I've wanted to be an illustrator since I was seven, when my year three teacher told me the girl who wrote the Munch Bunch was only nine (the actual facts are slightly different, but that doesn't matter to our story...) and I decided I had a year or so left to become the youngest published author in the world. I already spent half my time writing and drawing stories (the other half constructing precarious tree houses and trying to tame wild animals like someone in an Enid Blyton) but I think this was the moment I thought of being an illustrator as a job.

It wasn't til about seventeen years later, in 2010, that my first book was published, but I've been lucky enough to work as an illustrator ever since.

Designing cards, and later wrapping paper, prints, tea towels and bird decorations, is now a huge part of how I juggle being a freelancer. I love being able to create and sell something all myself - from that first inkling to draw an idea through to sending the final product off in the post! What a beautiful way to share what I make.

I work from a cosy little shed at the bottom of my tiny garden, surrounded by paper, with my labrador Gladys to keep me company.