Meet Julie Taverner, a creative mum and caster who has a wonderful business called Creative Castings, based here in Farnham, Surrey. She takes commissions for clients for their precious newborns, a dear family member or indeed their pets and turns them into beautiful pieces of art to make wonderful keepsakes. The pet paw prints or nose imprints are just the cutest.
Her workshop is one of my favourite places to be – she has lots of cool gadgets for cutting and drilling and casting and lots of materials and tools which make me not know what to look at first. In a purpose built extension she is able to work from home and keep family life firmly in the house. Although her eldest son has already shown talent in programming the mount cutting machine and assisting.
Julie invited me to a private casting for two gorgeous girls – Daisy and Jess – who at the tender age of 4 months old were having their second casting. Daisy is featured here as Jess was sleeping soundly in her car seat at this point.
The process is fascinating to watch and really quick. It’s not invasive, and other than being a little tickley for some, it’s all done and dusted in a matter of minutes. Julie is so quick and friendly that the whole casting experience is wonderful and not at all stressful for the baby. She mixes a special cement which takes a mould impression of the baby’s foot and only has to stay around the foot for 1-2 minutes before it can be taken off. That’s it as far as baby is concerned and that’s where Julie’s skills take over as she creates the casts from the moulds. The client can choose from lots of final finishes and then the casts are placed into box frames ready for collection.
Running a business from home is tough though as she balances her appointments with being a full-time mum and wife. Living your life around the school drop off and pick up can be difficult when you have appointments, parcels to send off at the post office, banking to do and remember to make sure there’s something in for dinner! And that’s before being taxi mum and trying to get your own bit of me time.
Here are some examples of Julie’s work including her fingerprint jewellery.
[stextbox id=”tmk-box”]You can book Julie and see more examples of her work here www.creativecasting.co.uk [/stextbox]
Remember, adventure is out there.
Nat x
