Hey Besties,

I've started and deleted this video more times than I can count.

I thought I was making a video about how I started Studio Hela.

Instead, I accidentally started unpacking my entire life.

Over the last week, I've been reflecting on where this little pink business came from, and I realized something that honestly made me cry. 

Studio Hela didn't begin in 2021. It didn't begin with stickers. Or bookmarks. Or planners. It began decades ago. It began in Germany with family. And today I want to tell you that story:

I was born in Germany. A tiny town in Bavaria called Wildflecken. Most people have never heard of it. Its biggest claim to fame is that Elvis Presley was stationed there during his Army service. To me, though, it wasn't famous, it was simply where my story started. 

My mom is German. My dad was an American Army Soldier. They met a a disco in Wildflecken, fell in love, and eventually started a family.

Looking back, I realize my childhood was unusual in ways I never appreciated until I became an adult. Long before working from home was common, she worked as a freelance German-to-English translator specializing in patent translations. And here's the funny part...

She genuinely thought patents were interesting.

That was just part of who she is. Curious. Intelligent. Creative.

Eventually she started another business with my younger sister making semi-precious gemstone bouquets. Later they created a bridal business making beautiful Dupioni Silk clutch purses for bridal parties, and brooch bouquets for Brides. They were very successful.

My mom also knits. She sews. She made so much felt food for my daughters play kitchen (which they LOVED!). To this day, my daughters are wrapped in handmade treasures she created with her own hands.

I didn't realize it then...But I was growing up in a house where creating things wasn't just a hobby. It was simply how we lived. It was how we loved people. And I think that's one of the greatest gifts my mother ever gave me.

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Something else happened in Germany that I think quietly shaped the entire course of my life. When I was six years old, I started elementary school. In Germany, every child learned to write with a fountain pen. Mine was blue. The training color. Every student had one. We learned beautiful handwriting and calligraphy. We respected paper. Ink use mattered. Words mattered. I felt so grown-up holding that fountain pen.

When I moved to the United States, I realized how unusual that experience was. Most kids started with pencils. I started with ink. There was one difficult part of those early school years.

My first grade teacher, Frau Rinke, was a cruel woman. She was harsh with many students, and she was especially harsh with me. She disliked my mother, and she made it very clear that she disliked me too. We learned our right from our left because she struck our knuckles with a wooden ruler. For a long time, I thought that memory had overshadowed everything else about that classroom. But when I look back now...

I don't remember the ruler first.

I remember the fountain pen. 

I remember the blue ink.

I remember feeling trusted with something beautiful.

It's so strange how memory works.

Sometimes beauty and pain occupy the same space.

And somehow, the beautiful thing survives.

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I've been thinking a lot lately about ordinary objects. I don't think they're ever really ordinary. When my German grandmother (Oma) passed away, I asked for two things: Her fur coat and her perfume bottles.

Not because they were expensive. Because they held memories. When I think about that fur coat, I don't think about fashion. I just remember being a little girl trying it on while my grandmother clapped with delight and pulled another coat from the closet. When I look at those perfume bottles with the little fancy squeeze bulbs...I don't think about perfume. I think about her. I've realized that's how I experience the world.

I don't remember objects. I remember the people attached to them. I am not a hoarder. I am a Maximalist...because of my happiest childhood memories. ❤︎⁠

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When I was 21, pregnant with my first daughter, and living 3,000 miles from home, after the military moved us to California, I opened my first Etsy shop. It was called Sugar Panda. My mom had purchased an Etsy tutorial showing how to make Scrabble tile pendants using Japanese paper and epoxy resin. She probably expected me to make a few. Probably sell a few. Instead...

I became obsessed. At the time, there weren't many people working with epoxy resin. There certainly weren't endless tutorials online. My very first pour was a thin coat of resin over a vintage wooden scrabble tile. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Resin is a brutally honest medium. Mix it wrong?  You ruined the project. One air bubble? You'll stare at it forever. Dust lands in it? Start over.

So I studied. I experimented. I failed. Over and over. Eventually I became known for something. Perfect resin pours. Crystal clear. No air bubbles. Perfectly level. Glossy enough to look like glass. Looking back, I don't think I was just learning resin. I was discovering how I approach everything I love. Curiosity first. Obsession second. Mastery third. That pattern has followed me my entire life.

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That little Etsy shop grew into a big Shopify store. I eventually had wholesale customers around the world. Then I opened another Etsy shop called The Love Letter. I created silk flower brooches and bridal accessories. Over 300 brides carried something I made on one of the biggest days of their lives. The irony of that business has stayed with me for years.

Because while I was helping celebrate love...My own marriage was quietly falling apart. It had become unhealthy. Abusive. Toxic. And after my second daughter was born, just nine months after her big sister's 1st birthday, I made one of the hardest decisions of my life. I decided I would rather raise my girls alone than raise them believing cruelty was normal. I didn't know how I was going to survive. 

I only knew what kind of home I wanted them to grow up in - one that did not contain an angry man. A peaceful one. A safe one. A quiet one. One where kindness was ordinary. 

Leaving meant starting over. I left with almost nothing. A diaper bag. One suitcase. My daughters. And a broken knee that would soon require major reconstructive surgery.

Some of my most important documents were destroyed when I tried to leave. My birth certificate. My social security card. I know what it feels like to lose almost everything you physically own. I even sold my beloved book collection. Every single book. One dollar each. The people who bought them were the parents of another young woman escaping domestic violence. At the time, I thought I was saying goodbye to my library. Now I like to think those books became part of someone else's new beginning.

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After my first total knee reconstruction surgery, I couldn't work a traditional job. The recovery time was 12-24 months and intensive physical therapy. So I did what I always seem to do. I made something. I built another business - Shop Jailbird. That business was the first time I wasn't just selling products. I was building a world; a recognizable identity. A brand. It had viral moments. It had personality. But eventually it required stability. 

I became a working single mom with a traditional career. And for a while...my creativity became quieter. It never disappeared. It simply waited.

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Then something extraordinary happened. I met my husband towards the beginning of the pandemic. I honestly don't have words strong enough to describe what he means to me. He is the first man who ever made me - and my daughters - feel completely safe.

He loves every version of me. The weird version. The maximalist version. The animal lover version. The overly enthusiastic version. The woman with fifty-leven hobbies. He is my biggest cheerleader. 

And when Studio Hela started while we were stationed in rural Alabama...He became what we jokingly and fondly called my "craft show husband". He had a professional uniform and everything. He packed the car. He unloaded boxes. He helped set up displays. He sold products. He loaded everything back into the car. My teenage daughters did the same when I needed them. Studio Hela wasn't built by one person.

It was built by a family.

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Something else happened while I was reflecting on all this. 

I realized every business I'd built before Studio Hela had been born from survival. I was trying to pay bills. Recover. Start over. Keep going. Studio Hela was different. Studio Hela was the first business I built because I finally had room to dream. That realization broke me. In the best way. Because I understood something I'd never been able to put  into words.

Studio Hela feels like home because it was created during the first chapter of my life where I truly felt safe enough to become myself.

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Some people wonder why I make bookmarks. Stickers. Mugs. Planners. Tiny keepsakes. Here's my answer: 

I've learned that life doesn't ask permission before it attaches itself to ordinary things. A bookmark becomes the bookmark you used  while reading the novel that carried you through a difficult year. A mug becomes the one you held every morning after your life changed. A planner becomes the one you carried through your dream job. You don't get to choose what memory an object becomes part of.

I know that because one of my favorite video games became forever connected to the day I learned my dad had died. The game didn't cause the grief. It simply happened to be there. That's how memory works. It's also why I believe tiny little things matter. Not because they may be expensive, but because they quietly accompany us through life.

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People also ask why I'm a Maximalist. The answer is complicated. Part of it is simply who I am. 

I love books, especially Disney books from the 90's. There's a distinct scent that only late 90's/early 2000's Disney Store books could produce - I miss that smell more than anything. Antiques. Disco balls. Plants. Sketchbooks. Coffee mugs. Vintage perfume bottles. Paper textures. History, especially if it's salacious. Beautiful things. But I also know what it's like to lose almost everything.

So today, when I fill my home with objects that make me smile, I'm not trying to impress anyone. I'm building a home that reflects the life I literally fought to create, Every shelf tells a story. Every object reminds of someone. Every room feels like peace.

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My dad passed away unexpectedly in 2023. 

I am not sure my siblings or I will ever fully recover.

He was an extraordinary father. He supported every dream my mother ever had. Every business. Every idea. Every gemstone show. He believed in her completely. He believed  in his children the same way.

One of the last voicemails he ever left me was asking if I'd make him custom resin coasters for his living room. Not because he needed coasters. Because he wanted something his daughter made. I think about that voicemail often.

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So...what is Studio Hela? 

It's not just a stationary shop. It's not just stickers. It's not just pink.

Studio Hela is where every version of me gets to exist together. The little girl with the fountain pen. The daughter of an Entrepreneur. The granddaughter of a Moon Shiner on one side, and fur coats and perfume bottles on the other. The resin artist. The history nerd. The fantasy reader. The Maximalist. The Mother. The Wife. The woman who still believes tiny things matter.

If you've ever ordered from Studio Hela...

THANK YOU.

You aren't just supporting a small business; you're becoming part of a story that started long before I even knew it existed.

My hope is simple. that something I create becomes a part of one of your happy memories. Because that's all any artist can really hope for. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being here. And thank you for letting me finally tell you the story behind Studio Hela.

Bye, besties.