Meet The Founders

After putting together some backstory on my About Us page; I thought it would be a great idea to give a bit more detail of who we really are for our FIRST EVER BLOG!

THE STORY

Jay & I were both born and raised in London, one of the most diverse cities in the world! I come from a Turkish background, while Jay is mixed race with English, Irish & Montserrat (A small island in the Caribbean). Even to this day we still learn more and more about each other’s culture, and more importantly each other’s cultures cuisine!!

THE TRAVELS

Incredibly early in our relationship, Jay & I caught the travel bug! Our first trip together was a typical British holiday in Spain; just testing the waters to see how we’d cope abroad with each other for the first time. Well, it was an amazing trip and as soon as we got back to the UK, I started putting together mood boards for a 2-month backpacking trip around South-East Asia. After some brief research, I finally asked Jay if he was interested in going away for such a long time, and before I could even start my mini presentation (I love to be organised haha), he said yes!

We ended up travelling all the way through Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore & my personal favourite, Bali! I had the WHOLE 2 months itinerary planned, and Jay would just go with the flow! Jay would literally wake up in the morning with no idea what was planned. I remember one time we were in the airport and Jay suddenly stopped me and genuinely asked “Wait, where are we going now?”

Backpacking through SE Asia has easily been one of the most life changing trips we’ve made (Also, I know this is such a stereotypical thing you hear when people backpack there, but it really was for us lol). Since then, we’ve travelled all over Europe, Northern Africa, and back to a couple more countries in Asia. North and South America, we’re coming for you soon!

THE STUDIES

Going back since I was a child, I’ve always been obsessed with Art & Design. It was this passion that led me to first get a degree in Interior Architecture. I started my career in the industry and got a bit of experience when I decided to go BACK to university and continue my further education achieving a Diploma in Architecture (RIBA Part II) at CASS, London Metropolitan University. If you know anyone that has done the full 7 years studying Architecture, you know it is the most mentally gruelling experience anyone can willingly put themselves through!

THE HEALTH ISSUES & COVID

Late 2019 I went though a very scary period of my life. It took an extremely long time to get answers, as I was misdiagnosis twice but I was eventually diagnosed with a rare auto-immune disease, 'myasthenia gravis'. It was because of this where I ended up losing my architectural job, and things felt like they were getting worse with each passing day.

Jay has always been supportive of me during my ups and downs and found something on Instagram he’d never seen before. It was epoxy resin art. Jay knew I had a strong creative side of me that wasn’t getting exercised and encouraged me to give it a go as a hobby. Well, I instantly loved the new challenge, and turned out I picked up some tricks no one else had thought of yet!

I would make resin art pieces for myself, friends and family. I started getting more and more requests from friends & family to the point they kept suggesting I open an online store. At the time I thought this was ridiculous! Who would want to buy anything I’ve made I’d say to myself? Well, 6 months later and I’ve sent my resin art pieces ALL OVER THE WORLD!

I feel like I’ve finally found something that is ‘me’. I’m being creative, I’m learning new skills and I’m now genuinely excited to wake up each morning to start a new day!

THE FUTURE

Things have changed so much since we first launched our little store on Etsy in September 2020. We’ve dispatched our beautiful pieces literally all over the world, we’ve gained over 20,000 followers on Instagram, we’ve collaborated with top London universities and worked with incredible big brands within the industry, ALL IN JUST 6 MONTHS FROM LAUNCHING!

The growth has been incredible, but something that I try to share with my Instagram following is that it has taken a huge amount of work to get here. There are so many things running simultaneously in the background that at times we’ve gotten a little burnt out and needed a break to re-energise.

BUT I still wouldn’t change it for the world! Even right now as we’ve worked hard building this website from scratch; here are just a few other things we’re currently working on in the background:

• Multiple courses for all skill levels
• 1-2-1s for those looking for individualised coaching
• Starter kits for beginners to get involved with amazing resin art
• Guides on how we went from 0 – 20k followers on IG in 6 months
• Quite a few more things, but I’d rather not disclose that right now 😉

Ahh, this has been fun writing my first ever blog. If you made it this far, I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your support with our small business. You truly are making my dreams come true.

Until next time, my lovelies;

Rengin x