I am Natalie, creator and founder of Free to Be Boutique.
More than that I like to think of myself as a woman of the world. A passionate creator, a woman who feels most empowered among the mountains and the trees.
I don't see myself being from a place, though I was born, raised, and grew up in Georgia. I now find myself falling in love with the idea of Colorado being my home base after nearly three years.
Being grateful to have traveled the world and experience being the foreigner in other countries, I have a deep respect for how we play such a small role in this world while all the same we're all connected in this special way that can go unnoticed.
I have a non-traditional career background. It's been one of bouncing around as a waitress and bartender (where I met my husband), to once a girl who hated math to becoming one with a title of "Staff Accountant", to working in tons of customer facing roles, and as of October 2021, taking on a Marketing Manager role for an IT company who asked me what I wanted to do, I told them, and they've let me just run with it. All of this sans degree.
Fun fact: I was also a personal stylist for a few years. It was a turning point where I realized that even if I couldn't afford the pieces I put together for other women in my early 20s, that I had a creative eye and style. It would just take me years to put that together for myself.
Taking 18 months of extended travel around the world without ever being a career-oriented human, I've definitely followed the beat of my own heart.
When people ask me "what I do", I try to shy away from answering with a profession because for me - my profession and my career have never been "what I do". It's simply been a piece in the puzzle and a key to getting to each step of life that I wanted to get to. It's a hard thing to express in the American culture of hustle hard, grind harder, but I can assure you that the way we do work here is unlike the way they do it in much of the rest of the world and I've always preferred the latter.
Time is precious and to be able to choose what I do with my time translates to me as being free to be. That aspect of life is greatly important to me and it's something I chase to attain: the act of one day dedicating all of my time to what I choose.
I hope that if anything through this boutique I can inspire you with the ultimate message which is this: be comfortable with who you are, no matter how hard that simple sounding act can be. Stand strong for what you believe in and don't ever let your dreams be just that. Chase what makes you feel alive, no matter what stands in your way. Don't ever give up. You will fail time and time over again, but what would the journey be without falling just to get yourself back up to run full force ahead?
You are beautiful from within and what shines from within you is what makes you beautiful on the outside. Clothing and accessories are simply the accessory to making you feel good when you walk in your every day life. Because you deserve to feel awesome and confident in what you choose to put on and how you choose to rock your style yourself.
Be strong. Be brave. Do you. The rest will fall into play.
XOXO, Natalie