All about... Emily Jayne

We thought it would be nice to introduce ourselves properly, so here's all about our resident style expert and lover of all things pretty & crafty, Emily Jayne:

Full Name
Emily Jayne Phillips (please don't forget the 'Y' and the 'double L'!)

Occupation
Image Consultant, Personal Stylist, Blogger

Ok, so what do you actually do?
Generally I help women to feel wonderful about themselves by helping them to transform their look. You can read all about the 'day job' over at www.emily-jayne.com . I'll be running Style, Colour & Makeup workshops from Loopy Ladies workshop space, plus a few craftier ones in the future too!

So, just how crafty are you?
Being Karen's daughter means that I have been bought up crafting. From an early age every rainy afternoon was spent painting or making something, and I soon joined a young textiles group and became a Young Quilter. This carried on throughout school, where I attempted ever more adventurous Art and Textiles GCSE projects (much to my mother's horror), including a replica of the dress Kate Winslet wore in Titanic (which actually ended up looking absolutely nothing like the actual dress from titanic, but still, I was pretty proud of it!). Then, to be honest, from A-levels onwards creativity went on the back burner a little bit as I became focussed on getting myself properly educated for a 'proper job', with a brief return when I volunteered to sort out the wardrobe for the Leeds University Irish Dancing Society, a responsibility which lead to Karen and I making something like 30 dresses in one weekend before the dance show (the sight of celtic designs still makes me break into a cold sweat). However, after my return into the bosom of creativity when I quit said 'proper job' crafting came very much swooping back into my life, through necessity as much as anything - when you start up your own business the ability to make gifts for people rather than having to splash cash on buying them becomes very useful indeed!

What do you love about making things?
I love being able to express myself through the things that I make - when you make something yourself it's individual, and unique. I also find it an incredibly relaxing process, even when everything goes wrong! Most importantly for me, though is that I just adore pretty stuff, and this is a pastime that allows you to surround yourself with glitter, buttons, fabrics, ribbons and sequins!

Any creative ambitions?

Being rather fashion obsessed, I really want to get back into dressmaking a skill I used to be pretty proud of that I've now let go very rusty. I've still made the odd bit here and there, but they've tended to be more for fancy dress purposes than anything! I'm sure I'll be talking about my adventures in dressmaking more on the blog in the future. In fact, I have a bit of a crafty challenge that I plan on setting myself next year!