Welcome to the final installment in our behind-the-scenes Meet the Peg Doll Maker series explaining more about how each beautiful peg doll family is made. The posts are inspired by the month long challenge that we took part in on Instagram, created by Joanne Hawker.

You’re joining us for day 26 – 31. For the previous days, please see the earlier posts in this series. Find them by clicking on the “Meet the Maker” tag in the Popular Tags cloud on the right of the page.

Day 26: Why I Do This

It’s quite pertinent that today’s prompt falls on Mother’s Day. The life we’d dreamed and planned for is out of reach, so creating each peg doll family has become my daily purpose. My studio is my little sanctuary. Here I can shut out the world and focus on healing and rebuilding myself through my creativity 💕

Day 27: Goals

My overall goal is to keep bringing smiles to the faces of my customers! Just like this little peg doll family with the very special Boyo the pug did. He has only one eye and a permanently protruding tongue 💕

Whilst doing this, 3 of my mini goals for this year are:
1. Use more props in my photos to better showcase my products
2. Make “Wedding Wednesday” more of “a thing”. I’d like to give back to the IG community by promoting a weekly hashtag. A bit like Follow Friday, makers and suppliers of wedding goodies can share their work and network.
3. Exploring ways to create a small amount of “ready to ship stock” so that my lovely peg dolls are available to more people. It will be tricky though, as I feel the draw of my peg dolls is that they are NOT mass produced. Bespoke peg doll family orders are what I thrive on. I have some ideas but the balance needs to be worked out. I don’t want to compromise what I’ve built so far.

Day 28 : Organised

I like to mostly keep organised digitally. I also colour code EVERYTHING!! I’ve got a nice old spreadsheet that tracks all my accounting, pricing and my order book. Mr T set it up to change colours depending where I am with each order which really helps me keep in top of things. I use Planner Plus app on my iPad to schedule and manage customers slots, promotions etc. Finally, my trusty notebook that I make my lists and jot my ideas down in. It also contains my Elevator Speech – have you got one? If not, as a creative maker you should! Xxx

Day 29 : Can’t live without

I can’t live without tea. Tea, tea, TEA!. I just love a good cuppa! Any time, any place. I’m easy. To keep this tea-junky’s drug of choice on constant supply, Mr T bought me an iKettle. I can control  it from anywhere within our wifi range. I can switch it on from my studio and only come down from my work once it’s boiled.  Thus saving me precious munutes if standing around waiting 😂😂. It sends me a nice little text message to tell me it’s ready 😂.  All I need now is a butler to actually make the tea and bring it up to me, and my life will be complete 😉 I also can’t live without chocolate and sweets. My weight and teeth are not thankful for this 🙈 xxx

Day 30: Advice

 I think that this pretty art work by Deena Rutter for @modifyink sums up something that I tell myself both personally and professionally almost daily. It is so easy to see what others have, or do, and to get disheartened (or worse) when you begin to compare yourself to them. But when I snap out of it and become a bit more mindful of myself, my achievements and what we have, everything feels rosey again. It certainly isn’t easy at all…. it takes a lot of stepping back and sometimes cutting off from the outside world. I started by getting rid of my personal Facebook last Summer, and I haven’t looked back. Comparing yourself to others really does just make you miserable. Find joy in what you are, what you have, and the people around you that matter 💕

Day 31: Customers

It’s the last day of March Meet the Maker today! 😢 Here are a few of my lovely lovely customers with their little peg doll twins 😊 I’m so grateful to be able to make things for such lovely people. I love making my peg dolls and think I would still be making them even if nobody bought them. But it’s so much nicer sharing that joy around by having customers who want to own them too!
I’ve really enjoyed taking part in Meet the Maker and have met some lovely new inspiring people to follow. I’ve also enjoyed learning more about those I already loved. Thank you @joannehawker for providing us with the challenge and daily prompts 😘😘😘 xxx

That rounds up the Meet the Peg Doll Maker series for this year! I hope you enjoyed the little look at what we do and how we create each peg doll family.

If you think we could make a wooden version of you and your loved ones, please drop us a line using the contact form!

Cwtch ♥ Mawr