Local crafts go to world

Featherston entrepreneur Emma McCleary has taken her locally based business to an international level.

Ms McCleary, 35, is a web editor for Booksellers NZ in Wellington by day and creator of "Emma Makes" by night.

She moved to Featherston more than six years ago and has been selling handmade crafts for about three years. She opened her own Featherston-based online store at the beginning of this year.

"It's really good selling online because you don't have overheads like rent and you can create a bit more of a relationship with your customers online," Ms McCleary said.

She also has a range of stockists across New Zealand and Australia, and even sells some of her products in China, Canada and America.

Almost everything she makes is handmade in her Featherston studio, at the back of her home, using vintage textiles, locally sourced where she can, to create a range of cute and colourful bags, purses and homeware.

"I use mainly vintage fabric. I buy it at the op shop because it's more reasonably priced and so not everyone on the street has the same thing. I try to support the local op shop by going and looking for fabrics there," Ms McCleary said.

She also makes stationery that includes witty pencils, notebooks and journals. "I do this range of pencils with funny sayings on them. These are really popular because they're cheap and they're a really good gift for people if you don't know what to buy them.

"'Bite Me', is really popular. If people get their boss in the secret Santa they usually always buy them the 'Bite Me' pencil."

Ms McCleary said she had always enjoyed making crafts and began selling her products at craft fairs several years ago.

"A lot of where it started was making things for my friends' birthdays and then I found that people wanted to buy it, too.

"In the last 10 years or so there's been quite a resurgence of craft," she said. She had started selling her products on other websites and then opened her own online shop in January.

"Now I do sort of more of a fashion label, summer ranges and winter ranges and then I have products that I have all the time as well."

She does all the creating, photographing, loading to her website and selling."It gets a little bit relentless. It can get really busy and really tiring ... I really like making things so that's where I get my enjoyment as well. It's just me and it's a little business so I just expand it bit by bit.

"I have quite a few stockists in New Zealand and then if I get to the point where I've got a good lot of stockists and I can handle the workload I go and get more."

Ms McCleary is hoping to become well known throughout New Zealand and within Featherston. "I imagine lots of people in Featherston know me but they probably don't know that I've got this online shop.

"If I make money then I support the local economy by spending my money in Featherston," she said.