Fast forward to the 1990s early 2000s. A lot can change in a decade!

Thank you all for taking the time to read my first ever Blog. I wasn’t expecting this to feel as daunting as it did and a somewhat vulnerable experience too!!

So a pat on the back for me haha…

Life as a parent during my 20’s was a wonderful experience, of course often challenging at times too. For me it meant I could continue to explore the world through the eyes of children and be inspired by the creativity that we shared together, children have the most wonderful and expansive imaginations.

So like myself, my daughter started ballet classes and this took me on a new and unexpected journey… I continued to recycle and upcycle on a personal level but at this point I still had no idea that my future would lead to me making clothing to sell!

With having no formal training in sewing, when my daughter need a dance costume, I found this to be quite an exciting challenge where I could develop new skills and it didn’t stop there. Before I knew it I was designing and making costumes for many other children to wear on stage in theatre productions.

I loved putting costumes with themes together, and I am definitely ‘an attention to detail’ kind of girl, everything has to be just perfect! Throughout this experience I found that I loved dip dyeing costumes, creating a gradient of colours through fabric dying, which I have recently come to learn that this effect is also know as ombre. Discovering Rhinestoning on costumes was just perfect for me too, as I adore how the tiny little rhinestones sparkled and gluing each individual stone onto the costume was very therapeutic.

I loved putting costumes with themes together, and I am definitely ‘an attention to detail’ kind of girl, everything has to be just perfect!

Throughout this experience I found that I loved dip dyeing costumes, creating a gradient of colours through fabric dying, which I have recently come to learn that this effect is also know as ombre.

Discovering Rhinestoning on costumes was just perfect for me too, as I adore how the tiny little rhinestones sparkled and gluing each individual stone onto the costume was very therapeutic.

I’m not sure exactly how many costumes I have made, but definitely a lot.

I wanted to share a few of them with you, so I have created a slide show.

Life became quite busy and whilst helping out in in the local primary school where my children attended, I found myself becoming a teaching assistant… I was in charge of all the arty and creative activities that the children did, it was my ideal job at that time.

I always found myself gravitating to creative experiences.

On leaving school I really didn’t have a clue what I would do, and I found myself working in a Print Shop as a graphic designer and printer for a few years, this was part of the local hospital, so we would print all the letterheads, appointment cards and anything else that the hospital needed. I would always volunteer to design and create the artwork for the poster events, to keep my expressive nature alive and this was before computers were used in most businesses. The process back then would entail me cutting out each letter and gluing them individually onto the paper to create the words, it seems almost crazy to think of that now… to live in a world without computers being the norm!!!!

During this time I continued to dream that one day I might be self-employed and find a way to create daily the things that I loved for others to enjoy…

Sadly our environment can often have a huge impact on our dreams and unfortunately I lived around the vibration that people had to be uber rich to consider such a thing and pretty much what I did was seen as a hobby.

My mantra even today is… “just keep making and doing what you love” as you never know what might happen.

Gosh… I didn’t realise that writing this blog would give me a huge rush of appreciation, don’t you find that looking back at your life shows you just how far you have come and the things that have manifested from those little thoughts and dreams! I was happy in my chosen experiences, however my yearning to feel freer never went away.

I think possibly in another life I was a nomad, or at least someone who lived with less constraints from the order of society.

Computers were becoming more popular and we purchased our first iMac G3 Computer which I noticed are now called Vintage… haha!

Life with a computer opened up so many new worlds, and then ebay happened!!

This was my first opening into selling online and paved the way for my future business. My first experience on ebay started with selling my children’s outgrown clothes and then life happens and wow, mine certainly took a massive turn! I became a single parent and however scary that felt at times, I couldn’t help feeling excited that my life can now be anything that I choose, a brand new chapter!!

A TuTu-Topia Customer

I was still making dance costumes at this time and to make an extra income I decided to create little tutu skirts for children and sell them on ebay. To my surprise they started selling really fast and then I began making tutus for Adults and people loved them.

In the early 2000s tutu skirts weren’t just for ballerinas and little girls who wanted to dress up… everyone seemed to be wearing them and the craze lasted for sometime.

Eventually my daughter outgrew dancing and I needed a change.

It was then that my new chapter really began with my now husband and the birth of my online business that I created in 2007, called TuTu-Topia…

To be continued :-)

www.thetopianden.uk

#loveyourclothes #fightfastfashion #ecofriendly #recycled #upcycled