My story

the road not taken

I have tinkered with ‘making stuff’ my whole life but, until a few years ago, I never seriously entertained the idea of turning my passion for arts & crafts into more than a hobby. I always believed I should hold down a ‘real job’ and enjoy ‘creating’ only in my spare time.

Many moons ago, I grew sick and tired of working in the corporate world (the six-figure salary wasn’t worth all the stress). Still holding onto the notion that I needed a ‘real job’, I decided to try my hand at freelancing. Which was fine for a while but I also became disillusioned with that – it seemed to be just another form of ‘working for the man’ rather than actually working for myself.

So — since I have always delighted in the process of designing and creating — I made up my mind to follow my personal ‘road not taken’, and I am hoping that will make all the difference!

my background

I was born in a small country town and grew up on a sizeable sheep farm in the Northern Tablelands of NSW. Mum was a professional potter — so I had an early introduction to the wonderfully chaotic world of arts & crafts.

During school I enjoyed the more scholarly subjects (e.g. maths and science) which (looking back) was more to do with the quality of teachers (in a school of about 500 students) than anything else. And, back then, ‘art’ was definitely not promoted as a career path. As a result, straight out of high school, my first significant life-choice was to pursue an ‘intellectual career’. I headed off to uni for a double-major in physics!

Mind you, I continued to experiment with art & craft – especially when I was procrastinating about study ;-)

I graduated with an honours degree in astrophysics from the University of Wollongong and started some serious job hunting. Well … according to my potential employers I was either too qualified (e.g. “too intelligent for a lab assistant”) or not qualified enough (e.g. “sorry, you need to hold a PhD for this position”).

During the years I spent chasing my tail, I moved back to Northern NSW and filled some of my spare time at a local TAFE. I attended classes in ‘Fine Arts’ and ‘Design Methods and Principles’ (in a small country town you make do with what is available).

My adventure at TAFE led me to apply to the Queensland College of Art for entry to a Diploma of Art. I was accepted (to my surprise) and I chose to focus on the field of commercial art. This was my gateway to a full-time position as a graphic designer with the Queensland Government.

Just four years after the World Wide Web was first introduced to the public – my role as a graphic designer expanded to include the creation of websites. I spent countless hours teaching myself web design, PHP and mySQL. After a few years, my boss encouraged me to return to formal study to facilitate a promotion. I soon completed a Graduate Diploma in IT at the Queensland University of Technology and became a systems administrator/senior analyst for the Web Development Team.

I had picked up some random freelance jobs in my spare time, and after my long-service-leave was over, my freelancing business started to grow. But … I was spending less and less time on my personal interests.

Then an epic ‘tree-change’ unfolded – I moved back to the country (supposedly a temporary move, to my parents' beautiful property on the Sunshine Coast Hinterland) and gave birth to my amazing son! I continued to freelance remotely but most of my time was spent being a full-time mum.

When he was about 5, my son was diagnosed as ‘high functioning autistic’ (a topic worthy of a blog post or two, stay tuned). The following year he started prep/yr1 at a local state school with under 100 students. I became heavily involved with the local school community and I was promptly convinced to join the P&C association (as secretary, then as treasurer). I also managed to gain a little part-time work as a teacher aide.

Over a few years, my son’s anxiety worsened to the point where he was no longer coping within a school environment. I made the decision to educate him from home – and he hasn’t looked back since.

Shortly after, I decided to give up freelancing entirely and move on with the next stage of my life – focusing on my arts & crafts.

a new beginning

So, there I was: a single mum living in a small detached bungalow, helping my parents daily, home-schooling my remarkably ausome 11-yr-old and attempting to save $s to build my soon-to-be teen his own bedroom!

Arts & crafts became my escape – my ‘me time’ – in between everything else.

A couple of years ago I started attending local markets, on the weekends, and had some success selling my wire-wrapped jewellery. 

Since then we have added an extension to our bungalow — my son now has his own personal space — and I have a 'workshop' where I spend a lot of my time experimenting with many different types of arts and crafts.

Some of my favourite techniques and mediums include crochet, coloured pencils, timber, beads, found items, resin, copper wire, watercolours, fabric, thread and photography (to name a few).

next steps

I enjoyed the process of building this website for myself. Currently listed are a bunch of items created by myself (and other family members) including my jewellery,  fused glass pendants and bookmarks.

I will continue adding my own completed work, including crochet, needlework, mono-prints and mixed media items. I am looking forward to all the new and fabulous things I can create and share with the world.

I am also writing some crochet patterns and 'blog' articles  – this is all very new and exciting – please keep an eye out for these.