Colleen McIntyre started her blog, “Flee Fly Flown,” after working for a large marketing firm in what she calls a “cubical farm.” The blog has grown into a love of creating in general, which McIntyre expresses through sewing and “up-cycling” old things into new products such as blankets, totes and pillows.
“I needed a way to escape creatively,” said McIntyre, who has since left that job and is now a senior account manager for Milwaukee-based Data Dog Marketing. “I’m an art minor, and I wanted a way to hold myself accountable to be creative on a regular basis. The blog did that for me.”
McIntyre is an avid traveler, and the blog gave her a way to escape when she couldn’t necessarily escape physically, she said.
McIntyre recently took a trip to a small chateau in France, where she spent a week doing exercises in creative construction and up-cycling, she said.
“We started out by going to the flea market and purchasing vintage tea towels, old linens, lace and other fabrics,” she said. “We’d take the linens back, wash them and create something new by sewing and dying the fabrics in different ways.”
McIntyre now regularly creates baby blankets and other items for friends and family and hopes to eventually be able to sell her products on her website.
“It has just been a wonderful experience,” McIntyre said. “To be able to just get away and let your mind do whatever it wants to creatively is great.”
