As a teenager, Alice Arndell could be found painstakingly hand-painting stencils onto her bedroom walls, revelling in her favourite school subject – home economics – and baking up a storm in her parents’ kitchen.
Her creativity has played a key role in her life since, leading to a stint on TV in series three of Chelsea New Zealand’s Hottest Home Baker, a highly acclaimed cookbook, Alice in Bakingland, and now in her new role as Craft Editor of the Weekly.
But it’s the time her love of baking and crafting helped her through a serious bout of postnatal depression that she’s most grateful for, when Alice said she found herself “falling down the rabbit hole”.
Alice enjoyed a fairytale romance with her naval officer husband Shane.
Alice, who hails from Opotiki, gave birth to daughter Isobel, now four-and-a-half, after a fairytale romance with her naval officer husband Shane.
After lamenting to a work colleague how difficult it was to find a decent man, the friend gave Alice her son’s email address, who lived overseas at the time, and the two began a long-distance romance.
“When you meet the right person, you just know,” Alice says smiling. “Plus I’d already been vetted by the mother-in-law so never had to go through any awkward first meetings!”
But after the loving couple married and decided it was time to start a family, things failed to go to plan.
“I was unwell right from the start and developed further health problems throughout the pregnancy,” says Alice.
“It didn’t help that I was made redundant from my job at the 20-week mark, while Shane took command of his first ship and spent most of my pregnancy at sea – where he would also be for much of Isobel’s first year.”
Alice loves bonding with Isobel over baking.
When Isobel was born, Alice fell in love with her little girl, but after such a difficult pregnancy, she became more and more exhausted as sleep deprivation took its toll.
“I think I knew I had postnatal depression from the 10-month mark,” she admits.
“I felt like I should be able to cope. I’d worked in a variety of jobs for years and always received positive feedback. But the only feedback I was getting was an endlessly upset baby. It seemed like she was constantly crying for the first seven months and I felt out of control.”
When Isobel was 14 months old, it only got worse, rather than easier. “I remember one day, she just didn’t stop crying. I threw my hands in the air and walked away from her and hid in our bedroom. Shane came looking for me and said, ‘Alice, she won’t stop crying because all she wants is you. You’re her world.’ And I wailed, ‘But I don’t want to be her world!'”
It was that week Alice read an article about a woman suffering from postnatal depression and thought, “This is me.” She made an appointment with her doctor – something she describes as one of the most challenging things she’s ever done.
“To get the courage to say, ‘I’m not coping’ was difficult. I burst into tears straightaway. But my doctor was just fantastic – she’d been through it herself. I went home and could finally tell my husband what was wrong.”
For Alice, beating postnatal depression was through better sleep, medication and returning to baking and crafts.
“When I was in the throes of darkness, craft gave me a quiet sense of achievement and was a great help,” she reveals.
Alice says baking helped her through postnatal depression.
“I could bake a cake, a batch of muffins or make artwork and yay, it would work! I’d felt like a failure – it probably sounds strange, but it gave me a real boost to achieve something. Those little boosts got me back on track and helped me slowly build up strength.”
Now Alice hopes to continue her crafty work and become New Zealand’s version of lifestyle guru Martha Stewart – although she’s sure her bachelor’s degree in criminology will keep her out of trouble in the meantime!
“It’s come in handy, especially helping me spot shoplifters at the bookstore where I used to work, but now I can’t read crime novels because I pick whodunit in the first couple of chapters!”
And, of course, Alice will be a regular feature in the Weekly as she helps us to make simple and stylish home projects.
“My column is all about DIY,” she says, “beautiful items you can make for your home or gifts you can create when you get a quiet moment. It’s all stuff that’s easy, fun and I’m sure we’ll enjoy making together.”
