After a career in the public service, Gilmore mum Priscilla Sheppard is loving her later-life job as a woodworker, making cool pet beds, among other items, that will be a part of this weekend's Handmade Market Canberra.
Her latest pet bed design is a mini-Canberra bus shelter, allowing the coolest moggie or doggie to sleep in a genuine national capital icon. And even the occasional rabbit.
"I had a dream about how to put one together and that was only four months ago. Since then, they've come together really easy," she said.
Priscilla retired from the public service after 27 years and started her micro-business Knottytop Creative Joinery about five years ago.
She can thank Angelo Costa from the Mugga Park riding school for giving her the nudge.
"I worked as a riding instructor and kept my own horses either there or out at his farm at Royalla," she said.
"He grabbed a few pieces of wood out one day and just said, 'Priscilla, you're artistic, make me a table'.
"It was very scary but I started and I've never stopped."
The pet beds started about three years ago. The retro-TV designs are also a hit.
"They get a great reaction," she said.
The beds are made from a combination of new and reclaimed timber. Some of the wood she has ready to go in new beds includes wood from her dad's shearing shed in NSW and an old bank in Goulburn.
Priscilla, 51, said people wanted to indulge their pets.
"I'm sure that's to do with the fact they only have a relatively short time on Earth, why don't we make it as good as possible," she said.
The pet beds also double as side tables or coffee tables, bringing the pets into the heart of the home.
"The idea was to bring them out of the dusty corners," she said.
Priscilla loves woodworking so much she can lose track of the time.
"It's like, 'What happened to the day?'," she said, with a laugh.
The only problem is her family is allergic to cats, so her work has to be appreciated by others.
Priscilla will be among more than 250 stallholders at the spring Handmade Market this Saturday and Sunday, September 19 and 20, at Exhibition Park in Canberra.
Opening hours are 10am to 4pm both days. Entry is free, but door greeters from Rise Above will be collecting gold coin donations towards their work supporting cancer patients in the ACT and region.
Handmade Market founder and director Julie Nichols said Canberra came alive in spring.
"With the weather starting to warm up there's so much to see and do in Canberra, and what could be better than a day of market shopping and food, followed by a stroll through the Floriade blooms?" she said.
