My Interview With xoelle

This is such a cool shop! Also it's great for your last minute Father's Day Gifts that I just had to feature xoelle.etsy.com on LBOE's Blog today. Please check her out!

Please you tell us about yourself and your back ground?

My name is Laura Plouzek. I'm a newlywed turning 29 in a few days. I'm a high school art teacher so I get to play with art and creating all day. I was raised in Washington State, but have lived in several places and currently reside in Pensacola, FL with my enlisted Navy husband (who is also my model!). I love making things, bike rides, chocolate ganache, and old musicals.

Can you tell us abit about your work and how did you start your etsy shop?

My work is driven by my passion for vintage items coupled with my need to use every last scrap of resources. Waste is my enemy. Discarded and unloved vintage items are given new life and new functionality and I love that! The past offers us so much richness, and I want to bring some of that into the present.

What usealy sparks off an idea?

The items that I make for my shop (every single one of them!) were first designed and created to fill a need that I had. It's important to me that I'm in love with every design, and that it is functional. I make things for myself and my friends and family first, and when it goes over well, I bring them into my shop. I'm inspired by the people that I love, the shapes of branches in the sky, retro patterns and fabrics, kitcsh and pop culture, and domesticity.

Please tell us about your latest products:

My bow ties have taken over my shop! I've been collecting really great ties for years (I started in high school, I was going to make a tie skirt, but by the time I'd collected enough, grew out of that idea) and fell in love with a man who wears bow ties almost exclusively. In fact, I think the bow tie was the reason that I noticed him playing the piano across the room. He wore a bow tie to our wedding, and I wanted to create a line of bow ties for guys like him: young, hip, slightly sophisticated, and fun. The bow tie market is small, and most of them are either very traditional, pre-tied (we say yuck!), or crazy colors and patterns. I've put my vintage ties to use to create modern freestyle bow ties from vintage materials for the hip guys of today. =)