Make Something Just for You
This post started as an answer to a question I asked in Slack: What else should I write about? A few people wanted to know how I find time for hobbies while leading a team, raising kids, and navigating a career in tech. Others wanted the origin story, how I became a maker in the first place.
So here’s both.
I’ve been a maker for as long as I can remember. Before I had a job title or a five-year plan, I had a pencil and a head full of ideas. I was the kid who doodled in the margins, the one teachers gave up on early because I wasn’t interested in what everyone else was learning. I didn’t know I was neurodivergent back then. I just thought I was a bad student. Turns out I was learning, I just needed a different path.
The only classes I ever really thrived in were art and creative writing. The rest of the time, I kept my hands busy. I doodled. I built things. I taught myself what I needed to know. And thanks to my dad, who was a network engineer in the Air Force, we had a computer early, one of the only ones in the neighborhood.
Sure, I was still a “drink from the hose, stay out ‘til the streetlights come on” kid, but that didn’t mean I was carefree. The rule was still, don’t be a problem. So when I wasn’t outside keeping my distance, I was inside doing the same, glued to my dad’s computer any chance I got. Technically, it was his. Functionally, it was mine the moment he left for work.
This was the dial-up era, where getting online meant negotiating with the phone line. I’d be deep in an AOL chat room, casually asking strangers for their age, sex, and location like that was a normal thing to do, when suddenly, click. Someone picked up the phone. Internet gone. And then came the shout from down the hall: “I need to make a call!” Of course you do. It’s the ‘90’s and I’m trying to download a JPEG.
Still, I was hooked. I was collecting ASCII art, reverse-engineering websites with “View Source,” and falling headfirst into the kind of digital rabbit holes that taught me more than school ever did.
Later, after a few upgrades, I wound up with a pile of his old parts, enough to try building something of my own. That’s how I built my first computer. Not from a kit. Just from whatever was left behind and a stubborn need to see if I could make it work.
That instinct to make something from nothing has followed me ever since. I didn’t go to college. It wasn’t in the cards. I was a teen mom. I had to be scrappy, resourceful, and relentless. I built a business in photography, self-taught, like everything else. I learned how to shoot, how to edit, how to market, how to sell. And when clients started asking for things I couldn’t afford to outsource, like newsletters and websites, I already had a head start. I’d been hand-coding HTML since middle school, reverse-engineering sites before I even knew what “frontend” meant. I still had a lot to learn, but the bones were there.
That’s what creativity has always been for me: a survival skill.
I didn’t call it a “hobby” back then. It was just life. But I understand now that making gave me something I couldn’t get anywhere else. It gave me a sense of autonomy. Of identity. Of control. And even when life got loud, jobs, kids, deadlines, burnout, I kept making, because it’s the only thing that’s ever helped me stay grounded.
We all need something like that. Something that’s just for us.
Start with the Hot Glue Gun on the Floor
My makerspace didn’t start in a garage. It started in chaos.
Plastic tubs filled with scrapbooking supplies. A kitchen table that hadn’t seen a meal in weeks. Stickers, X-Acto knives, bits of photo paper, and that one hot glue gun that was always somehow both essential and missing. There was no Pinterest-perfect setup. Just the drive to make something, and a total lack of anywhere else to put it.
That’s how most people start. And honestly, I think that version gets lost in the narrative sometimes. We see the clean, color-coded setups and forget that most creative work starts in a mess. Especially if you’re a parent. Especially if you’re poor. Especially if you’re neurodivergent and trying to find a sliver of quiet in a world that’s too loud.
I’ve had a 3D printer in my house since 2013. My first one was a wooden FlashForge kit. It broke more than it worked, but I loved it anyway. I loved the frustration. I loved the problem-solving. I loved that when it did work, it felt like magic. I could replace a motor. Reprint a part that snapped off. I could fix it. I could make it better. That printer taught me more about persistence than any job ever has.
Early 3D printing? 10% engineering, 90% guessing if your build plate was level, judged solely by whether a fresh sheet of paper almost scratched the nozzle, but not quite. Too loose? Spaghetti. Too tight? Say goodbye to your hotend. An ancient art, lost to time (and automatic bed leveling).
Eventually, I moved my setup into the garage. That space has changed a lot over the years. Now, it’s clean. Organized. Intentionally built. When you walk in, you’ll see three floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with my prints, many of them little toys or storage containers that look like food. There’s a desk with gridfinity drawers. Every tool has its place. The hot glue gun finally has a home.
I joke that garages are for makerspaces, not for cars. My husband, who’s a car guy through and through, a collector and enthusiast, doesn’t always agree. Cars are his hobby. But we’ve figured out how to share the space. One side holds his latest find. The other is where I tinker, print, and build. It works, mostly. Even if I’m still winning the square footage battle.
And even though it looks polished now, I still think about the early days. The glue gun on the floor. The scrapbook store job I worked just to fund my sticker addiction. The creative chaos I kept coming back to, because even then, I knew: this is what keeps me going.
The space changed. But the need didn’t.
Doom Piles and Dessert Drawers
These days, I mostly make toys. Not toys for sale. Not toys for a business. Just joyful, weird, functional little things that make me smile, especially when they help me manage the chaos.
I’m talking about food-shaped containers for my doom piles. If you’re neurodivergent, you probably know exactly what I mean: those small, stubborn piles of stuff that don’t have a designated place but can’t be thrown away. I’ve stopped fighting them. Instead, I organize them in a Nutella jar. Or a box that looks like a waffle. Or a drawer that looks like an ice cream bar. I’ve got a ramen bowl where the noodles lift off and hide glue sticks. It’s silly. It’s perfect.
There’s something deeply satisfying about it, not just the aesthetics, but the fact that I made it. Sometimes I find models online (there are some brilliant designers out there). Sometimes I remix them. Sometimes I model my own from scratch. I’m still early in that part of the journey, but right now it’s less about mastery and more about making something that’s mine.
It also helps that 3D printing (and laser cutting, and other kinds of making) can be set and forget. You spend time upfront dialing in the design or slicing the file, but once you hit print, it runs in the background. That works beautifully with my life right now: big job, three kids, and too many browser tabs open in my brain. It gives me a sense of progress without demanding all of my attention.
And there’s real science behind why it works. Hobbies that require just enough concentration to hold your focus, but not enough to stress you out, are shown to reduce anxiety, improve mood, and help with emotional regulation. It’s called “effortful leisure,” and it’s especially powerful for neurodivergent folks. I didn’t know the term until recently, but I’ve been living it for years.
People sometimes ask if I sell the things I make. I don’t. I could, but I won’t. I’ve learned what happens when you turn joy into work. That’s how I burned out on photography. That’s how a passion becomes a job, and a job becomes a burden.
This is the thing I protect. This is mine.
Burnout Comes for All of Us
I’ve given talks about burnout. I’ve written about it. I’ve helped people through it, and I’ve lived it more than once. And if there’s one thing I know, it’s that burnout doesn’t usually come from laziness or disconnection. It comes from caring too much, too long, with too little support.
Right now, I’m watching more and more people white-knuckle their way through jobs that are slowly hollowing them out. The market is rough. Fear is everywhere. And fear makes people lock in. You start working like your life depends on it, because maybe, in some ways, it does.
I’ve been there. I’ve been without a place to live before. I don’t ever want to be in that position again. I grew up poor, and I want something different for my kids. In our house, I carry the insurance and earn the bulk of our income, but we carry the weight of this life together. Still, the pressure to stay relevant, to keep earning, to stay one step ahead of whatever layoff or reorg might be around the corner, it’s real. It’s loud. And when everything feels like it’s on thin ice, hobbies are the first thing to go.
They feel optional. Indulgent. Silly, even.
But they’re not.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: hobbies aren’t luxury. They’re survival. They’re how we regulate. How we remember who we are outside of a job title or a company name. People who regularly make time for something they enjoy, not for profit, not for productivity, but for joy, are more emotionally resilient. Less anxious. Easier to be around. That’s not just anecdotal. The research backs it up. Even short bursts of creative time can help people recover faster from stress.
I know how long it takes to come back from burnout. Years. You don’t just sleep it off. You have to rebuild. You have to slowly remember what used to light you up, and then give yourself permission to try it again.
In a world that thrives on urgency and monetization, choosing joy is a quiet act of rebellion.
And it’s one we can’t afford to skip.
The Space That Gives Me Back to Myself
I’ve built a lot of things in my life. Businesses. Skills. A career I’m proud of. But the thing that’s been the most quietly life-saving? A small space that belongs only to me.
My makerspace isn’t just a corner of the garage, it’s a boundary. A signal. A place where I don’t have to be a boss, a parent, a provider, or a leader. I don’t have to be anything, really. I just get to make.
I don’t usually bring my kids into this space. I need it to be mine. That’s a boundary I’ve had to learn to hold, without guilt. But I include them in the joy of it. For my youngest daughter’s birthday, I 3D printed toys for every gift bag. Watching her light up? That was enough. I got to share what I love without giving it away.
Your version of this might not be a makerspace. Maybe it’s running. Maybe it’s cooking elaborate Sunday meals, or restoring cars, or solving 2,000-piece puzzles in total silence. Maybe it’s something you used to love and haven’t touched in years.
For me, it was photography. After burning out hard, I put my cameras away for a long time. But I kept them, because some part of me knew I’d come back. And recently, I have. I’ve been thinking about starting a photo series on the simple act of noticing. How the morning light hits the kitchen table. A flower stand on the street. My daughter’s bedhead before school. Small, quiet moments that remind me there’s still beauty in the world, especially when the news feels impossibly loud.
Because that’s what this space is really about. It’s not the tools or the prints or the layout. It’s about becoming a whole person again, someone who exists beyond their job title, their output, their usefulness.
We are not just what we do for work. And when we forget that, we become brittle. We lose the part of ourselves that’s most worth protecting.
When you grow up with instability, when housing was uncertain, when paychecks barely stretched, you learn to sacrifice quickly and often. You hand over pieces of yourself to whatever will keep your world intact. That instinct never fully goes away. But over time, I’ve learned that not everything I am has to be in service to someone else. I get to keep some things. And this space reminds me of that.
It reminds me that my identity isn’t what I produce. It’s not what I give to others. It’s who I am when no one’s watching. It’s the quiet joy of seeing something come to life layer by layer. The focus that shows up when something breaks and I get to fix it. The calm that comes not from stillness, but from the rhythm of movement.
So if you’ve been running on empty, if you’ve been quietly holding everything together while falling apart, this is your reminder: you’re allowed to make something just because it makes you feel like you.
And if it feels impossible to start, start impossibly small.
Set a timer for ten minutes. Open a note on your phone. Sketch a doodle on a receipt. Notice the light. Pick up the thing you used to love, even if you only hold it for a second. That counts. That matters.
You don’t need permission. But here it is anyway.
Make something. Just for you.