More than 20 years ago, Robin Easter saw her father’s worn and aged workbench that he’d built. She thought of changing its colour, so she stripped it, sanded everything down, restained and repainted it the way she wanted it to look. After restoring the bench, she realized that she can make old things beautiful and useful again.
It took Easter years to realize that she can incorporate her first love of arts and crafts, and her second love, teaching, into a fulfilling business — Robin's Rustic Creations & Craft Supplies.
“I really like the idea of teaching and showing people how to be creative, and it’s not as hard as people think … we show you how to do it (restoring furniture), and people will get home and say I made this. It’s like a confidence builder. I really like that part of the business,” she said.
Easter is a former counsellor at the Canadian Mental Health Association in Timmins. The institution had been creating different workshops involving arts to help patients express their feelings or thoughts.
While working as a counsellor for 11 years, she was restoring furniture and doing arts and crafts on the side.
She was greatly influenced by her father, who was a carpenter by trade. Easter shared that when she was young, she used to help her father in carpentry, mainly to spend time with him.
At that time, she would search for old wood furniture, broken windows, a wooden post, a door, a chair, among other household furnishings she needed, and restored them. Since then, she’s been doing woodwork here and there for herself or for her sister.
Teaching and being able to talk to people were the reasons why she decided to expand her side-job into a full-time business.
In 2017, she rented an open-space basement downtown Timmins where people could bring old furniture, use her workshop, and learn how to restore their wooden pieces.
Her business grew to a craft store and she moved to a new space on Second Avenue. She has also added art supplies, home décor and hardware to her offerings.
“Things have changed quite a bit. Initially, when I was starting, I didn’t expect to open a store. That happened later on, when I thought, you know what I think that would be really cool (to expand the business with craft supplies), we don’t have Michaels anymore, a little craft store will be cute, with a classroom and that,” she said.
Responding to the ongoing pandemic, she recently launched the Robin’s Rustic Creations website, to allow clients to buy art and crafts supplies online.
She also launched several take-home craft kit subscriptions, that will be picked up or delivered monthly for six months. The craft kits for the month of October will be wooden pieces about Halloween, Thanksgiving and the fall season.
“I still think the online portion is really important, having the online store has been really helpful for people who want to do curbside pickup. They were able to see some of the different things that we still have. The craft kits I think are going to just to continue to expand. The convenience of having something just show up at your door is nice on this fast-paced day and age,” she added.
The in-person classes and workshops are still ongoing, and the monthly calendar can be found on her website. Easter said, there are exciting classes in October such as wooden-clock making, tole painting, jewelry-making, and art classes for children ages four and up.
Easter said, there are artists or art teachers who use her classrooms and conduct arts and crafts classes.
The greatest reward that she gets from running her business, she said, is to see her customers feel the same way as she did when she finished restoring her father’s old workbench: calm, relaxed, at peace.
“I find working on crafts very therapeutic. It’s relaxing. You can sit and just not have to worry about anything else going on, and you’re just focusing on what’s in front of you,” she said, smiling.
“It is something I really enjoyed doing, and that’s the part that I wanted to be able to pass on to other people how enjoyable it can be,” she added.
Robin's Rustic Creations & Craft Supplies is located at 258 Second Ave. To learn more about her classes, arts and craft supplies, and other services, visit robinsrusticcreations.ca
