About Us
Just to let you know that there are two live humans behind
our great NZ Gifts. We don't really
like talking about ourselves, this site is after all about YOU - but we have
been told you want to know, and you are here, so it must be true. So, this is just for you...
Jane Buckley & Maria Macpherson - two homeschooling mums
who one day decided to do something creative with their children - and Backyard
Letters was born...
A little bit about Jane - B.C (before children):
- Has been creating greeting cards ever since she can remember.
- Started her own business selling her cards and pen/ink artwork in arty party places
- Won an entrapreunural biz award for her cards and so she sold some more
- Worked as a sales rep for Sharpes Classic, a division of Hallmark, selling greeting cards - but she wasn't allowed to sell her own designs...boo hoo...perhaps they knew Jane's would sell better!
- Worked as an art manager in an old musty book & art store surrounded by paints, brushes, papers of every weight and colour, pencils, crayons, pastels and putty erasers, inks and charcoal and other such heavenly delights....Jane was happy
And then she emigrated with her ‘not very arty' hubby to NZ producing three sprightly children which brought out her ‘educational arty' side. She discovered she could build websites..and was hooked. She created educational resources for teachers and home-educators and built a great phonics site helping teach little ones to read. She sold the site to a teacher in 2008 - www.atozphonics.com - and then one day decided to do something creative with her children.....it involved letters and photographs in her garden and her best friend Maria....
A little bit about Maria
Well, what can we say! One day she was a humble homeschool Mum, homeschooling four children and minding her own business - the next day she was a photographer, taking photos of all sorts of strange objects and running her own business! - with Jane's help, of course :-)
Maria has always been creative and loves creative people and things. Photography is another passion - although she has never been on a photography course, she prefers to think of herself as an 'accidental photographer'. She has an eye for the quirky and doesn't seem to get embarrassed when people see her taking photos of odd things and sometimes even telling her children to 'get out of the photo!'
She is now the author of Backyard Letters ABC which was inspired by the alphabet adventure she has had with her own children. "The amazing thing about my kids is that they still love to play Backyard Letters when we're out and about. On a recent trip to MOTAT (Museum of Transport and Technology in Auckland), they helped find letters to spell 'MOTAT'. Now they want to design a card to send to MOTAT to say thank you". says Maria.
