Julie

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Part one - No Caffeine

I love planners. All of them. I could spend hours at a bookstore just looking at planners. I loved my Hobonichi, I loved my traveler's notebook and it's beautiful cover from Etsy, I loved the utility of my discbound planner. And regardless of how much I loved them, they just didn't work on a practical level for me. I needed something small enough to take with me everywhere, but also with enough information in it that I could always have, and find, what I needed. Sometimes life was very hectic and I needed to carry lots of information around. Sometimes it was more relaxed and I needed very little. 

One day I thought that I could just carry some index cards that I could easily move out the stuff that I didn't need (or put in stuff that I did) without having to mess with pages out of a book. Index cards seemed to be the solution. I thought about holding the index cards together with binder clips, with fancy paper clips, but all of those options led to other problems. I wanted something without any bulk. And then one day I remembered that I know how to knit and crochet and maybe I could just make a little something that could hold my index cards together in my purse. I made my first little nest and drew up some handmade index cards for what was needed. I'm no artist so it looked relatively crappy but it served my needs perfectly. 

 

Part two - Some Caffeine

For my birthday, my best friend from since I was 6 years old, took me out for high tea and a psychic reading. While I don't necessarily believe in psychics, I love the possibility and mystery of it. And I love high tea. After a couple of lovely cuppas and some delicate little sandwiches, it was time for our reading. The psychic was shockingly on point about some things that were happening in my personal life and then I asked her what I should do for a second source of income. I had my fingers crossed that she would say I should be a novelist. Instead she said “I see people coming to your home and they give you money and you give them something. There might be a table.” My friend and I went back to our tea and scones and had a laugh thinking about what that could be. We joked that perhaps it would mean I should be a hooker but sadly that's not the best match for my set of skills. 

 

Part three - WHOA HOLD ON, THAT’S A LOT OF CAFFEINE FOR ONE DAY

That evening, my best friend went back to her home 2 hours away, and even though I'd already had enough caffeine at the tea and psychic reading, Andrea and I got together for coffee and a catch up. I told her about what the psychic said and whether that meant I should be a hooker or not. What on Earth would I put on a table that people would want to pay me money for? 

 

At some point over coffee I pulled out my new little deconstructed planner to show Andrea. She's an amazing maker and appreciator of all things crafty so I knew that she would be happy for me that I'd made something I liked. She saw it and said “this is what the psychic was talking about. You should sell these at craft fairs” I lamented that I didn't have the skills to make the cards, but she said she did and that we could do it together. 

 

And here we are, a year and hundreds of coffees later launching a product that we feel proud of, and quite frankly, had a great time dreaming up and putting together.