Aubry Bennion is walking, talking, crafting sunshine. She is a true go-getter, rocking the corporate work life while simultaneously sustaining a felt ball business, Hello Maypole. Aubry's work and passion is second to none, but what we are most enamored with is her ability to balance two jobs while still making time to be a good friend. Saying she has a good heart is an understatement --- Her heart is bursting with all the colors of the world, showering everyone she meets with pure joy. Do yourself a favor and check out her website and instagram. She surely will spark a smile on your face!
What are the roles or hats you lead in your life?
When asked, I’ve always described myself as “corporate by day, crafty by night”. But both titles are glossed over so highly, I feel like it barely does justice to the amount of things I squish into 24 hours! I’ve worked for an engineering firm for ten years, plucked fresh from college and launched straight into adulthood at 23 without knowing it! I thought I’d find a simple, Girl Friday job until I found my sea legs post-college, but the simple job I found in the classifieds quickly turned into a life-long career. The crafty title is real - I break for good craft! But crafting has also opened the doors into an accidentally successful small business, which I am so so grateful for! Crafter turned Business Woman/CEO/Creative Director/Customer Service Department/Shipping and Fulfillment Manager/Social Media and Marketing Manager! So many roles involved in this little craft project I started three years ago! I own a small business called Hello Maypole, selling felt balls, which are primarily used as craft and party supplies. Hello Maypole takes up all the evening hours, and bleeds into the ones I should spend asleep!
My other titles include World’s Most Loyal Friend, Head of Household, Only Daughter, Passport Stamp Collector, Diet Coke Guzzler, and Girls’ Night Organizer, Every Kind of Organizer, Book on Tape Binge Listener, Really Great Internet Shopper, and Everyone’s Personal Wikipedia!
Which hat do you find most rewarding?
My favorite, most rewarding hats are the ones that involve other people. Be it the relationships I’ve formed with co-workers or clients, or the one-on-one time I get to spend with friends, I live for the human connection! I have a quote on my nightstand that says “I wish my friends houses were connected to mine via secret tunnels underground.” In heaven, there better be infinite replicates of me, enough to go around to every person I love, can help, can play with, and can learn from!
What hats do you find are most challenging and what do you do to embrace them? My most challenging hat is head of household. I’m no good at it! Who gave me a mortgage payment? Where was the audition? Change the furnace filter? Take the garbage cans to the street? Every single week? Mow the lawn? What’s the fertilizer schedule? Work THEN go grocery shopping AND cooking it for dinner? Switching the wash to the dry AND THEN FOLDING IT? Forgetaboutit. My mailman threatened to return all two months worth of mail I let sit in my box if I didn’t up my game and promise to check it at least once a week. Oops! I can’t do hardly any of it, so I have this really solid pretend-like-I’m-asleep approach to grown up things. I need one of those I’d Rather Be Shopping (or Crafting!) license plate covers.
What hats are least known about you?
Like so many, the squares that tell the story of my life on the internet are so selectively representative of my real life. Corporate Aubry rules so many of the hours of my day, but I’m so protective of it (or protective of myself!) in order to keep the boundaries in place while working for a publicly traded company. But in truth, I work for the largest engineering firm in the world - I’m one of 100,000! - doing public relations for the engineers who design roads and bridges for the Department of Transportation and local governments across the state AND I LOVE MY JOB! All caps LOVE! People don’t usually reach out when they’re really happy about their roads, so I hear from a lot of road raged people, mostly. :) I’m also privy to so many high profile dealings and involved in such fundamentally influential things that affect everyone in the state (roads! infrastructure! tax money!), so much of my job satisfaction comes from being a shape-shifter and educating the public about the intricacies and details of the road building process. I could talk about my job for seven hours… I’ll accept appointments from anyone who wants to listen!
Who or what inspires you?
I’m inspired by color! Every color! Color organized neatly! It’s such a happy thing and can bring such a vibrance to life! On the flip side, I’m also inspired by silence. It’s such a rarity in this noisy 2016 world - I try to take drive to or from work without the radio, phone, passengers, etc. once a week so I can stew in my own thoughts and sort them out into even the smallest slices of clarity!
