Born in the 70s when the summers were hot and the jeans were spacious, I was originally little miss N.

From an early age I loved to draw and remember even now the "school uniform" I designed which won me £100 worth of Mothercare vouchers! In fact I even remember the clothes I bought – matching kilts and tops for me and my sister. Super stylish we were!

When I was about 12 my school friend (and still friend now) Nicola introduced me to "quilling". I spent hours winding little bits of coloured paper into shapes to create quilling cards. These cards were given out to my family, who loved them, or so they said!

When I was a teenager I decided I wanted to be a "graphic designer". To be honest I didn’t really know what one was but spent hours in my bedroom designing record covers for my favourite bands. New Order’s "Touched by the Hand of God" featured guess what? Yip, a hand! Genius....

Every time I went into Newcastle, about 10 miles away from where I lived, I used to longingly watch the people walking up the hill with their portfolios wishing that was me...
... and a few years later it was! I spent a year at Newcastle College learning new skills; how to develop your own photographs, what graphic design really meant, how to order 4 pints of Scrumpy Jack in happy hour and most importantly the fact that I could make a career out of something I loved!

Newcastle College was followed with 4 years in Birmingham studying visual communication which led to my first ever job in London town. Talk about little girl in big city! When in London I worked at a few different agencies getting so much experience, boarded the tube a zillion times, made some wonderful friends and basically had so much fun! During "my London years" my little sister got married. She asked me to design her wedding invites which I did probably better than keeping it together on her wedding day!

Fast forward a few years and I was back home in Newcastle getting married myself.
mrs L was born! I designed all the wedding stationery for my own wedding using the theme of mine and my husband’s hair colours, brown and orange. It sounds like we have gone back to the 70s doesn’t it? It was actually quite nice, honest.

The following year I really struggled to find a nice card for our anniversary. My husband trumped it by producing something using our wedding certificate! Perhaps it was my competitive streak but from then on I decided I would design my own anniversary cards. What better way to get exactly what you want? The thing was I had lots of different ideas....

....I could have kept them for years to come but I figured it might be nice to put them out there and see if anyone else liked them. I remember my first sale so well. I put one card on Etsy for sale and screamed when the following day it had been sold. It felt great, which sounds a bit sad but it really did. I have to say even now as my cards sell more and more, I still get that little thrill that I have made something that someone else wants to buy.
Are we back to the 70s again?