Interview: An April Idea

Tell us a bit about yourself, who is Jessie?
I live in Canberra, Australia, with my hunky husband and two Samoyed fur children. We just brought our first home in a beautiful, leafy street and are renovating it. It is very fun, but very exhausting! I have 2 degrees. One in Interior Design and one in Graphic Design. I am doing more work in the latter, but would love to combine the two one day.
I love reading and gardening and watching T.V. very middle aged 🙂 I have pretty much seen every episode of the Simpsons about 100 times and quote it all the time.

Have you always been a keen drawer?

Not in high school, but in college I had a great art teacher who really encouraged me. It’s amazing what some one believing in you can do. She wanted me to go to art school, but I ended up doing design, which I love.

Tell us about your process. Do you sketch out ideas? Edit on the computer?

I mostly draw out my designs with pencil then felt tip pen and then scan them in and edit them on the computer. I like editing on the computer as I feel I have a bit more control about what the end product will look like in regards to the printing process.

Is there anything in particular that inspires your works?

So many things! Random patterns in the horrible 80’s tiles in my Grandma’s house, nature – especially leaves and dying grass for some reason, photographs, I love looking at other designers work and seeing what they are doing. Just seeing some one else’s work can spark an idea in me, even if it’s just a colour or shape. Pinterest is another big one! It’s so dangerous for me! Once I get on, I am very much stuck there for a while, cursing the whole time that I should be doing other work and it is entirely Pinterest’s fault that I’m not. 

I saw on your website that you have quite a number of stockists! Was it a difficult/tedious process to get stores to stock your goodies?

It was a long process. We collated a huge list of amazing stores around Australia and sent them all catalogues and then follow up emails. Some got on board straight away and some have taken constant nagging. I am not particularly any good at that, too shy when it comes to promoting myself, so that is where it has been amazing to have a company wholesaling the brand.

Do you have any advice on getting your handmade goodies picked up by stores?

Make sure you have a great catalogue and be professional. These stores see loads of people sending in their handmade goods to be stocked, but if they are not up to scratch they don’t look at it twice. Also there needs to be a gap in the market, make sure your handmade goods are something different, you can’t win when the market is flooded with the lots of the same thing.

Your items have been featured in several major magazines here in Australia. How does it feel to have your creations in an actual magazine??

It’s amazing! And quite surreal. I’m almost like, did they put that in there on purpose…how did that happen 🙂

Do you have any handmade sellers you admire?

I have so many favs in Australia –

Love Mae

Me and Amber

Maze and Vale 

Treehorn Design

Have You Met Miss Jones

Bonnie and Neil

Just to name a few…

Last one, if you could have any kind of super power, what would it be and why?

Ooooo! I think I would like to be able to read peoples minds and tell them what they are thinking! Control freak much! 🙂 I know it would get very messy, maybe I could turn it on and off when I wanted to…..

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