Hi everyone!
Can’t believe I’m actually writing a blog post! This has been brewing in my mind for a long time, a side passion project that I’ve been putting off for way too long. I’m finally doing this so I want to share what the blog is going to be about.
Firstly, a bit about me.
I’m a mom of 3 (one human boy and two dog boys) and I’ve always loved creating. The medium doesn’t much matter – sewing, knitting, drawing, painting, cooking, gardening… I’ve done them all. Over the years, as I’ve worked on my career (I work full time as a data analyst), creating took a back step as I just didn’t feel like I had the energy to do anything after a day at work.
However, in 2019, my husband and I bought a house which is a real fixer upper. I’m talking pebble dash walls outside and purple, blue and red carpets inside. I fell in love with it and knew that my days of taking it easy were done! When we moved in I took a good look at the structure of my days and optimised my time so that I can work full time, look after my family, create to my heart’s desire and even document it all on this blog! Who’d have thought that switching off Netflix and putting your phone down can be so productive??
So why the blog?
I want to inspire people from all walks of life, especially those who don’t have giant garages full of snazzy tools (which I don’t) to have a go at making something. I’ve been dabbling in crafts throughout my life but with woodwork and upcycling I still feel like a beginner. You will see me making mistakes and I hope this can give you the courage to give it a try yourself.
My mission here can be summarised in these three points:
- To inspire! (and free the world from mindless TV watching/ mobile phone scrolling)
Most of us in the western world have too much free time on our hands but it really doesn’t feel like it. Unfortunately, it gets wasted watching Netflix or scrolling through social media, causing an epidemic of depression and purposelessness. Being creative encourages you to be mindful of your time and gives you a goal to work towards.
- To reduce waste
I believe if everyone makes their own things, the waste we produce as a society will reduce drastically. After all, you’re a lot more likely to throw out a £150 IKEA bed than one that you’ve put your blood, sweat and tears into making, right?
- To document my own progress
This one is a selfish one. There are projects I already made that I wish I’d documented but I get so into the actual process that I don’t want to pause and take a picture. I hope this will give me a reason to do just that so that years in the future, when my projects no longer look homemade (I can dream, right?), I can look back and appreciate the journey.
What else is here?
As well as a project blog, I make woodwork plans. This came about as a bit of a passion project, trying to learn how to 3D model, just for fun, you know as you do. I realised though that those skills can actually be useful and save me lots of headaches trying to fix mistakes made when I design a piece of furniture using just a pen and paper – turns out the computer can do math a lot better than I can.
I hope some of this resonates with you and that you join me on my mission. If it does, please reach out to say hello – you can either drop me an email using this contact form or drop a comment on one of the project posts in this blog.
