This week’s Founder Friday, we sat down with Natalie May, founder of Natalie May Scrapbooking, an Adelaide-based papercraft business that grew from a $20,000 side hustle into a business approaching seven figures in just five years.
But Natalie’s story isn’t only about business growth. It’s also about survival, and how she turned a cancer diagnosis into a mission to save other women’s lives.
“Cancer doesn’t just happen to you; it happens to your whole family, your community, your business.”
From Backyard Studio to Adelaide’s Last Scrapbooking Store
Natalie’s business began the way a lot of good ones do, out of necessity rather than a grand plan. After thirteen years working at a local scrapbooking store in Adelaide, the store closed, and Natalie decided to keep doing what she loved on her own terms.
“I started my business after spending 13 years working at a local Scrapbooking store here in Adelaide and after they closed the business, I wanted to continue what I loved, which was teaching Scrapbooking, Cardmaking and Art Journaling,” she said.
Her husband built her a studio in their backyard, and by late 2019, after years of travelling Australia, New Zealand and the US as a guest teacher, Natalie decided to launch an online store. The timing, as it turned out, was extraordinary.
“We decided to launch the online store in late 2019 to start selling direct to the public rather than just teaching classes. This was just before Covid hit so our timing was perfect. In a very short time, the business boomed.”
Much of that boom came down to something simple: showing up for her customers, literally. With an average customer age of 65, many of whom had never shopped online before, Natalie didn’t just sell products, she taught people how to buy them. She ran near-daily Facebook Live demonstrations during lockdown, walking her audience through everything from product features to clicking “add to cart.”
“I spent almost every day during Covid doing live Facebook demonstrations and mini classes, teaching my customers how to use the products I sold, how to order online and showing them the latest products. My customers loved the connection with me during that tough lockdown period.”
The growth outpaced her expectations entirely. Orders jumped from 20 a month to 700 a month in under a year. She outgrew the backyard studio, then a small leased space, and within two years landed in a retail store just south of the Adelaide CBD, now the only bricks-and-mortar papercraft store left in the city.
“I went from 20 orders a month to 700 a month within 10 months during 2020. I didn’t know how to run my website. I didn’t know how to keep my stock levels and my finances on track and it was a very overwhelming experience. The quick growth almost became my downfall.”
That overwhelm led her to a turning point. In mid-2021, at the Reed Gift Fair in Melbourne, Natalie met business mentor Lisa Jones and found the She-Com community, a network that changed how she ran her business and how she coped with running it.
“Learning from Lisa, business coaches, other entrepreneurs and business owners and taking advice through the She-com program saved my tail! I now have the most incredible group of female founder friends who I reach out to when I need help, who support and believe in me and cheer me on.”
A Cancer Diagnosis That Became a Mission
Natalie’s business success is only half the story. In 2013, at just 37 years old, she noticed changes in her menstrual cycle. What followed was a diagnosis no one saw coming: ovarian cancer, found in a woman who was otherwise fit, healthy, and the mother of a ten-year-old daughter.
“Our world just stopped. I think I spent the rest of the appointment in a daze, waiting for the Dr to say ‘but it’s all going to be OK’ or ‘just kidding’… but he never did. I had ovarian cancer.”
She underwent a radical abdominal hysterectomy and appendectomy, followed by six months of gruelling chemotherapy. As soon as treatment ended, she went straight back to the thing that had carried her through it: teaching.
“As soon as my treatment finished, I started teaching again, went to work, hosted guest craft tutors as often as I could.”
Today, ovarian cancer awareness is woven directly into her business. With a largely female audience, many with daughters, granddaughters, sisters and aunties of their own, Natalie uses her workshops as a platform to talk openly about symptoms, diagnosis, and why women shouldn’t ignore warning signs.
“When I run my workshops, I take the opportunity to talk about ovarian cancer, my journey, the symptoms and signs to look for, all while women are busy crafting.”
She’s since become a consumer advocate on research teams at Flinders University and Adelaide University, and has heard directly from women who took action because of her.
“I have an audience of women around Australia who have daughters, grand-daughters, sisters, aunties, so a key part of my tutorials is raising awareness for ovarian cancer.”
Every purchase on her website includes an optional $8 donation to ovarian cancer research, a small ask that has added up to more than $30,000 raised over twelve years.
“I’m very proud of that. Something good had to come out of my experience, so I will spend all my days being an ambassador and trying to save other women.”
For Natalie, the two threads of her life, business and survival, were never really separate. Scrapbooking gave her a reason to keep showing up during chemotherapy. It gave her an audience to speak honestly with about a disease most women don’t talk about until it’s too late. And it gave her a way to turn something devastating into something that might just save someone else.
Ovarian cancer in Australia: around 1,900 people are diagnosed each year, with a five-year survival rate of 49%. There is currently no early detection test, and a pap smear does not detect it. Roughly 1,064 lives are lost to the disease annually in Australia, and that number is projected to reach 10,000 over the next decade without earlier detection and treatment.
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