About

Born and raised in central Louisiana, life has taken me literally around the world and back again. It was in 1989, while living near Wűrzburg, Germany that I first realized my desire to own my own shop. While living in Germany I learned to sew and my love for fabric began. I have always loved warm and cozy dwellings, even as a small child, but realizing that my style was “cottage” & “shabby chic” in nature had never crossed my mind.

My world travels have made me appreciate precious items from home, like antique pictures and figurines from my grandmother, while at the same time gathering treasures from the countries that I have visited. I have spent my life making gifts and surprising people. It never even entered my mind that I would one day take my crafty talents and combine them with my computer skills to start a phenomenal little business!!

I use to teach computer science at a local college, but being a single mom I had decided to start sewing to earn some supplemental money. In the spring of 2010 I had started working on a blog, after a friend had told me about Notes From a Cottage Industry. It is amazing how one blog can serve as inspiration and help a single mom revive her dreams of many years past!! My serger needed a new needle though so I went to the local sewing shop. When I walked in to the shop and started talking to the owner, it was then that I discovered that today’s sewing and embroidery machines interface with computers. WAIT A MINUTE…tell me this again… I can get software that is similar to what I teach young adults to use and create my own embroidery designs??? Needless to say my brain was going 90 to nothing!! :D But just a second Jen!  You are sewing to earn money, how are you EVER going to get one of these machines????

Yes, look around because there are angels all around us!!! I have seen countless angels in my life time, but one precious angel believed in me and my talents and invested in my dreams for Curiosity Cottage and the rest is quickly becoming history!! So now when I speak to groups of students of all ages, I stress to them that you can take what you love, combined with the skills that a college education will give them and the sky is the limit. Though I am aiming for the stars!! :D

One of the most precious things about Curiosity Cottage is that my kids and grand kids love helping and coming up with designs!! What is so AMAZING about this path that God so clearly wants me to be on is that when HE is our CEO, nothing is impossible!!

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