A true d.i.y.’r, whether it’s preparing a five course meal, tiling a floor, or sewing a cool lil outfit for one of my nieces, I’m most satisfied when I start from scratch and come away with not only a finished product but also a new sense of my abilities and talents. It’s absolute reward.

It started early for me. My mother swears the first phrase I spoke was “I can do it by myself!” My grandfather, understanding this disposition bought me a curling iron for my 3rd birthday and you can be assured my poor mother had no choice but to watch as I put ringlets in anything I could get my hands on (and I only had brothers at the time!!).

It didn’t take long for me to learn that I could benefit financially from this ability to d.i.y. It started in elementary school when my best friend moved away to Albuquerque. In my devastation my parents promised that if I could come up with the money to buy a one-way ticket to visit her, they would cover the other half of the trip. Little did they know this would start a long, be it inconsistent, entrepreneurial career. I started right away; I would make suckers and sell them at school. Soon word spread of the “sucker girl” and before I knew it I was filling special orders. I drew up a little order form and made copies at my father’s office. Each day the school cafeteria became my store front and before the lunch bell rang to send us scurrying back to the classroom I would have a new days stack of orders and a handful of change. That summer I went to New Mexico.

The following year I took notice of the new phenomenon of the feather beret (this may have been a Utah thing???). It took just one trip to the mall; I looked at the price and said, “no way, I could make this stupid thing in 5 seconds!” It actually took about 10 minutes but I made one to match every outfit I owned. Soon it became my trade. By middle school I’d moved onto the “scrunchie” (you remember, those dorky wavy elastic gigs we wore in our hair through the 80’s), the knock-off Esprit book bag, and of course the quintessential 80’s cut-up t-shirt. I loved to make things and I really loved to sell them.

It faded for a while as I often get caught up in other activities but my build-and-sell persona was back in full swing after a move to the Northwest. It was my first Grateful Dead show and I was off; hand-making beaded necklaces which lead to the hemp weave, which then lead me back to the sewing machine where I began making linen-quality hemp dresses.

Again other activities interfered but I would soon learn that it wasn’t just about making a solitary item that I could sell. The satisfaction or the thrill was about the concept of “doing it by myself” and there were things I wanted to know how to do. I started assisting for people who were doing the kinds of cool things I wanted to learn about. I worked with designers, photographers, welders, chefs and landscapers. All of which end up contributing greatly to my creative pool.

And that leads me to Lil Hipster.

I lived in New York for a stint and was in awe of the quantity of hand-made wares for sale. The whole time I was there I imagined I would do well to get something into that marketplace but was consumed by school and didn’t get around to it, with sad regret. I am now back in Salt Lake near my family where I will spend the winter having and recovering from two surgeries. In my gloom and desperate attempt to pay the bills while I am down and out I conceived of Lil Hipster (maybe bad choice of word, hah). Why not use that creative pool, and the time I did not have in New York and start peddling some wares of my own, again.