Monday, April 29, 2013

Creative Beginnings

Welcome to my story. Below is the story of how Dream Felt began.

Growing up in Queens, New York, I was always encouraged to pursue my creativity. I am an ambitious entrepreneur, who loves designing and creating.

When my children were young, I was a stay-at-home mom always doing crafts and creating a creative environment for them. I did local craft shows and was able to earn enough money to buy more craft supplies. Money for my supplies was never taken from our household money.

As my son and daughter got older, I had the opportunity to work for Bacon Adhesives / Signature Crafts as an “In-House” Designer. This is where I helped with booth designs, product development, testing, packaging and gained a wealth of knowledge in marketing. I attended national trade shows and taught groups of hundreds of craft retailers when the mom and pop stores were the driving force in the craft industry.

As life has it, my life took many turns and I found myself a widow at age 36 raising two children, ages 10 and 15. Little did I know seven years later I would fall in love and move to Alaska. There, I began my own business (Designs-by-Patti) designing one-of-a-kind lampwork glass beads and jewelry along with a line of purses called “Persona” handbags. Both of these lines lead me to winning several awards for which I am very proud.

I then began to see something happening, the market was getting flooded with jewelry designers. I knew it was time to continue my journey and look in other directions.

I started knitting and felting handbags. I began researching felting more and more and discovered the true meaning of wet felting and needle felting. I learned that needle felting was a fairly new art and it excited me. I found something new that I had never tried!

This truly became my passion... now I was on a search to find supplies. Of course, I wanted every color of wool available. However, I didn’t know what I was buying and I soon discovered I had lots of wool that took hours upon hours to felt and always looked fuzzy.

After much time and money and needle felting with a friend, I soon discovered wool that truly was a dream to work with! It took less time poking and gave me a beautiful finished work of art. I knew right then I had found a product I was excited about and wanted to share.

October 2009 Dream Felt was born - a family owned needle felting supply company. This company is dedicated to bringing you products that are a dream to work with.

Little did I know that a few months later I would be diagnosed with a very rare cancer, carcinoid cancer. I am very fortunate that this is a very slow growing cancer. I receive chemo shots twice a month and I am monitored very closely; however, living with the side effects of this cancer daily can be very challenging.

I have traveled throughout the United States participating in various art and craft shows. I am proud to state that people all over the world own my creations.

I am also a recipient of a “TELLY AWARD” for a how-to video. I have also been a guest on the Home Shopping Network and QVC as well as appeared on such TV shows as NBC's "Today Show - Weekend in New York”, and OPRAH’S Oxygen Network: on a show called "She Commerce” years ago. My work has been published in many crafts magazines.

My love, passion and excitement for my Dream Felt drives me each and every day to share it with others.

I now live in Kissimmee, FL with a wonderful and supportive husband John, my daughter Falynne, and the one who brings the laughter in our life and the song in our hearts, our granddaughter Jaylynne. Together we work to make sure our customers needle felting dreams come true.

Now that you know a little bit about me and how Dream Felt got its start... I'd love to learn a little bit about you.

In the comments section below, please share your own artistic journey.

1 comment:

  1. I'm a freelancer for hire who has just recently decided to meld writing and art into a business. I hit a really bad depression after my mom passed. It was also around that time that we were dealing with the loss of a business and the loss of my husband's job. A couple of years later, I still couldn't shake the depression. One day my husband told me I needed to start creating again... that it used to make me so happy. Reluctantly, I did. And little by little, my depression began to lift. There's something so therapeutic and comforting in the act of creating something with your own two hands, isn't there?

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...