Welcome to our place

We’re Lisa and Naomi — two sisters and lifelong collaborators. At heart, we’re storytellers. Some stories become novels and quiet pages of writing. Others become colour, illustration, photography, and design. Together they make the world you’ve stepped into.

Every chapter of what we do began with us — two sisters creating side by side, building stories, drawings, and ideas from the time we were children. Our “story of us,” which you’ll find here, is the thread that runs through everything: how our shared love of making became both The Lonely Creative and Willow Lane.

The Lonely Creative is where our stories live as words — books, characters, and the slow craft of writing. Willow Lane is where our stories live as images — notebooks and paper goods, paintings and prints, small pieces of colour and texture.

This site is a home for both halves: the words and the imagery, the making and the meaning. We hope you feel the friendship behind it — the years of working side by side, passing ideas back and forth, building a life of making.

To be a part of The Lonely Creative and Willow Lane is to be a part of us — our friendship, our story of working together, and the joy we find in creating and making together.

Wander as you like. Read a page, peek into the studio, linger over a picture, discover a small thing that feels like yours. We’re glad you’re here.

How it all began

We’ve been creating together for as long as we can remember — games, stories, crafts, anything our imaginations could turn into an adventure. From the very beginning, Lisa was the one setting the scene, and Naomi, ever the gentle soul, went along with every idea — happy to see where it might lead.

That rhythm never really changed. Professionally, we’ve been creating side by side for more than twenty-five years — through art, illustration, graphic design, and writing — still with Lisa dreaming up new things, and Naomi quietly bringing them to life.

It truly began with a fantasy novel, when Lisa handed Naomi a draft and asked, “What do you think?” Naomi loved it so much that she became its number-one fan — and, with her then-budding design skills, created the cover art for it and for many books that followed. When those books were later picked up by a traditional publisher, Lisa insisted Naomi continue to design the covers.

We loved working together so much that we began to branch out. Around that time, Lisa was exploring watercolour and gouache, and our notebook range — Willow Lane — was born. Since then, we’ve grown into cards, prints, stationery, gifts, and even colouring books under The 5-Minute Colouring Book Series.

What began as one story has grown into many — all connected by our love of making, and the quiet joy of doing it together.