This month my business is celebrating its 10th anniversary. According to my FB page I started the page on the 9th of July 2010 – but back then my website wasn’t up and running and I think I finished it by September the same year.
My business has been through a lot of ups and downs over the past 10 years and has had two website revamps. I have broadened my product range to include sculptures and last year I started working on my YouTube channel. It’s a lot of work, but my viewers appreciate my tutorials and reviews.
A bad year for me personally and for business
It’s 2020 and sadly I am not that much in the mood to celebrate. This year has been a bitch. In May I lost within the space of two weeks my grandmother, who died at the age of 97, and my father-in-law who was only 73 years old. And no, both deaths are not Covid related. We are still waiting to find out the cause of death from the coroner in my father in law’s case, but they have a massive backlog and it’s probably going to be the end of the year until we know why he suddenly died.
Due to the travel restrictions in June I couldn’t fly out to Germany to attend the funeral, while my father in law’s funeral was a very quiet affair as only 10 people were allowed to attend.
On top of it I got scammed out of £200 (scammers have a much easier time during the lockdown). Our Bobby has been back and forth to the vet’s many times as she has been diagnosed with hyperthyroidism and on top of that she also had another bad bout of pancreatitis. We thought we were losing her – it was touch and go. She is much better now and used to her meds. She is 15 this year, so an older girl now, who needs a lot of fuss and attention.
The lockdown has also affected my business and like most people I am struggling to keep things and morale going. I still have my part-time job, but my hours have been reduced.
So, what have I planned for the next decade?
First of all – to keep calm and carry on. I love creating things that people can wear or look at and cherish. Creating things is in my blood. I think I inherited this from my grandmother. She loved to create sculptures and filled her whole house with her creations. She was very talented and thankfully her sculptures have found a lot of homes with friends and family. Sadly, due to their size and fragility I didn’t choose any of them, but took a lot of photos of the house and her sculptures, and when I visit my sister, I can at least see a few of them. My grandad was very good at making lino cuts and prints and my childhood memories are filled with the sound of the brayer going over his prints. I managed to inherit a few of them.
My plan is to work with silver clay for a few months and keep working with polymer clay. I am also planning to create new sculptures with Cosclay – a brand new clay I have shown in my YouTube videos. One of this clay’s quality is that when it’s thinner it stays flexible – which is great for things like tails or dragon wings.
A few years ago, I also have rediscovered my love for art and am now painting and drawing more – I want to improve my drawing skills so I need to keep practising. My aim is to create art that I can sell via Redbubble or similar websites. I also want to have a go at lino cutting – though I am a bit nervous about this as I am super clumsy and end up cutting myself a lot! Or burning!
Another thing I am contemplating is having a go at creating digital art, however that requires quite an investment in a decent graphics tablet. From what I heard Wacom is the leading brand and not cheap. It’s also quite a learning curve to go from traditional to digital art. I have to wait and see.
So, this is it for now.
Here’s to the next 10 years of Helenka White Design.
Thanks for reading.
Helen x
