Design really is an endless path, sometimes we have a strong sense of direction and sometimes we see where the journey will take us. For many designers today they are multidisciplinary artist, confident to work in different mediums and pursue ideas. Sara of Winter Bloom Designs demonstrates this by taking her inspired hand painted clay jewellery and transforming them into textiles. We are thrilled to have Sara as a featured designer in our Artwork Library.
It was great to interview Sara about life, designing and business.
You have worked in Visual merchandising before creating your jewellery label. How did your business develop, was it a passion you went full time on, or did you just grow into it organically?
It was a slow progression, working for a major department store I was surrounded by women’s fashion and jewellery every day, in the end the massive scale of fast fashion was enough to turn me off. This is why I’ve always made ‘one of a kind’ or only very small batch jewellery, just to keep things interesting.
You are one of those amazing women who has two children and runs her own business what does your daily routine look like?
Juggling the kids, work and life balance sure is tricky some days. On the days my kids are both at daycare and school. I’m running around like a mad woman trying to get out the door on time. Once I’ve done the drop off, I head home and start the day with coffee. I was never a coffee drinker until about 2 years ago but now it’s an essential part of life. I then head into my office, 5 steps from my kitchen and get cracking on the day.
Each day is very different and will often choose what that is depending on my mood, I don’t like to push my creativity if I’m not feeling my mojo that day. But there’s always plenty of other things to do running a small business. I’ve usually got a number of projects on the go at any one time.
Lunch is a quick bite to eat and straight back into work, then school pick up at 3. Once all my parenting duties are done for the afternoon/evening and the kids are in bed I’ll usually head to back to work for a few more hours.
Being a creative and running a business can have its challenges, what have you learnt about running your own business you wish you could have known at the beginning?
Hahahaha…. oh my gosh. Yep it’s been a steep learning curve, I’ve worked many hours building my business and probably should have asked for help more often. Maybe should have taken myself to a few creative workshops early on for a head start on refining my skills and a short course on how to run a small business would have come in handy too.
Tell us about your design process how do you get to a finished textile print?
My textile designs are made from my original polymer clay art, the art is photographed. Then turned into a digital repeat pattern by my graphic designer. He sends it back to me to work with the colours, making sure all the pantones work well using the fabric swatches and any other detail I want to add in, once I’m happy with it I get it checked one more time before fabric samples are printed. We tag team back and forth to get the best-finished product.
What excites you most about designing textiles?
Creating fun, bold prints that will end up in someone’s home or in their wardrobe on high rotation is totally worth getting excited about. It starts conversation and lifts any mood. Gotta be happy with that!
You create vibrant and colourful prints would you consider this your signature style?
Um….. Yes! It was never my intention but creating with colour comes naturally.
What are you most looking forward to for the second part of 2019?
More textile designs in the making, and a little side hustle I want to try make work, but only time will tell. X Sara
A collection of Sara’s prints are available in the Next State Artwork Library
