How Happy Frank began

I grew up in Sydney, Austalia and I've always loved making!
My love for paper started many moons ago and like most kids growing up in the 90s in Australia, I was obsessed with Art Attack!


Every week I would have a weekly craft club with my best friend so we could make all our favourite things we saw on the show that week. If you could think it, we probably paper machè’d it!

Ive never been much of an academic so when my mum told me I could leave school if I could find a job I jumped at the chance! 
I had always enjoyed arts and crafts but back in the early 2000's it wasn't really a common thing to study art or illustration.

So like most 'girls' at that age I started a hairdressing apprenticeship!
I loved the creativity and how lovely my clients were but after 10 years I found myself really craving a change. 

In 2013 (one year before I moved to Amsterdam) I decided to take a chance and I applied for an Illustration and design course at the Design Center Enmore in Sydney. Low and behold I was accepted and it was the totally life changing for me!
It opened my eyes to a world of creative career paths and it showed me that I should keep exploring before deciding what I wanted to be when I grew up! 

In January 2014 I immigrated to beautiful Amsterdam! And the most precious item I brought along with me was my fat little sausage dog Frank! 

Frank's been a part of my life for the last 13 years and no mater what else is going on he's forever been my little ray of sunshine ☀️ 

A few years after moving my sister (who also lives in Amsterdam. Hi Natty 👋🏼 ) and I decided to open a creative meeting and event space called Your Space. We had a real passion for looking after people and wanted to create a space where everyone felt equal, safe and comfortable. We renovated the 18th century canal house (all on our own!) and after 5 months it was ready for us to welcome other people. The whole experience was one of the hardest things I have EVER done but i'm so incredibly proud of both of us and the space we created. 

Photo by Birgit - www.birgitloit.com

When 2020 decided to turn the world upside we unfortunately had no choice but to close our doors and l found myself again, needing to start over and re assess what I was going to be when I grow up! 

I took some time to just allow myself to play and do things that brought me joy. Time and time again I realised that there is still nothing that brings me more joy then making things with my hands! I kept being drawn to paper and its beautiful colours and textures.

So I started practising different ways of making 3D paper models and thats really how Happy Frank began! 

So here I am now, with Frank still by my side, finally doing what brings me so much joy. Creating beautiful things with paper that I hope will bring joy to others too!

Its been a long journey getting to this point but I’m so happy to be here 💛