Hello and welcome to my blog. My name is Jennie. I'm a wife to a wonderful and supportive husband (though as I write he's fallen asleep over his laptop, football on, many beers consumed) and the mother of two beautiful and wise children aged 4 and 6, who keep me busy and incredibly happy. We live in a two-bedroomed Victorian terrace in Bearwood, on the edge of Birmingham, in the West Midlands.
Come September my daughter goes off to school and I've decided to laugh in the face of debt and destitution and take some time to be creative with a view to selling my wares online and at craft fairs. I've reached this point for a couple of reasons: since giving up a job in TV when I had my son, I've needed a creative outlet. Because I gave up my job, money has been really tight and I've needed to make-do, mend and create my way through the last seven years. I've ended up selling bits and pieces that I've made. They've been well received, so I want to see if I can build an actual business that can provide a small income (we don't need much) before I have to get a proper job (and life, as I love it, effectively ends - I really, really, really don't want to get a proper job).
Sometime in the last few years I met some wonderful, funny, mad women, who also like crafting. We started to get together regularly for crafting evenings and eventually we set up the Crafty Muthas blog and The Bearwood Tapestry, a monthly social. We've also organised a couple of really successful, local, handmade fairs.
I've loved contributing to the Crafty Muthas blog but I'm more inclined to keep it strictly crafty and hold back a little on my feelings and thoughts because I'm representing us, not me. This blog will be a little different I imagine because it is just me. But perhaps I'll have nothing to say...ha, like that's gonna happen.
So, this is the beginning. My aim is to make an ever changing range of original, handmade pieces using upcycled textiles and vintage whatnots. I'll write about the process and post pictures on this blog and also put up stuff that I find inspiring or admirable, mention music I like, books I'm reading - you know how it works. I do hope you can join me.
