My life story and what made me who I am today
My journey wasn’t always easy or covered in petals. I can’t say it yet is. But I’m so grateful I get to do what I do best ;)
Home, growing up
I come from a middle class working family where I’ve grown up just with one parent. My mum. and my grandparents. My mum worked really hard to raise twin girls (me and my sister) all by herself. My family wasn’t entrepreneurial, but they were creative and very very hard working.. In fact, I think this hardworking ethics instilled in me from watching them go day by day.
I remember our home - full of fabric - colourful, beautiful, thick and thin, stripy, patterned, linen, cotton, silk, all sorts! My mother is a seamstress. I think it was my early childhood when I actually fell in love with fabrics. I was allowed to use off cuts, and my mother and grandmother taught me how to sew. It was first for the dolls. Later, when I grew to teenage years, for myself.
My tiny grandmother had golden hands. She was this tiny person with so much power and energy, she could do anything! I adored her :) She knew so many things - knitting, croqueting, sewing. She showed and taught us all, I hope I can pass at least some of this knowledge to my girls. It was my grandmother who saw our talent in drawing and insisted sending us to art school. She had a good eye!
My mum’s parents lived in a self sustained farm surrounded with meadows and forests. They grew their own fruit, vegetables and wheat, kettle, chickens and ducks by the pond. They baked their own bread, drank water from the well. I’ve spent most of summer and winter holidays there, surrounded by nature - and I just absorbed it and loved it deeper day by day. It was a super hard work, but it was magical. And today, nature, garden being outdoors is a big part of my world. I love to dig up the dirt, I’m trying to grow veggies and fill garden with flowers. Living and learning farm life taught me sustainable ways. Love for nature stayed with me from those days and I want to keep living this clean, planet friendly, you-can-do-with-less but good stuff way and I try to run my business this way as much as I can.
Education and strange pathways
Art school BLEW MY MIND! There were so many talented kids there, it was scary. I was terrified I could never be as good as them! But slowly, within a few months amazing teachers showing everything they knew, my confidence started growing and I started believing in myself. I learned to use paintbrush (properly :), got my hands messy with clay, learned live drawing, painted horizons outdoors. I could actually do it!!! I was only 12 back then. Art school had to fit in the busy grammar school schedule too. It was super intense 6 years but I’m so grateful for them. I think those both schools made me who I am today! I was this growing up teenage girl immersed in art, THERE WAS NO LIMITS! It was like I was growing wings that could take me far away!
But then, in the final year, things changed. I think I burned out. I had to take a completely different direction as I messed up my final exam choices. I almost went study medicine, but then last minute I changed my mind. I took a different direction and went to study business studies. I WAS SO CONFUSED! Back in the day there was still this belief that you cannot make living from art. My mum worked so hard to be able to send us to uni. So this bird had to be tamed. I had to be done with art, at least for a while…
In the summer before the final year at uni I travelled to the UK to work in the farm and up my English skills. And there, I met a guy (now my husband) and that changed everything for me again!
In 2007 I finished uni, packed one suitcase, left everything I knew and moved to live in the UK. It was so scary, challenging. I was this immigrant (I hate this term by the way!) trying to start a life in completely new country, language, new rules. It took guts. If you have been there, you will relate. But I had a dream and I chased it. And I wasn’t alone, had my person by my side, I followed my heart and fought through every obstacle in the way.
A couple years into this, my need to create started coming back to the surface. I never left art completely by the way (how could I?), I always has a little sketchbook by my side filling it secretly. I remember drawing that huge mural back in my dorm room wall at uni :D..It’s crazy!!! So I made a decision to study art again. I joined HND in graphic design and learned while I worked.
Career
In the beginning, I I scraped through so many different jobs. I started working in restaurants, and cafes, in the airport, plant nursery, interior goods shop, lots of face-to-face customer service. It was a hard grind for me… but I draw on the skills I gained in every place so often that, in a sense, I'm 'thankful' for this experience — but I am SO glad to get out of it.
In 2012 I completed my Graphic Design studies and I realised I was expecting our first baby. What a timing!! But it actually worked out well. Now that I was on maternity leave I had a bit more time. I started creating more, drawing more. During my daughter’s nap times I built my first graphic design portfolio. And a year later I was a graphic designer in branding and packaging agency in London.
Side Hustle
A good few years into my design career I started freelancing on the side and it was working out well.. My skills were growing, design and branding customers enquiring and so was my confidence. I started to admire women who were turning their so-called 'side-hustles' into self-sustaining businesses. And I think I was ready for one myself. So in the end of 2022 I founded Ausra Creates and I in the end of 2023 went completely on my own.
Discovering surface pattern design
Soon after I resigned I realised I was expecting our third baby! But I wasn’t panicking (maybe just a little). Something was already changing in me. My eyes opened wider, I started seeing opportunities, I had few different ideas and I stumbled across surface pattern design. I just new this would be a next perfect extension of me - my love for art and design, fabric, the beautiful interiors it finally could all sync into one beautiful song!
And after almost a decade working and designing for someone else, all of a sudden I had this space to just be me! I started drawing more, I bought my first Ipad so could illustrate digitally no matter where I go. Going back to illustrating made me feel more confident and relaxed. It’s like I could speak this language I once knew. I loved the calming fulfilling feeling it gave me where art, design and all I knew came into perfect sync. I would just create from my heart and lose myself in it, I would try & squeeze this daily practise into newborn Mia's naps whenever I could.
I've invested in a few great courses and taught myself to put together beautiful pattern repeats and mini collections. I explored trends and historic patterns. I knew I wanted to design surface pattern prints for fabric and interiors, and with having Mia and my bigger girls I started niching down into prints what I would love them to wear, I would wear and interiors and decor I would love them to be and grow up in and I’d love to be surrounded with.
I’ve opened a Spoonflower store and after a few months grind I started getting sales!!! YESSSS!!!! People started buying my designs, started making things with my designs and loved them - I was over the moon!!! This made my head turn even harder, it empowered me not only to create more, but also think more strategically - what designs should I create next? What could be on trend but better than trend and successful, what prints others would love to buy and sew with and make products with but they would also be ‘me’? I’ve joined a few more courses to help me with solo-preneurship and kept working on new skills.
Me and Mia working together :)
So here I am today. A mama of two and a tiny baby Mia on my hands we unravel pattern design together. We inspire each other and create pattern repeats in demand and license prints worldwide. And the best part is - I’m not only creating beautiful patterns, and bringing beauty and joy joy around myself and others around me. I dream up patterns to bring warmth, joy, and intention to the spaces you love most. I create beautiful, functional designs that work for you — that make your products stand out, that speak to your brand, and that help you grow with confidence. And I’m so thankful for all of you - small businesses, makers, sewing mamas, diyers, interior stylists for helping me create and grow my business alongside yours. So let me tell you - no matter how hard going currently is - all is possible. You has have to want it bad enough! :D XX
