Years of experience with a lifetime passion

I was that little girl that had a few Barbies but really didn't get the point of them. I was always more entertained by playing in ways that produced something tangible that was all mine, and my first loves, by far, were baking and art! I dove into a world of splatter painters, Spirographs, and latch hook kits. Eventually, I began experimenting with oil paints, and I even took a great art class in high school. I LOVED art, but I never thought it was possible, for me at least, to make money at it. For a long time, I put art down.

I spent a dozen years or so in jobs that mixed sales with retail management and training. I took it seriously, and I loved the training part, but I knew that sales was not for me forever. Along the way, I picked up just about every hobby you can think of that produces things... knitting, cooking, gardening, and furniture building, to name a few.

Eventually, I went back to school to become a mental health counselor, which was more fitting with my personality, and encouraging clients to play and enjoy life encouraged me to do the same! My furniture building hobby left me with lots of scrap wood, and I never wanted to throw it out because I could see so much potential in it! One day, my love of art reawakened, and I began to turn those wood scraps into artwork. As my own walls got full, I started to make pieces to fill the counseling center where I worked, and people started to take notice! After a couple of years laughing every time someone asked if I sold my work (because that seemed too far fetched to be possible), I started to wonder if people might really be interested in buying my pieces. This led me to start a blog (http://theinspireddragonfly.com) about my work and wacky DIY projects, with a name partially inspired by a tattoo on my left foot and partially on a general love of dragonflies.

Finally, I took a huge leap of faith and opened The Inspired Dragonfly Etsy shop! The funny thing is that all of my former, not quite right, careers have led me to what I now do full time! I am thankful every day for the years I spent honing my customer service skills, and I use it to provide the top notch customer service I absolutely insist upon (no, really... I'm kinda obsessive about how customer service is supposed to be done). My past as a counselor has informed the types of art I make, in that I love to produce pieces that give the mind a place to rest and follow a train of though without providing a specific story as a distraction. It also helped me understand that creating art as a job would provide me with the kind of life I really craved! While it's not for everyone, I have found working for myself, both in this business and my Myers-Briggs Type Indicator(R) consulting business (http://personalityplaybook.com) to be incredibly freeing and inspiring!

More than anything, I hope that the work people purchase from The Inspired Dragonfly can bring some of the joy, happiness, and freedom that I feel when creating art to the people who choose it for their homes. I feel a huge sense of honor every time a person spends hard earned money on one of my pieces, and I hope that comes through in the way I run my business. If you have an idea, need an idea, don't know where to start, or don't know whether a piece will work in your space, I hope you will send me a conversation so that we can work together to make a piece you'll love!