The little joys of making.

When I was a kid, nothing excited me more than stationery ... and lollies. Lets be real here, we are talking about a child who used to eat sugar cubes from the cupboard when mum wasn't looking. And yes, they were so bad for my teeth, but they were so delicious! Sometimes, on the way home from a family outing, my mum would have to stop to buy milk and bread at the local corner store. She would let my sister and I go with her, and to my delight she would let us buy some of the sweets in the glass cabinet filled with tubs of lollies of every description. One by one we chose lollies until our little white paper bag was full. We felt like we were in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, if it were run by a overweight greek man, and his wife. These were some of the best days of my childhood. Okay, I'm sorry, I have digressed. Let me tell you about when my love story with arts and crafts began and in order to do this, I take you back to the beginning.

I have a sister who is 4 years older than me. I am here because she persistantly nagged my parents for me until finally they succumbed through sheer embarrassment. We used to live behind the local primary school, and when my sister gathered enough courage to talk to the students, one day, after lunch while my parents were busy in the garden, she stood in the middle of our tiny backyard, and with all her might, yelled "Where can I buy a sister?". Poor little Odette could only think of one thing. My parents were mortified, and that act of desperation was enough to egnite a flame for a second child. One cold winter morning in the following year, I was born.

My sister and I were inseprable. She was my best friend (and still is), and I wanted to be just like her (and still do). I wanted to do everything that she was doing. Don't get me wrong, we had our moments where we acted like terrible children who would squabble about the most insignificant things. Most of the time, we were partners in crime. We laughed, sang, played, cried, crafted and enjoyed each others company immensely. Come to think of it, nothing much has changed, and I'm eternally grateful for that.

Odette is, and always has been an artist. I have always been amazed at what she could create with a pair of scissors, a box of pencils, glue and paper. Some of our fondest memories are of us drawing together, and making strange things with our imagination. My parents didn't spoil us with a huge amount of toys, so when we lost the clothes for our barbies, we took a pair of scissors and some old stockings, and reinvented some amazing (yet skimpy) clothing for Barbie. I'm not sure she would have approved but we were absolutely delighted with the outcome. My sisters art skills were incredible. I envied her, as her skills always outweighed mine. Even now, as adults, I have the amount of creativity in my whole body that she does in her little pinky finger. You know those people that are good at everything? That's her.

Through the years I followed my passion, and studied to be a graphic artist. My parents were nurses and tried to convince me to take this direction with my life. Fortunately I am as stubborn as a bull, and followed my own dreams. After graduating, I spent many of my time working for one of the major newspapers here in Melbourne, but after a while it lost it's shine, and around the global financial crisis, things got a lot more serious at work. This didn't make for a great working environment, so in the persuit of happiness, I quit a stable and well paying job (I know, crazy right?) and decided to change careers all together. I started studying books and listening to talks from Wayne Dyer after a friend had serendipitously played me one of his talks. I was hooked ... who was this man and why was he so happy? This started my journey to discovery of myself, and also to following my bliss.

Fast forward to the now, and my life from that moment has changed. I met the love of my life while I was still working at the newspaper, but we didn't start dating for another 2 years after that as he had decided to move to the UK. We met while he was working as a manager at a restaurant. One night at work, I had a sudden urge to get cake. My friend and I wandered down to the restaurant down the road. We walked into the restaurant and we were greeted by this gorgeous man who exuded confidence and humour and a smile that would melt hearts. I said to him that I was there to "order the best cake they had" and proceeded to ordered the chocolate flourless cake. He argued that he knew all the cakes, and that the banana caramel cream pie was, in fact the best they had. I thought he was mad. How could a pie be better than cake? I argued that "the customer is always right", to which he told me that he worked there for a long time, so he would know better. I mean, the nerve of this guy, right? He cut me a slice of both cakes, and only charged me for one, just to prove he was right. I brought them back to work, and to my surprise, he was right. We were friends for a year after that, and then he left for England. When Julian came back from UK, we dated for a a few years, moved in together, shared our first pet, and we are now married and now have 3 beautiful kids who are all loved equally and cherished fiercely.

Throughout this period of my life, I had come to many conclusions about how to be happy (like many, I had been searching for happiness everywhere, but couldn't find anything lasting). Wayne Dyer said "If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.". For me, I realised though the years that happiness is a state of mind. It can not be bought. It doesn't come from major shopping sprees (which I have tried, many times), a huge house or fancy cars. All of these material things are fleeting. I realised, after much soul searching that happiness comes from looking at your life with the eyes gratitude, and from following your bliss.

A few months before the global pandemic, I found myelf at a craft store. I had been on pinterest a few weeks before, and had been eyeing off some amazing polymer clay jewellery. Could I make my own jewellery? It couldn't be that hard? My mind could not let go of the idea, and when this happens, I have no choice but to just go with it. So, with this I headed down to the craft store and purchased some polymer clay. I got home and excitedly watched YouTube tutorials. I researched online and started moulding and baking. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I felt ridiculous. Nothing I was doing looked even remotely close to the tutorial. If there was a polymer clay show based on the TV show 'Nailed It', I would be contestant number one. The pieces that I made would never be worn, as they quickly found their way to the bin. I was so dissapointed and quickly found other things to occupy my time, like Netflix.

One evening, I got the clay out again, and a miricle occured. I actually made something decent, that didn't look like something that had been made by a 3 year old (no offence to three year olds). I gained confidence and started selling my jewellery to mums who had noticed the earrings I was making and wearing. One day, a friend of mine asked me to make her some earrings for a friend, and I realised that I could actually do this for money.

When Covid hit Melbourne hard later that year, we went into our extremely long Covid lockdown, I decided to take the leap and start my business. It was absolutely terrifying, but everything that is worth doing has some level of fear associated with it. As the months went by I got better at creating jewellery and it showed. More customers came and I continued to sell jewellery to anyone who wanted to wear it.

How do I think of my ideas? Sometimes I just sit at my desk and start making, and by some dumb luck, I manage to pull off something that I absolutely love. It doesn't always happen like this, and it's definitely trial and error. At times the inspiration doesn't flow as easily, that's when I look through my camera roll. The camera roll on my phone includes two things. Photos of my children, (with some terrible attempts at some selfies with all three of them because I want to prove that I actually existed in their childhood) and screen shots. When I see aything that inspires me, such as colour combinations or shapes and textures I save it to use for inspiration. I think the last thing I screen shot was packaging for womens sanitary items. Inspiration can come from anywhere!

I think in this life, one of the things that I'd like to pass onto my children, is to learn to follow your bliss, whatever that may be. For me, that is art, design, and making. For you this may be something completely different, but you'll know your bliss because when you are doing that thing that you are passionate about, you are excited, you feel alive. Being a working mum of 3 kids sometimes I am guilty of doing too much work, and not setting aside time to do something that makes my heart happy. Art and craft, with daily meditation is and always has been my path to joy. I realised that when I do something I love, that I'm incredibly passionate about, good things follow. Joy, inspiration and contentment follow. It's easy to get carried away with the hustle and bustle, the endless lunches to be made or the dishes to be washed. "Mum, I'm hungry" ... "Mum, I'm bored"... "Hun, have you seen my keys?", but there must be time for passion, for excitement, experimenting, making mistakes and overcomeing them with small victories. Otherwise, we will get to the end of our days and wonder why we didn't do those things that we love, more.

There is bravery in being vulnerable and following your dreams. There will always be someone who is ready to criticize, but another lesson I learned from the late Wayne Dyer is to follow the beat of my heart to find my souls purpose. For me, that is to bring joy to others through my art. I want to uplift people, so that when they are wearing my jewellery or looking at my art, they feel joyous, happy and confident. I will continue to walk to the beat of my own drum, and my wish is that you will too.