Guild Member of the Month - Megan Turpie
This month we have selected Megan Turpie from Little Crafters as our Keepsake Guild Member of the Month.
We asked Megan to introduce herself to you:
Before the business I was a stay at home mum. I loved being a mum and spending time with my children and a full time job would stop that. After doing porcelain painting at playgroups and seeing the popularity I began researching training to increase the quality of my items. I came across the ecourses you offer which was perfect as I live extremely far north so physical courses were a long way to travel for. I decided to start with your baby life casting course and not looked back. I've since invested in a kiln and now offer clay imprints and ceramic painting.
The beauty of this business is aside from the appointments I can carry out all my work in the evenings when the children are asleep. It's been a steep learning curve and times where I struggle to find the balance between going out with the children and making sure their having fun over the excitement I have to work on my next piece.
My family of four piece has been my biggest success. It was the moment I told myself I could do this and also want to do this. It was when I decided to work hard to bring this from a hobby into a business that brings in an income. Since then I have had steady orders and it's been great. It also steered me to try Harris tweed in my pieces which has been a signature feature of many of my items since.
I love having an avenue to explore my creativity but also utilise some of my engineering skills in some of the finer points of attaching the casts.
The help from The Keepsake Guild has been brilliant. It's great to get help from people who know exactly what you are going through and can help as no conflict of business.