My Creative Adventure

After 23 years in Washington, DC, my family and I moved back to Michigan and I found myself craving something I had been missing for a long time: space to make things just for the joy of making them.

I’ve always loved drawing, designing, and working with my hands, but for many years my creative work was mostly digital. I spent more than two decades working as a User Experience and User Interface Designer, a career I enjoyed but one that left little room for the slower, more tactile kind of creativity I wanted to explore.

From Puzzles to Possibilities

In May 2020, I bought a Delta scroll saw with a simple dream: to make wooden jigsaw puzzles by hand.

Handcutting puzzles is slow, challenging, and methodical. It requires my chaotic brain to slow down and focus on the blade rhythmically slicing wood into puzzle pieces. I eventually added a Glowforge so I could experiment with laser cutting and combine my digital artwork with physical making. While I love the precision and possibilities of laser cutting, I kept coming back to the scroll saw.

Today, I make a mix of handcut and lasercut wood and acrylic puzzles, along with other small batch pieces. Each process has its own personality, and I enjoy the challenge of figuring out what works best for each idea.

Making Things That Feel Personal

Somewhere along the way, my ideas started moving beyond puzzles. I began creating frames, ornaments, coasters, and other small handcrafted pieces, often inspired by places, teams, memories, and the little things that make a community feel like home.

That has become one of my favorite parts of creating: taking an idea that means something to someone and turning it into something they can actually hold, display, or use.

Building Community Through Puzzles

As I’ve settled back into Michigan, I’ve also become increasingly interested in using Hello Fairytale as a way to connect with my local community.

I love the idea of creating pieces that support local schools, teams, and organizations, but I also want to bring people together around something a little simpler: sitting down and putting a puzzle together.

I hope to eventually host puzzle meetups and partner with local coffee shops, breweries, restaurants, and other community spaces to create relaxed opportunities for people to discover wooden puzzles, meet new people, and spend time together. My goal is to create partnerships that are good for everyone, bringing new customers to local businesses while introducing more people to the surprisingly satisfying world of wooden puzzles.

For me, that’s part of what makes puzzles special. They encourage us to slow down, put away our phones, and share a table with other people. If Hello Fairytale can help create a few more of those connections, I’d love that.

Making Room for Creativity

In July 2024, I stepped away from my corporate career and decided to give this creative life a real chance.

I’m building Hello Fairytale slowly and intentionally, giving myself room to experiment, learn, and follow ideas that interest me. Some projects become finished products. Others simply lead to the next idea.

For now, I’m enjoying the process, one puzzle, frame, ornament, and creative project at a time!