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Something very exciting took place this past week you guys.
Little Lane Workshops turned one.
Holy Shitballs - ONE YEAR!
I have to admit, it's been one hellava crazy busy year. It's also been an insane juggling act at times and there have been many many sleepless nights and WhatTheHellAmIDoing moments thrown in there for good measure too.
Although Little Lane Workshops started out as a joint project between Tessa and I, these days it's just me, as my lovely friend is leaving very soon for her next exciting adventure in the US.
People who have known me for a long time, especially those who knew me as the corporate gal I was, are often surprised when they find out that one of the ways I earn a living these days is through my running my own creative business.
I love that they are surprised.
But then no one is more surprised than me.
You see when I was a little girl, my mum owned a Craft Shop - a gorgeous little store only a block from where we lived. The shop was called Very Crafty and it was painted bright yellow and was full to the brim of all sorts of crafty goodness.
Back then, I wasn't all that interested in craft.
Nup, I was more of a rollerskating, Girlfriend magazine reading, smelling pen collecting kind of girl. But I did appreciate what it was my mum had created and I have very fond memories of walking to the shop after school and finding my mum crouched over a tapestry or some macrame with a customer of hers.
There was always such a calm and peaceful ambience in that shop, and it wasn't until years later that I realised it was because people were there taking time for themselves to create something and creating makes people happy.
Fast forward to years later and I found myself watching the movie You've Got Mail for the very first time.
You know the one with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks and that divine little book store with all the fairy lights and the comfy cushions and the happy customers, and the staff that were like family to each other.
Oh man, I fell in love with that movie.
I fell in love with Meg and Tom and New York and most of all - I fell madly in love with that little book store and its fairy lights and the people who all seemed so happy to be in that store.
That movie sparked something in me and for a long time after watching, it I day dreamed about one day owning my own little store with fairy lights.
I had no idea what sort of store it would be or what it would sell, but I wanted to have my very own place where people would visit and feel so happy there that they didn't want to leave.
A little spark was ignited all the way back then, although I was far too preoccupied with having babies and working my career in the corporate world to notice, and what I did not realise at that time was that all of that daydreaming I was doing - well that was my heart and my soul speaking to me.
Eventually the day dreams kind of just ebbed away... as they do because you know, life and all that.
But then one day a psychic came to my home to do a reading for me and some girlfriends of mine and among the many things she spoke about, she told me something that to this day makes me suck in my breath when I remember it...
She told me that I would leave my corporate job because I would reach a point that I would be so utterly miserable in it that I couldn't possibly continue on.
She also told me that I would end up doing something completely different, something that would help other people and make me incredibly happy in the process.
Of course I laughed at her, because as if I was going to walk away from such a well paying job that I had worked so hard for... besides it was all I knew how to do because business was all I had ever done.
But then life has a way of giving you a nudge and pushing you out of your comfort zone. You can choose to try and fight it and continue doing what you've always done, or you can decide to just kind of go with it.
And so go with it is what I did.
Just like the psychic said would happen, I ended up being miserable in my well paying corporate job and after an epic 2am emotional breakdown, I ended up quitting. At that point I had no idea what it was I would end up doing, but for some reason I decided to trust that whatever it was that was meant to be... would end up being.
It turns out that what was meant to be was Little Lane Workshops, my own little magical place complete with fairy lights and people who work there that are like family to me. It's a place that in its own way - helps other people and makes me incredibly happy in the process.
Little Lane Workshops is all about giving our guests an excuse to take some time out from life just for themselves, to be in the moment as they learn something new. We help them to nurture their creativity, discover new joys and connect with other like minded friends in the process.
The workshops gives our family of creatives a place to teach and a platform to share their talent and their skills and something that our creatives and our guests all have in common is that they often tell me how much they love being there and how they hate it when it is time to leave.
I cannot tell you how ridiculously happy that makes me - just like the psychic said it would.
To celebrate our one year birthday, I didn't really do anything too flashy to speak off.
At the end of the day I sat under the fairy lights at the warehouse and I drank a glass of Prosecco and laughed at how right that psychic turned out to be.
I also watched You've Got Mail again the other night and I realised that the little spark I got from watching that movie all those years ago... well that little spark became dream, and that dream turned into something pretty damn special.
It turned into this.
Happy Birthday Little Lane Workshops.