ABOUT

It all started when during my childhood, my grandmother gave me a case filled with embroidery floss that had belonged to my great grandmother. I mostly made friendship bracelets with its contents, but by my teen years I was creating my own patterns on graph paper. What was once a hobby quickly became something people requested for their friends, family, or themselves.

I had seen an uptick in “crass cross stitches” over the years as others began to modify their grandmother’s patterns by throwing provocative sayings or lyrics into the mix, but I saw there was a void in the market. I wanted to show that cross stitch could be modern and embrace my love of music and tattoos with my designs. Thus, 9xTWOx5 was born.

I’m Tiffany White (she/her), the creative mind behind 9xTWOx5. I have always been crafty and eco-conscious, raiding the recycling bin for some new project from a very early age. My parents nurtured my passion by enrolling me in various workshops such as leather stamping, drawing classes and cartooning, to purchasing supplies like paint-by-number oil paintings, woodworking supplies and even a dollhouse kit.

In high school I took numerous creative classes where I was able to learn how to fire clay, make stain glass art, silkscreen, how to use CAD and basic HTML, and I took photography. I didn’t see eye to eye with the senior art teacher at my high school so I did co-op instead, where I was able to land a placement at a tattoo shop for one semester, and assisted an art teacher at another high school for the other.

I graduated high school at 17 and took a year off to work a small handful of jobs, most notable being a travel sports action photographer. The following September I went to cosmetology school and became a licensed hairstylist, where I excelled at colour and received colour technician certification, won first place for the Spring Fantasy competition, and competed in the 2006 Hairapalooza competition hosted by Schwarzkopf. I competed in the 2007 Hairapalooza after graduating, where I came in the top 6, received more than one job offer from other salons that evening and was photographed and published in the local newspaper despite having not placed. While in school I began volunteering and have done hair at the local Women’s Shelter, a local high school for cuts for cancer funraiser, local musical productions of West Side Story and The Wizard of Oz, and I went on to do some editorial work for models as well.

A few years into my career I met my recently estranged husband Atom online and moved to Sarnia, Ontario to be together. We were married on Halloween, and have three children together; Pinxit (2009), Atticus (2014) and Leif (2018) whom I‘ve chosen to homeschool until they request to attend school, or by middle school.

Our whole family has been vegetarian since Earth Day 2016 (though I went vegetarian in my mid teens, I took a break for about 5 years a couple years after marriage). We participate in marches and protests for human rights and the environment, and I’m a self-proclaimed “craftivist”. We have three dogs; Fenway (Boston Terrier), Violet (Chihuahua), and Rizzo (Cane Corso), and three cats (Dinah, Tigerlily and Thackery Binx). I’m a big fan of Disney, Star Wars and Marvel, anything retro or nostalgic, camping, and have a pretty decent Funko Pop collection. Lover of one hit wonders, puns, elephants, owls, and the colour pink. I am bisexual, have an INFJ personality type, a decent number of tattoos and piercings, and have been straight edge since 2004.