I have been crafting for as long as I can remember. When I was little, I would spend hours with my watercolours, pressing flowers from the garden or turning my bedroom into a fairy paradise. I have dabbled in most forms of crafts, casting knitting and crochet aside in favour of bead weaving and cardmaking.

It seemed to be the next logical step to share my crafting with the world, there was no way that I could ever wear all the bracelets I had created, and in the April of 2020, Julie’s Craft Cabin was born. I specialise in handmade beaded jewellery, perfect for special nights out or gifting to loved ones.

I loved working for myself and in May 2021 I decided to continue this into my professional life and open my own small business consultancy, Breckon Consulting. I have worked in small businesses across a variety of professional sectors since leaving university and completed my Master’s Degree in Computing whilst working full time in a local Solicitor. As a qualified HR practitioner and bookkeeper, I offer tailored HR, bookkeeping and small business solutions across England and Wales.

Through Julie’s Craft Cabin, I built a network of other creative businesses and sit as a finance expert within a private Facebook group for women with creative side hustles. I love the energy and passion that they have but many of them struggled with the same thing – managing and understanding their business accounts. They didn’t want to simply hand this over to somebody else, they wanted to be able to understand what needed to be done, and why, but didn’t want to lose any control of their business and this was something that I could help with.

A lot of the training which already existed was tailored to limited companies or used traditional accounting methods which were not suited to the cash-based accounting method these businesses were using. This was leaving them feeling overwhelmed and confused. I developed Handmade Accounts Training, simple, tailored, one-to-one sessions that would give them confidence and clarity to manage their daily transactions, knowing that expert support is just a step away.