Where It All Started

I’ve been drawing my whole life. As a child, art was my favourite subject at school. I was a smart kid and top of my class, so my teachers were disappointed when I pushed aside history and geography to take on more art subjects (sorry Mrs Dannenman!)

After school, I ended up taking on a million different jobs – I worked in admin, childcare, graphic design, volunteering, video production… and even had a short stint as a children’s entertainer (I still have my giant clown shoes!). Art took a backseat, but I never stopped finding ways to bring creativity into everything else I did.

I dabbled in freelance graphic design, often working alongside my now-husband, Shane, where I would design a website or project and he would bring it to life with code and all the techy stuff.

After I had my first son, I fell into a bad post-natal depression and found myself craving a creative outlet and not wanting to go back to work. The timing was perfect – with 2015 being the year that adult colouring entered the world in a whole new way.

I started designing adult colouring books long before I coloured them myself. I liked the black lines, and was excited to create something again. I loved that I could make something that hundreds of people could transform and make their own. I had no idea that my new hobby would be the beginning of a business that now supports our entire family and team.

When I started, I just made books for fun. But as the feedback started pouring in, I realised I had an opportunity to bring something more impactful to the world. At the same time, my Mum’s breast cancer came back after years of being in remission and I wanted to give her something creative and encouraging to do during her treatment. So I made colouring books with positive affirmations, for my mum and many others, and to help people reduce anxiety.

My mum passed a few years later, incredibly proud of what I had created, and happy to have built so many special memories with her grandson, who was 3 years old at the time.

And I thought that was the end of the story, but it was just the beginning.

The Messy Middle

The more time I spent with the colouring community, the more I found myself frustrated at the lack of confidence so many people had in their skills. Everyone was happy to say they were crafty or liked colouring, but they wouldn’t dare use the word “artist” or “creative”, and I found myself frustrated by this.

So in 2020, I started my YouTube channel, and focused on more products like my Colour Catalogue (which later became the Colour Cube) to help people conquer the basics, choose colours, and start creating.

The Colour Catalogue far exceeded expectations, and it was the first time I really started to see how I could help people.

They didn’t need more skills – they needed more confidence. More permission. More room to experiment and make a mess and just have fun exploring art.

And it wasn’t just my audience – it was me. I was a perfectionist. I didn’t know how to do “abstract” or how to embrace the mess. Or how to feel ok when things didn’t go to plan.

My Youtube channel became my own journey of discovering fearless creativity. I chose ambitious projects that I could be bad at, and every one built my confidence, my skills, and my love for all things creative.

I believe everyone can be creative, and it’s become my mission to help you overcome whatever is getting in your way. To learn to be creatively courageous. To discover fearless creativity. And to enjoy the messy middle, wherever it leads.