When Kate Greenwood started making jewellery, she had no idea how much it would transform her life

You know what they say about country halls. These simple buildings are the hub of the community. People make friends there. Sometimes they even meet their life partners there. A lot of networking happens, too — anything can happen at a country hall.

The Nashdale hall, on the outskirts of Orange in central western New South Wales, plays an important part in this story. For it was here, just over 10 years ago, that Kate Greenwood realised she might be onto something.

“I had been experimenting with making earrings and a friend asked me to come along to help at the Christmas market at the hall,” she tells me as we talk in the studio at her home, overlooking Molong, a picturesque town just a 30 minute drive from Orange. “I made 100 pairs of earrings and thought I would never sell them.”

But she sold 70 pairs in just three hours. Her simple, colourful earrings were a hit; Kate was hooked and Greenwood Designs was born. “It gave me the confidence to keep going,” she says, and the business took off quickly.

“I was still working at the time. I could barely keep up with the orders.” Her two children, Jack, now 16, and Olivia, 14, were also very young. But almost overnight, Kate was dealing with requests from shops that wanted to stock her designs.

“I was literally working around the clock and it was a big learning curve; I suddenly had to work out my costs,” she says. Clearly, the days of making earrings on the kitchen table and baking the polymer clay in her home oven were numbered.

After 18 months, Kate made the decision to resign from her job to concentrate on Greenwood Designs full time. Her husband, Gus, who is the general manager at agricultural supplier Ace Ohlsson, was her number one supporter.

“He planted the seed. He said to me, ‘Why don’t you give this a go?’ I still wasn’t sure it was financially viable, and his answer was, ‘Well, you won’t know unless you try.’ So I quit my job, and that was very scary,” she explains.

But as terrifying as taking that leap into the unknown was, for Kate it was also very exciting. “I knew that it was probably the right time for me. I had worked very hard in my job so I thought I could work that hard for myself. What is the worst that can happen? If it’s an absolute flop, I’ll just have to find another job.”

Proving you can run a fashion accessories business from a small country town like Molong was important to this 45-year-old, who grew up on a farm at Narromine in the Orana region of New South Wales. She thinks having a regional base has been an advantage for Greenwood Designs.

“Buy From The Bush was particularly pivotal for me. Grace Brennan and the team did an amazing job of showcasing regional businesses and putting us on a platform that we’ve never been on before,” she says. “And I’ve always lived regionally. I think that the community side of things out here is just so important,” says Kate.

Another milestone was an order from the accessories buyer at the Cooma-based and online business Birdsnest. “I can still remember the day the enquiry came through from the website,” exclaims Kate, who now has 70 stockists around Australia.

Community and supporting others are threads running throughout our conversation. Kate didn’t want this story to be just about her: she wanted to talk about Molong, the vibrant little town surrounded by picturesque hills that she has called home since 2007.

“I love the connections that I’ve made with other business owners in town. It’s been an important part of my business. You can feel quite isolated at times,” she says. “We bounce ideas off one another. Like Kate and Sally at Lime and Stone and Robbie, who owns Molong Stores.”

Greenwood Designs now has a dedicated space at Lime and Stone, something Kate is very excited about, and her friend Robbie Carroll’s store is just up the street.

He echoes her words about the town. “I moved here in 2020 and I’ve never experienced such a community of supporters. Molong has completely embraced me. It’s so lovely to be a part of it and Kate has been one of my biggest supporters,” he says.

So community is key to success — happiness — but what words of advice does this determined woman have for others? “There are two little catchcries I use and one is from Birdsnest’s Jane Cay. She always says, ‘If in doubt, be generous’. I think that is such a good way to run your business,” Kate says. “And I love Grace Brennan’s mantra: ‘progress over perfection’. That’s another one I keep telling myself.”