Leaf and Little Branch

The BIG logo is fast growing on a Little Branch. Lilly and I muse and chatter excitedly over the drafts sent to us by the amazing Maree Oaten and then sleep with castles and birds and boats and ocean fonts all swimming in front of our dreamscapes. 


The attention and ongoing navigation between the domestic/professional/BIG spheres is noisy, demanding, untamed and without prediction. On some days we are tired and a little bit broken and on other days we soar. We now have a 'dropbox' housing shared documents including the new BIG business plan and the very BIG list. We prioritise and get to things when we can, balancing the BIG picture with the ongoing 'work' of it, a crazy and vulnerable way to begin. The only way for us. All in, all at once. Multi-coloured-tasking.


As I go to post this draft of Lilly's, I check in with the Leaf blog and read Cath's latest post on serendipity. Timely as we launch into the next 'stage' of this making of a BIG magazine. How Lilly and I reconnected here after twelve or so years still has us both shaking our heads in wonder at our sudden landing in the same BIG sky. Every BIG connection, child, artist and idea we meet provokes, inspires, fuels and challenges our future steps.


Here Lilly introduces and shares the story of Leaf: 

I found Leaf  through Story one night when i should have been asleep.  I was searching online for  place/idea/business, where everything could live and new things could be born; concept, brand, ethics, ecology, diversity, heart, imagination, connection, hope, humanity and responsibility. I was looking for a different ways of seeing and telling stories for children, and for ourselves, side by side. And then I found Leaf, and sat for a while in the trees, and wondered about the woman who created it. I wrote to say thank you, and share BIG with her, and invite her to contribute a bird,or a story about flight, or an idea that might spark a skyward journey. She wrote back:

My Little Bird

I loved him from the first moment I saw him.

To the rest of the world, this bird is a mark on paper – a graphic to be sold, shared, enjoyed briefly, then discarded.

To me, he represents the realisation of dreams.

He is the marker that pinpoints my journey into the unknown world of running my own business – one which finally brings together all that is ME, as wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, traveller, creative, entrepreneur, woman; of who I have been, and who I will become.

From him, a whole business has been born, and with it, the hope that I will bring joy, intimacy, insight and creativity to other people’s lives.

I dream big dreams. Often they keep me awake at night, as I shiver in fear at their sheer magnitude.

This little bird reminds me that every journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step. He is my first step.

Cath Connell

Owner and Creative Director of Leaf. Paper for Life.