The beginning of Love Letters

Have you ever had a vision for yourself and your business, and found yourself sat in never-ending doom scrolls, watching others achieve those goals and then begin to spiral into the deep dark depths of comparison, somehow feeling even further from those goals with each passing day? Ultra-specific? Sure. How I’ve felt multiple times this year alone? Absolutely. Disclaimer: I have been meaning to start this blog for about 3 years.

Before I chicken out, here’s some quick-fire history about little old me.

I spent my entire teenage years romanticising becoming an Architect, (special mention to Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character in 500 days of Summer lol) I would spend my days sipping coffee and illustrating the facades of buildings. I was accepted into university where I began to study a bachelor of design with a major in Architecture, this was a short lived dream. If you’re not familiar with the process of becoming an Architect, it’s lengthy, complex, and requires a little more than sketching facades (Welcome to the real world, Alyssa.)

I shifted my bachelor into studying Industrial Design, which is a focus on the design on furniture. Loved this course. We spent hours learning the basics of illustration, and our assignments were essentially creating inventions and learning how to model them. However, reality was setting in again, and it became very clear that if I wanted to become a successful industrial designer I would need to move to Europe and work for BMW, or Dyson. Truthfully, I love my family too much to consider this as a career. The timing of this realisation coincided with a full-time position as a graphic designer at a well-known Australian Activewear Retailer, I had dabbled in graphic design throughout university and was confident in my abilities.

I was a Graphic Designer for about 10 years, in and out of the the retail industry and also working at a small graphic design studio in Toowoomba (Probably my favourite job ever, shoutout to the girls at Black Canvas!!) before going through some life altering events (putting it lightly) that sent me back to little-old Brisbane.

Fast forward through an appalling experience at a different well-known Australian Retailer, I decided to start shifting into freelance work. I’d been creating wedding invitations for friends for years, so it felt like such a natural progression to start Esther Rose. My initial goal for Esther Rose was to create a budget-friendly wedding stationery business. The plan was to offer design templates for clients to choose from, and keep costs low by keeping the designing to a minimum. Unfortunately this was a very unrealistic goal, that had me sitting on the wrong side of workload vs a liveable income. It was clear I needed to pivot my business plan a little.

Fast forward 3 years of business ownership, highs and lows, my Fiancé and I moved to our little Coastal town to be closer to my family, and it has completely changed our lives for the better.

My days consist of ocean walks with iced lattes and my spoodle Archie, rolling into work, creating dreamy wedding stationery for my beautiful clients, painting, gardening in my lunch breaks, seeing friends and loved ones of an evening, and it’s nothing short of wonderful.

I’m feeling pretty inspired, and caffeinated at present, so I’m going to hold myself accountable by putting my goals into writing. You will be seeing more of me from here on out.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you for getting to know me! I promise it won’t be 3 years before my next blog post.

Love,

Lys x