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Meet the Handmade Design maker

Stacey McNeill

Started

Summer 2022

Find & follow

Making in Newcastle upon Tyne

172 miles from the
Handmade Design shop

About Stacey McNeill

Stacey McNeill is the author, illustrator and the general creative force behind each and every Fox Under The Moon product. Her artwork series is for all ages, inspired by the simplicity of everyday life and the complicated emotions that go with it. Through her artwork you will meet an anxious, but inquisitive fox and the wise old moon.

Why did you start making your products?

Fox Under The Moon was actually started by accident. The concept for the business was founded during the winter lockdown, when I hand painted a greeting card for a friend who was finding the isolation of another lockdown a challenge on his mental health. I shared the artwork on my personal Facebook page, which resulted in further requests for cards. With around £250, I purchased my first set of greeting cards, which had sold out on Etsy before my parents and I had finished packing them around the kitchen table. These were the humble beginnings of Fox Under The Moon!

What inspires your products or collections?

I take inspiration from the stories of others that I hear and I am also privy to the challenges that my followers are facing in their own lives. Near daily, I receive emails from people who have found comfort in my drawings and they go onto describe the situation through which they are living. Some emails asking for advice, others just want to feel heard. I've received numerous emails over the years, but those that haunt me most are those that describe childhood sexual abuse.

What is the best thing someone has said about your products?

Those people who say they found comfort in my products is the greatest compliment to me. To allow someone to momentarily remove themselves from the adversity they are living through, even for the briefest of moments, makes it worthwhile to me.

What is your favourite product/collection, and why?

I'm enormously proud of the 'One Step At A Time' range. I adore words, rhyme and the rhythm of spoken words. One Step At A Time brought together many of my strengths and it allowed me to explore new themes with new characters.

How does your local area impact what you make?

The UK's landscapes and wildlife have had the greatest impact on my work. Jamie and I have lived all over the country, from the Midlands, to Wales, to the north east of England and we've travelled the UK extensively in our caravan.

Inspiration has been taken from the landscapes within these areas, for example the woodland scenes are heavily influenced from the stunning, ancient mixed woodlands of North Warwickshire - Birchley Woods near Atherstone in particular. The mountains and lake featured in 'Apart' are loosely based on the scenes around Llyn Ogwen in Eryri National Park (Snowdonia) in North Wales.

We only relocated back to Jamie's home town back in Autumn 2022, so it hasn't yet had much of an impact, though Northumberland is a beautiful county. The felling at Sycamore Gap touched me, as we'd walked in that area only weeks before it was felled.

What does a dream day of making look like to you?

Like so many other creatives, I cannot 'make' to order! Sometimes inspiration arrives with me at the most inopportune of moments! It is not uncommon for Jamie to be awoken in the middle of the night to the bedroom lit up by the screen of my iPad as I am feverishly sketching or writing away.

We had a big step forward in March of 2024 when we were able to move the entire business from our home into an office space. Now, we tend to arrive at the office at 10am and work until 5pm. I really enjoy being able to decide my own hours and work around other commitments in my life. The freedom of self-employment is like no other - still lots of hours of work to be put in along with evenings and weekends, but that freedom to decide when, where and how to work is something I would find difficult to transition away from.

How do you make your products more sustainable?

Aside from the obvious of saying that we choose FSC approved papers and biodegradable cello wrappers on our greeting cards, we aim to create products that are reusable or serve a purpose beyond their original purpose.

For example, our customers tell us that our greeting cards are the ones they keep as the re-read the sentiments often. We've even had customers send us photographs of Fox Under The Moon greeting cards that they've framed!

Within the office, we re-use as many cardboard boxes as possible when sending orders out to stores. Jamie is of the belief that single use mailing packaging is the next 'big' thing that corporations need to address, and he drives the re-use of boxes. We even have little stickers that explain that the box is reused to reduce our impact on the environment.

What is your favourite thing about making that you don't get to talk about very often?

I adore creating products that my followers have asked for and had a helping hand in their creation. I am so incredibly fortunate to have such a strong social media following and I can 'test' new pieces of artwork out on these platforms and invite feedback in the comments. From this, I make changes, alterations or include additions. I am so incredibly thankful to my audience for helping to create the business that I have today.