild Squad, an online community for small business owners and creators; her most recent efforts have gone toward arranging in-person meetups in the form of retreats.

Her next retreat, Creative Camp Colorado 2025, is a collaboration with Justine Mulliez, who owns Just a Wild Thought. The webpage for the “not-retreat retreat” describes it as a summer camp-style creative break from everyday routines.

Leong Schwarz said this will be an “overnight river trip” full of outdoorsy activities, and it is meant to resemble a magic-filled childhood summer camp experience. “We'll have a welcome night, glamping, and then, we'll spend three days and two nights with a local guide company rafting on the Arkansas [River] near Buena Vista,” she said.

The trip will also offer ways for creatives and small business owners to remedy burnout and creative block. Attendees can engage in journaling sessions, business workshops and mastermind sessions that center around deep discussions.

Those interested in participating and receiving more information can join the waitlist for the trip, which opens for registration on May 1.

Leong Schwarz also offers support through Smeeny’s Maker Hub. Here, visitors can view her series of maker interviews and access her vlog series. Her goal for this section of the website is to help and inspire others like her by sharing resources and highlighting relevant stories.

Leong Schwarz has been running Smeeny Made Wild for eight years, and she said it has been a journey to get to the place she and her business are in today.

Smeeny Made Wild started as an after-work decompression hobby for Leong Schwarz. “I watched a bunch of YouTube videos and taught myself how to knit, and I did that for probably five years before I started the side hustle,” she said.

After solely gifting her products to friends and loved ones, Leong Schwarz decided one day to post a photo of a hat she made to social media, and she said people began asking to buy it. She later reached out to a local shop that agreed to sell the beanies, and all of the hats she brought in sold out in a month. She said this was when her hobby started turning into a side hustle.

While working other jobs, Leong Schwarz continued to develop Smeeny, at the time called Smeeny Beanie Knits, and used her restaurant background to run a private chef business. She said she worked on a farm until 2020, when she decided to shift her focus.

Leong Schwarz said she did not expect Smeeny to become her primary business venture. “It totally flip-flopped, and Smeeny was my full-time income, when I went full-time, and the chef business became the side hustle,” she said.

Leong Schwarz kept doing private chef work until this year and is now putting that energy toward expanding Smeeny further.

“2025 will actually be the first year that I totally let go of that side, and I had only really been doing it in the summer months, but I totally let that go to put more energy toward growing this other side of the business that I'm transitioning and pivoting into," she said.

When Leong Schwarz decided to create more in-person experiences and community resources, she rebranded her business.

She said she still wanted to include Smeeny in the business’s name as it is one of her nicknames. “Made Wild” was added to represent her sustainable and natural values as well as the idea of “rewilding.”

“I always talk about the concept of rewilding in life and business, and all of that is just how do we reconnect with ourselves and with nature,” she said.

According to the business’s website and Leong Schwarz, Smeeny Made Wild creates products with ethically sourced materials, has a zero waste product line and uses recycled and recyclable packaging.

Smeeny is also part of 1% for the Planet, which means 1% of their revenue goes to Protect Our Winters.

Leong Schwarz finds standing by values like these and reflecting them in her work immensely important. In addition to supporting 1% for the Planet, she donates to nonprofits that support LGBTQ+ communities, public land protection matters, women’s reproductive rights and climate change efforts.

Leong Schwarz encourages anyone looking to start their own business or creative endeavor to move things out of the planning phase, noting that they can always make changes later on. “I think if you just start, you will find so much more clarity. You will learn so much more about the direction you want to go in, and we're constantly evolving, right?”

Those interested in learning more about Creative Camp Colorado and any future projects Leong Schwarz has planned can find more information on the Smeeny Made Wild website.

Anyone who wants to be part of The Stay Wild Squad can join on Discord and sign up for the associated newsletter here. Leong Schwarz is also on Instagram and YouTube.

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