This month we talk about our worklife - past or present.
For my sample I chose to focus on my time owning and operating Groovy Kids. For almost 10 years, I was involved in the ceramic industry, teaching as well as manufacturing and I have never once created a page on this time.
So this month was my chance to do just that.
I started ceramic classes with a friend, not long after Jamison was born. Instantly addicted, I loved being surrounded by colour, design (still do!) and the stacks of white earthernware pieces just waiting to be painted and glazed.
I sold my first piece 6months later and soon after, started selling to a gift shop. In those early days I was just painting platters and coffee mugs and homeware pieces. Then a friend asked me to paint a bowl for her neice with the child's name on it and I had a light bulb moment!
I would create a range just for kids - a brightly designed range of bowls and plates and mugs and paint on them each child's name. And so Groovy Kids was born.
The layout contains one of my brochures from that time (check out how young Capri and Chelsea look!) as well as a mini book containing the full story and more photos.
It was rather therapeutic to write everything down about my Groovy Kids journey. And the journaling is lengthy!
The business grew quickly. They were crazy days! At the height of the business I had a business partner, two sales consultants(who were holding 3-4 parties per week EACH), a casual girl who would glaze and sand pieces for me, we were stocking about eight other lines alongside my painted pieces and I was handpainting 60 plus pieces per week myself plus teaching class, plus packing orders and the day to day running of the business.
It was stressful, crazy, work around the clock type days/nights! I remember once having visitors from Canberra stay with us and my friend and her husband stayed up one night to bubblewrap a heap of orders with me! Bet they were glad they visited(hi Lyn)! My mum was great with a glaze brush too and even the kids would help me sort orders! Ken did deliveries. I had everyone involved.
While I LOVED the designing and pulling together a range and enjoyed the satisfaction of getting so many orders and watching the business grow, having to physically reproduce each and every order over and over again was tedious, tiring and hard work. Although I had it down pat. I could paint a piece in 10-15minutes!
If I could have found a way to have the plates mechanically reproduced I would have. But the reality was they all had the child's name added and the fact they were hand painted and personalised was why they sold.
Lots of things contributed to making the decision to close down the business. One of them was discovering scrapbooking.
I STILL get orders to this day for my kids pieces! And I do miss my ceramic students! And sadly, I have not one photo of my studio or my beautiful students who would come along each week to paint, chat, eat and laugh!