So very excited to introduce Laura at HEY TEZZY to the Girl Gang!
Laura's bold and beautiful makes are exactly what we need to inspire us during the post-christmas slump. As soon as Hey Tezzy started popping up on my Instagram feed, I was in love...
I mean, what's not to love about brightly coloured, uniformed little pom poms!?
I knew straight away that I'd love Laura to join the gang. As a part-time crafter, I am always intrigued to find out what inspires and motivates Makers like Laura and how much time and effort it requires to set yourself up as a small brand.
Hey Tezzy has been so popular, it even had to shut up shop early in order to send out all those Christmas orders! So here we are, facing 2019 head on and feeling excited for what Hey Tezzy will produce in the NEW year!
To find out more from Laura herself, then have a little read of her interview below...
Hi Laura, can I just start by saying ‘Who doesn’t love a pom pom?’ I’d be so suspicious of anyone who said that they don’t haha… What inspired you to start pom pom making?
Ah thank you so much Katie! I bloomin’ love a pom pom too but of course I’m biased! Always the brighter the better! I have to admit, Hey Tezzy is a new vision, it isn’t a concept I’ve had squirrelled away in my mind for a long time. It is something that sprung up out of a brainwave only at the end of October! My lovely friend Megan and I were chatting a few weeks earlier about wanting to start my own little side hustle doing something I love but I couldn’t quite put my finger on that “something.” I’d toyed with the idea of putting my GCSE textiles into play and making awesome unisex children’s clothing but there are already so many fab ladies out there doing that (check out Maple & Pea, we love Jo’s things!) I couldn’t even begin to compete. Especially since I haven’t used a sewing machine since said GCSE! Ha. Then it all fell into place one day at the end of October when I nipped out for some Halloween goodies. I saw some awesome pom poms whilst out and about but I couldn’t afford them the day before payday (good old maternity leave!) My friend Megan messaged me and said “why don’t you make some? Start this business you’ve always wanted to and I’ll be your first customer!” So it’s all down to Megan giving me a kick up the bum and being awesome that Hey Tezzy is here today! I made Megan a gorgeous navy, white and mustard garland for her lounge and myself a wreath ready for Christmas, took a chance by posting them on Instagram and they received so much love! Much to my amazement it spiralled from there and I actually had to close my Christmas orders early to give me chance to catch up as it’s just little old me at Hey Tezzy HQ!
Can you tell me a bit about your life and how running ‘Hey Tezzy’ came about?
I’m currently on maternity leave from my job in mental health with my second son. I wouldn’t say I have time to kill as he’s a little koala baby that would be stuck to me 24/7 if he could be. I’m not used to it as my first son was always happy to be left alone! But what little spare time I have I wanted to put to good use and what better way than to make pom poms! I always knew I wanted to do something fun and crafty. I used to joke to my husband, “I just want to stay at home and knit scarves!” but considering I can’t actually knit (yet!) that was never going to happen. Pom poms all the way though!
I love your branding for Hey Tezzy, do you have a creative/design background or is this something you’ve taught yourself over time?
Thank you! I wanted something that was 100% me and I think we have it! I’m all about bright colours, monochrome and glitter. I don’t have a design background at all but I’ve always loved finding fun and different things for the home, putting together fab Halloween outfits for the kids, organising my wedding and my mum’s 60th birthday had me in my element and I love making things when I can’t quite find something in the shops that I need and but I’m not a whizz on the computer as I only have a 10 year old laptop with Windows 7. Clip Art didn’t quite cut it so I got in touch with JJ at The Gin Fox and we worked together to create my branding. I love it so much! In fact, in the new year my living room walls are also going to be adorned with monochrome dots. Hey Tezzy at home!
When you’re not putting gorgeous colour combinations together and crafting, what do you like to get up to?
Now I have to admit, I love a good Netflix series! Since having my second son I haven’t had much time to catch up on all the good stuff so I have a huge list for a rainy day. I haven’t even watched the second series of Sinner or Making a Murderer yet. Serious lack of dedication on the Netflix front right now!
I also loved nothing more than spending Sundays at Fruit with friends, the kids and our Labrador Daisy, grabbing some lunch, a beer and listening to the fab local music talent. I was absolutely GUTTED when Fruit closed but now the Acoustic Sundays have started in Trinity Market, it’s the next best thing. We went last weekend and ate our way around the market. Those gyros and halloumi fries... just perfection!
My all time favourite past time though is Disney. I dream about Disney World every day and I bore my husband by talking about it non stop. We took our son, who was 4 at the time, in November 2016 for the Christmas celebrations and it was just magical. We’d saved to go since the day he was born! I went again with our son, my friend from work and her daughter in October 2017 for Halloween and OH. MY. GOD, it was amazing! Everything I’d dreamed of and so much more! (Can you tell Halloween is my thing?) So now all I can think of is our countdown to going again with both of our boys in October 2021! Week!
I know you are a mother, as well as a badass pom pom maker! Do you have any words of inspiration for any mums out there looking to set themselves up as a designer/maker, or who are perhaps juggling parenthood, work and working freelance?
The juggle is HARD. That isn’t very inspirational I know but stick with me. I’m doing this whilst on maternity leave with a very clingy baby so I have different struggles at the moment to if I was back at work so when I do return to work next year, designating time to work on Hey Tezzy is going to be the most important thing in helping make it something feasible for me. I love what I have created with Hey Tezzy so far and what I love even more is seeing my work make other people happy! It is so rewarding in that respect. My wreaths for example, take anywhere between 9 and 13 hours to make but I adore that feeling of satisfaction when they’re finished. What makes it even more worthwhile is seeing that post on Facebook or Instagram of my work in somebody else’s home or reading somebody’s message to me saying they’ve had so many compliments on their Hey Tezzy little balls of fluff. It really does make my day!
So my advice for anybody thinking about doing this is to find something you really love and just go for it! Set aside a little bit of money to get started and to nail your branding then once you have everything to get up and running, designate the time you need, put aside a couple of nights a week for example, and off you go. I am very new to this small business lark, I’ve worked in nursing for the past 11 year so by no means an expert in the business field so it’s all a huge learning curve for me too! A perfect starting block though is Instagram. Instagram Instagram Instagram. I can’t stress enough how essential Instagram is when starting up a small business. I’ve only been doing this since the end of October and all of my customers so far have come through my Hey Tezzy insta account. I’ve also met the most amazing people on there running other local crafty small businesses and people like yourself Katie, willing to cheer on us new starters from the sidelines! For that I can’t thank you and Instagram enough!
And finally, what are you plans for the future of Hey Tezzy? Whatever those plans may be, The Rebel Girls Club wishes you ALL the luck!
You’re a gem! My next step is setting up an online shop to make the ordering process much easier. With all the Christmas orders I’ve had, I just haven’t had the time to focus on my shop and all the other ideas I have that are whizzing around my head but I am not complaining one tiny bit, I’m so grateful for it! When I’m not awake with my baby at 2am, I’ll suddenly get a creative idea pop into my head and that will wake me up too! So, before I reopen I’m going to take some time to make up some of these designs that I’ve had floating around my busy brain for a long time, get them photographed and get my shop open! And I’m soooo excited for this. Designating actual work days instead of relying on my husband being around on his days off to take over baby duty will help massively too so that’s definitely something for the new year. I also have lots of ideas for future projects but they’ll be quite a way away yet as I don’t want to get ahead of myself. One step at a time!
Check out Hey Tezzy on Insta: HERE
Thanks for reading Rebels
XOXO
0 comments:
Post a Comment