Meet Natalie
She's been an author since before she could actually write, asking her mom to write down stories and poems about bunnies and stars. When she could write on her own, she made dozens and dozens of small note-paper books of patterns, stories and poems, and set up shop in her bedroom, charging 5 cents per story.
Then she went out into the neighborhood and sold all sorts of things, from handmade yarn dolls and keychains to baked goods and raffle tickets, ran her own odd job business, read every book in the children's section about synchronized swimming and ballet, and schemed about making Nancy Drew novels into plays with her friends. Natalie was constantly getting in trouble for reading baking books under her desk in elementary school and "talking too much" was often on her report card.
Before entering high school at age 12, Natalie had baked just about any recipe you can name, from puff pastry and croissants to pita bread and bagels. She was a top-10 finalist in The National High School Recipe Contest and is still in touch with her high school home economics teacher. Since before she can remember she has dreamed of writing children's books and owning a chain of bakeries that had stores attached where she sold her books and her favorite things.
Natalie was the youngest accepted student to the French Pastry Institute in Chicago and had scholarships to other culinary and baking schools. She was offered an internship at the bakery at the Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, VT, but she was diagnosed as gluten intolerant and the internship fell through. She ended up in Vermont anyway, and a summer internship working with the Tasha Tudor family turned into over a decade in Brattleboro, Vermont.
When Natalie was 27, her almost-fiance (they had a ring on financing), passed away suddenly from a pulmonary embolism. Life changed in every way, and it is through this tragedy that her "happy pretty messy" life philosophy crystalized and her first book came to life. Cultivating bravery and beauty in the midst of tragedy became not only her personal mission but one she now shares in everything she creates.
She is now happily married and lives with her husband and their dog in upstate New York (just across the border from Vermont!) where she gets #caffeinecrazy after drinking a little too much coffee and writes, photographs, and creates in an 1800s house with a beautiful bay window and a waterfall within walking distance.
It might not be a chain of bakeries (yet?), but Natalie still writes poetry, sells her favorite happy things and her books, loves ballet, is mesmerized by synchronized swimmers and would love to put on a Nancy Drew play.
She hopes to help you find a little extra happy-pretty in the middle of life's messiness.