iPrintedThat's fifth anniversary passed relatively quietly. I few glasses of fizz shared with my hubby, a little pat on the back and a moment of reflection.
When I look back to the beginning of 2013, my only plan was to run children's t-shirt printing workshops during the school holidays. That was it. I remember my first official day. I'd booked a local village hall for the day and planned four back-to-back workshops, with a total of 40 children printing their own t-shirts. It was going to be brilliant. Armed with some very expensive leaflets I visited all the schools in the area and they agreed to send them home to the parents. I'd run school holiday workshops for friends and family so I knew how much children loved the workshops, it was great value for money and it was something different that wasn't happening anywhere else locally. Parents would be banging down the doors to book their children on.
Except they weren't.
The four exciting workshops I had planned became two, well one and a half. The second workshop had three children on it; two were my nephews and one was a child from the local school who I had delivered leaflets to. I was heart broken. All that planning, all that hard work, all that expectation and to top it off I made about £2.50(!). Oh yeah, and I was exhausted.
But I was also determined. I knew I had a great product, I knew that the skills I was sharing with the children were bringing them confidence and they loved it too. I knew I had to carry on, so I did.
Well, that was five years ago and this printmaking lark has taken me down some unexpected avenues and I've met so many amazing, talented and helpful people. Who would have thought that I'd run printing sessions at staff training and team building days, corporate events (see photos), hold courses at museums, provide entertainment at festivals and events, host hen parties and work on large scale school projects. Yep, we've come a long way, baby.
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