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Crafter bringing joy to others

Dawn Newell shares her skills and knowledge with an engaged audience

KATHY JOHNSON TRI-COUNTY VANGUARD

Walking into Dawn Newell's 'she shed' is like walking into a candy store with all the goodies.

Originally the shed was supposed to be a storage shed for the barbecue and lawn mower, with perhaps “a cute little corner for doing stuff," says Newell.

"It kind of morphed into this," she says during in an interview. "It totally took over. It worked out."

The tiny Cape Sable Island shed is full of Newell's crafting supplies and her amazing fake sweets and Putz house creations, decorated to a T with family heirlooms, flowers and retro décor items, nestled in between the crafts and crafting supplies on Newell's signature light green colour shelves.

“I'm known for my green shelves,” she says.

A nurse for 22 years, Newell retired several years ago.

“It gave me more time to focus on YouTube and my crafts. It's more of a hobby. It is a little business, but I keep it fun. I do what I want when I want,” she says, adding she does sell a lot of her miniature houses.

Last year, Newell says from April to December she worked steady on the miniature houses, sweet shops, toy shops and churches that she designs and makes, and sold them in four days just to local people.

“A lot of people are learning about what I do more and more,” she says.

Newell shares her skills and knowledge on The Pink Tree YouTube channel. With almost 20,000 subscribers, her DIY videos have been viewed over a million times.

Crafting also helped her through the grieving process of losing both parents, says Newell.

“I thought, if I can bring joy to other people and help them through their difficult times, or just to give them something to do and enjoy, that's why I started the channel. I knew it would bring people joy and inspire them.”

In the last six months, Newell has gained a lot more followers.

"Part of what inspires me is I hear from people everyday from around the world that I've helped them through difficult times by getting them inspired to do crafts and they are happy to do it," she says. "Throughout COVID, watching my videos and getting crafty ideas has helped a lot of people.”

Newell's work has been featured in three American magazines so far, with a photo shoot on the she shed scheduled for early May in anticipation of a fourth feature – this time profiling the shed and Newell's fake cupcakes.

“Fake sweets are a big thing,” says Newell, noting her DIY fake cupcake video is the most popular video.

When asked if anyone had ever mistakenly tried to eat one of her fake sweets, only once, says Newell, and that was years ago when she saw her father “going for a cookie." Even the kids' friends, she says, know to not even bother trying to eat the goodies displayed in Newell house.

Newell has shared two patterns on her YouTube channel and Pinterest for making Putz houses, but as rule, doesn't give her house patterns away which she creates herself. Besides making the houses, Newell also crafts all the decorations that go on the little houses.

"That takes a lot of time,” she says.

Last Christmas, HGTV personality Tiffany Pratt had one of Newell's Putz houses that Newell sent to her, displayed on her mantle. “That was pretty cool to see,” says Newell.

She also mixes her own custom colours for her creations that are sometimes holiday themed for Easter, Valentines, Halloween and Christmas.

Wanting to keep her crafting to a hobby, Newell doesn't take orders for her work, but she does retail what she wants to sell through The Pink Tree Facebook page and Instagram account, as well as at local craft markets. She recently began shipping her wares to the U.S.

OPINION

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2021-05-05T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-05-05T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://saltwire.pressreader.com/article/281638193070857

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