Two weeks ago, I shared my first email and blog post since 2022, "For the Dreamers Who Feel Lost." If you missed it, you can catch up on it here. It’s a reflection on feeling lost while still moving forward and I hope it resonates with you. It also had a sneak peek into my upcoming Dreamer Collection (launching March 20th). But more on that below too!
Today, I just want to chat a bit about what it's been like to push through plateaus and challenge myself in new ways after years of intense focus that started pigeonholing me.
It’s both thrilling and terrifying to push beyond what people have come to expect from me. And doing something new and being a beginner again made me wonder:
Is it still alright that I'm just DIYing it? I guess so. After all these years, no one's stopped me yet.
I won’t lie. Getting into metal and learning to finish bronze metal casting and patina work has been rough. Months of research, trial and error, and plenty of failures have all been part of the journey. But that’s the thing about exploration. It’s never neat or predictable, but it's always worth it.
The Dreamer Collection has been two years in the making and I still haven't even revealed everything in it yet. So much of that time was spent in unseen effort. Just quietly poring through books, traveling, testing materials, scrapping ideas, starting over again and again. It's been a long and lonely process, but it reminded me that our work holds value even when no one is watching.
In this letter, I've shared several behind-the-scenes glimpses of what I've been up to. But remember that behind every nicely curated story is months or years of frustrations and mistakes. And if you’re in that place right now questioning where your journey is taking you, know that it's alright to stumble along the way.
If you know someone who could use a little encouragement today, feel free to share this with them. Until next time, keep dreaming and keep creating.
<3 Melissa