I come from a crafty family - both of my grandmothers taught me about sewing, ceramics, macrame and crochet when I was a kid. And I've been making costumes and jewelry for most of my adult life. I worked at the Renaissance Faire in Southern California in my college years, and outside of that I was going to gaming conventions and cosplaying before there was even a word for it.

My influences are all over the board - from history and historical fashion to the modern tech world.

I've been a programmer for about 15 years now. That Django pony tattoo is legit - I've been writing Python and working with the Django framework since 2009. And as far as I know, I'm the only person who has a tattoo of Django's infamously cute unofficial mascot.

Programming is an important part of my life - so much so that I teach it to kids (through the annual Young Coders class at PyCon in North America) and adults (through PyLadies and DjangoGirls):

http://www.mechanicalgirl.com

But I also still love to explore my creativity through costume, sewing and quilting, glass and metal work, and jewelry making. I've been making costumes and jewelry since I was a teenager - you can see my portfolio on Flickr:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/barbarashaurette/sets/72157648946961174/

All that creative exploration has led me to open DjangoPonyTattoo. I run this shop as a hobby. The things I sell are things that I find fun to make, and if other people appreciate my work and think some of it is cool too, then that's just icing on the cake.