Tell Me Over Tea

Sarah’s photo
Show Notes
Episode 26 Sarah Stamm from Salisbury and Maude: On Creativity, Courage and Making Things That Matter
From a childhood surrounded by wool and fabric to a celebrated handmade brand in regional Victoria — this is Sarah's story.

Today on Tell Me Over Tea I am sitting down with the lovely Sarah Stamm — the founder and creative director of Salisbury and Maude, a beautiful Australian brand known for its handcrafted artworks, botanical wreaths, quilts, knitting and fine art prints.
I found Sarah the way I find most good things — over on Instagram, where all the lovely creators are. And if you haven’t been over to have a look at her work yet, I want you to go the moment this episode is done, because it really is just so gorgeous.
What drew me to Sarah wasn’t just the beauty of what she makes — though it truly is stunning. It’s the way she makes it. Everything is bespoke. Every piece is released exclusively through Instagram and Facebook. She doesn’t have a website. She doesn’t take custom orders. There’s a quietness and an intention to the way Sarah works that feels very much at home here on Tell Me Over Tea.
Sarah grew up the youngest of four children in Albury, with a mother who could spin, knit, weave and draw — a woman who made something beautiful out of whatever she had, always with joy, never as a chore. That love of making was woven into Sarah early, and it never left her.
After more than 25 years in the world of interiors — from Westfield shop fits to magnificent old farmhouses across regional Victoria and New South Wales — something called Sarah back to making things with her own hands. Back to fabric. Back to craft. Back to the slower, more deliberate work of creating something from nothing.
And Salisbury and Maude was born — right there in the beautiful little town of Beechworth, where it still lives today.
In this episode we go right back to the beginning — to the little girl who painted everything she could get her hands on, to the teacher who let her borrow a Brett Whiteley book from her private library, to the sliding door moment that brought Sarah to Melbourne instead of Perth, and to the day she looked around at a room full of inherited fabric and decided to make her very first quilt.
We also talk about the nine weeks she and her husband spent camping across Europe in 2024 — no plan, 8,000 kilometres, and a boot full of the most beautiful, sourced fabrics. And we talk about what it means to make something by hand and stitch a little of yourself into every single piece.
This is such a warm and wonderful conversation. I think you’re going to love Sarah.
Sarah’s photo
A little something from this episode to take with you...
“I looked at what I had — not what I didn’t have. And what I had was fabric.”
And this, about her quilts:
“When you’re feeling lonely or missing home — just wrap yourself in your quilt, and I’ll be close.”
Sarah’s photo

Where to find Sarah:
Instagram & Facebook: @salisburyandmaude(This is the only place you’ll find her — and it’s well worth the visit)
If you enjoyed this episode, follow Tell Me Over Tea wherever you listen, and if you feel inclined, leave a little review — it helps more story-lovers find their way here:)
Kim x

Where to find me:
✨I write, on Substack, a weekly newsletter, you can subscribe to that here: Betty Mae Wrote newsletter. It’s the space where I share stories (both mine and other people’s) and it’s also a way of keeping up to date with all things Betty Mae Wrote, Little Life Stories, Lovely Letters and the podcast.
✨To find out more about my memory writing program, Little Life Stories you can do that here: Little Life Stories
✨I’ve created a simple and beautiful starting point for your own storytelling: The Five Minute Memory List.It’s a short, exercise (a cuppa’s worth), to help you gather memories and begin. It’s fun and easy peasey and it’s something you can use in your letter writing, journaling and personal life writing. You can grab that by subscribing to my newsletter (you’ll find it in the welcome letter one you’ve signed up): here
✨The Tea + Toast Letter Club! A little moment to pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy spot, and enjoy a letter (and some other goodies) in the mail every month. You can read more about it here. Oh, and from July on, there will be an extra special little gift waiting for one lucky duck subscriber. A ‘golden ticket’ will be tucked inside one envelope. Who will July’s ticket finder be?
✨If you’d like to get back into the gorgeous slow soothe of letter writing, please know you are always welcome to join: The Lovely Letters Project (it’s free!)
✨Or if you simply need a good old sticky beak around the place, please head on over here to the website: www.bettymaewrote.com
✨Oh and if you’re an Instagram type, be sure to follow me on Instagram: @bettymaewrote

Written and hosted by Kim, founder of Betty Mae Wrote — a slow-living space for letter writing, memory keeping, and everyday storytelling, from a tin cottage on the Far South Coast of NSW.
Music: Kim on the uke;) Rattling teacups – also KimProduction and Editing: Surprise, surprise, guess who? Yep! Kim again!
Art by Lewis Dillon (thanks, Lew!)



This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bettymaewrote.substack.com

Show Notes
Episode 25: Kitchen Table Letters: Windy Harbour, Grandparents & The Cosy Places From Childhood
Two letters, one thread — the places that never leave us

In today’s episode, I’m sharing two letters from the Kitchen Table Letters series — my project inviting women to answer reflective questions the old-fashioned way, with pen, paper, and a stamp.
This episode’s theme is place, and by beautiful coincidence, both letters lead us to the same tender ground: memories of grandparents.
First, we hear from Denise, (you can find Denise on Instagram), who takes us to Windy Harbour — her grandparents’ holiday house and a place that has been a constant in her life since childhood, still treasured by her and her own family today.
Then, we hear from Kym, (Kym also has a substack), who shares the magic of her childhood holidays spent at her grandparents’ house.
Grab a cuppa and settle in for a cosy one.
Want to send me a Kitchen Table Letter?Email me at kim@bettymaewrote.com to let me know you’d like to take part, and I’ll send you the questions and all the details.
Want a pen pal?Join The Lovely Letters Project, my free snail mail exchange — details are here over oin the website. My mission is to keep letters and storytelling alive and well, and I’d love for you to be part of it.
If you enjoyed this episode, follow Tell Me Over Tea wherever you listen, and if you feel inclined, leave a little review — it helps more story-lovers find their way here:)
Kim x

Where to find me:
✨I write, on Substack, a weekly newsletter, you can subscribe to that here: Betty Mae Wrote newsletter. It’s the space where I share stories (both mine and other people’s) and it’s also a way of keeping up to date with all things Betty Mae Wrote, Little Life Stories, Lovely Letters and the podcast.
✨To find out more about my memory writing program, Little Life Stories you can do that here: Little Life Stories
✨I’ve created a simple and beautiful starting point for your own storytelling: The Five Minute Memory List.It’s a short, exercise (a cuppa’s worth), to help you gather memories and begin. It’s fun and easy peasey and it’s something you can use in your letter writing, journaling and personal life writing. You can grab that by subscribing to my newsletter (you’ll find it in the welcome letter one you’ve signed up): here
✨The Tea + Toast Letter Club! A little moment to pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy spot, and enjoy a letter (and some other goodies) in the mail every month. You can read more about it here. Oh, and from July on, there will be an extra special little gift waiting for one lucky duck subscriber. A ‘golden ticket’ will be tucked inside one envelope. Who will July’s ticket finder be?
✨If you’d like to get back into the gorgeous slow soothe of letter writing, please know you are always welcome to join: The Lovely Letters Project (it’s free!)
✨Or if you simply need a good old sticky beak around the place, please head on over here to the website: www.bettymaewrote.com
✨Oh and if you’re an Instagram type, be sure to follow me on Instagram: @bettymaewrote

Written and hosted by Kim, founder of Betty Mae Wrote — a slow-living space for letter writing, memory keeping, and everyday storytelling, from a tin cottage on the Far South Coast of NSW.
Music: Kim on the uke;) Rattling teacups – also KimProduction and Editing: Surprise, surprise, guess who? Yep! Kim again!
Art by Lewis Dillon (thanks, Lew!)



This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bettymaewrote.substack.com

Show Notes
Episode 24: Tess Lehman’s Story - Never Going Back in the Box
On coming out, starting over, and learning to be exactly who you are

(Trigger warning: this episode contains some swearing. Just so you know what you’re in for — but I promise it’s worth it.)
Today I am joined by a woman I found the way I find most good things — scrolling Instagram at some point when I should have been doing something else.
Tess Lehman is a photographer based in Newcastle, and her Instagram bio reads: Photos that feel like home. Rebellion and magic. Not your average. And honestly, right there tells you everything you need to know about Tess.
She is as real and raw and as down to earth as they come. No bells and whistles. No performance. Just a woman with a big life and a beautiful, honest way of talking about it.
What a life it has been.
Tess grew up in a big, loud, blustery family on the edge of Inverell in northern New South Wales — one of seven kids, a voracious reader who hid in treehouses with her books so nobody could take them off her, a kid who threw down with her teachers (and won), and a teenager who, at eighteen, packed herself into a Subaru with her best mate and drove to Alice Springs because she knew if she didn’t leave, she never would.
From Alice Springs to the mines of northern WA. From Perth to Indonesia to Canada. Selling cars, working bars, laying 90 square metres of turf with three small children watching from the deck.
And then, at 33, painting a wall alone at 2 or 3 in the morning, she had a moment. A quiet, enormous, life-changing moment.
In this episode, Tess talks about coming out as queer in her 30s, and what it felt like to finally give herself permission to be the person she actually was. She talks about her ADHD diagnosis, and the strange grief of realising that the things you thought were just your personality — both the good bits and the hard bits — were something else entirely. She talks about her photography, and the transformation she witnesses when she turns the lens on women and reflects back to them a version of themselves they’ve never been allowed to see before.
And she talks about her precious sister. Her shining, hilarious, enormous-hearted sister, who saw Tess more clearly than almost anyone, and who died — and how you learn to live with that kind of missing.
This is a big, beautiful, honest episode. I think …. wait … I know ….. you’re going to love Tess as much as I do.
A little something from this episode to take with you...
“I am never going back in that box. I’m never going to be quiet. I’m never going to stop saying the things that are true for me.” Tess Lehman
Where to find Tess:
Instagram: @tessdoes_ and @wishmymothertoldme
The Podcast: Wish My Mother Told Me
Photography Bookings: www.tessdoes.com
If you enjoyed this episode, follow Tell Me Over Tea wherever you listen, and if you feel inclined, leave a little review — it helps more story-lovers find their way here:)
Kim x

Where to find me:
✨I write, on Substack, a weekly newsletter, you can subscribe to that here: Betty Mae Wrote newsletter. It’s the space where I share stories (both mine and other people’s) and it’s also a way of keeping up to date with all things Betty Mae Wrote, Little Life Stories, Lovely Letters and the podcast.
✨To find out more about my writing program, Little Life Stories you can do that here: Little Life Stories
✨I’ve created a simple and beautiful starting point for your own storytelling: The Five Minute Memory List.It’s a short, exercise (a cuppa’s worth), to help you gather memories and begin. It’s fun and easy peasey and it’s something you can use in your letter writing, journaling and personal life writing. You can grab that by subscribing to my newsletter (you’ll find it in the welcome letter one you’ve signed up): here
✨The Tea + Toast Letter Club! A little moment to pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy spot, and enjoy a letter (and some other goodies) in the mail every month. You can read more about it here. Oh, and from July on, there will be an extra special little gift waiting for one lucky duck subscriber. A ‘golden ticket’ will be tucked inside one envelope. Who will July’s ticket finder be?
✨If you’d like to get back into the gorgeous slow soothe of letter writing, please know you are always welcome to join: The Lovely Letters Project (it’s free!)
✨Or if you simply need a good old sticky beak around the place, please head on over here to the website: www.bettymaewrote.com
✨Oh and if you’re an Instagram type, be sure to follow me on Instagram: @bettymaewrote

Music: Kim on the uke;) Rattling teacups – also KimProduction and Editing: Surprise, surprise, guess who? Yep! Kim again!
Art by Lewis Dillon (thanks, Lew!)



This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bettymaewrote.substack.com

Show Notes
Episode 23: The Kitchen Table Letters — Nadine’s Letter

Today is a very special episode of Tell Me Over Tea, because today the Kitchen Table Letters begins.
If you’ve been following along, you’ll know I’ve been talking about this for a little while now — an invitation for you, my listeners, to write me a letter. An actual, old fashioned, hand written, snail mail letter. And I’ll choose some to read here on the podcast.
Because stories connect us. And the stories of our lives — the small ones, the quiet ones, the ones we think nobody wants to hear — are all that we leave behind. And having them written down somewhere is one of the most precious gifts we can give to the people who come after us.
The very first letter comes from Nadine @rust_emporium, and it is a beautiful one to open this series with.
Nadine writes about her mum being handed a bundle of letters — written by her great grandmother Lottie, who lived in Brisbane, to her grandmother Jane, who lived in Oxfordshire — spanning twenty odd years in the late 1880s. Written in copperplate on tissue thin paper, folded into tiny handmade envelopes that would fit in the palm of your hand. Two women who never once met in person, but who treasured each other across vast oceans through the written word alone.
And Nadine asks the most beautiful question: what will my descendants think of me?
She also shares a quieter, deeply personal story — the day she stepped into a pine forest in Victoria to gather pine cones for her shop window, and how the hush of those trees stopped her completely in her tracks and changed her life.
This is an episode about letters and what they carry. About the forest and what it teaches. About slowing down before the world forces you to. And about the small, fleeting, everyday moments.
A little reminder from this episode…
They never met in person, Lottie and Jane.But they both treasured those pieces of paper until the day they died.And so did every daughter and cousin who came after them.
No one is ever disappointed to find letters. Never ever never!
Would you like to be part of the Kitchen Table Letters?
I would love to read your letter on the podcast. All you need to do is get in touch via the email address in the show notes and I’ll send you a list of prompts to choose from. Write your response by hand, pop it in the post to my address, and your letter might just be read aloud right here on Tell Me Over Tea.
You just need to be comfortable with me sharing bits and pieces — on the podcast, in my newsletter, or over on Instagram. If you’d prefer to keep some things private, just let me know and we’ll sort it out.
If you enjoyed this episode, follow Tell Me Over Tea wherever you listen, and if you feel inclined, leave a little review — it helps more story-lovers find their way here 🙂
Kim x

Where to find me:
✨I write, on Substack, a weekly newsletter, you can subscribe to that here: Betty Mae Wrote newsletter. It’s the space where I share stories (both mine and other people’s) and it’s also a way of keeping up to date with all things Betty Mae Wrote, Little Life Stories, Lovely Letters and the podcast.
✨To find out more about my writing membership, Little Life Stories you can do that here: Little Life Stories
✨I’ve created a simple and beautiful starting point for your own storytelling: The Five Minute Memory List.It’s a short, exercise (a cuppa’s worth), to help you gather memories and begin. It’s fun and easy peasey and it’s something you can use in your letter writing, journaling and personal life writing. You can grab that by subscribing to my newsletter (you’ll find it in the welcome letter one you’ve signed up): here
✨The Tea + Toast Letter Club! A little moment to pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy spot, and enjoy a letter (and some other goodies) in the mail every month. You can read more about it here. Oh, and from July on, there will be an extra special little gift waiting for one lucky duck subscriber. A ‘golden ticket’ will be tucked inside one envelope. Who will July’s ticket finder be?
✨If you’d like to get back into the gorgeous slow soothe of letter writing, please know you are always welcome to join: The Lovely Letters Project (it’s free!)
✨Or if you simply need a good old sticky beak around the place, please head on over here to the website: www.bettymaewrote.com
✨Oh and if you’re an Instagram type, be sure to follow me on Instagram: @bettymaewrote

Music: Kim on the uke;) Rattling teacups – also KimProduction and Editing: Surprise, surprise, guess who? Yep! Kim again!
Art by Lewis Dillon (thanks, Lew!)



This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bettymaewrote.substack.com

Show Notes
Episode 22: Thea - A Portrait of my Mum

In this solo episode of Tell Me Over Tea, I give my mum, Thea, a little bit of the limelight she so richly deserves — and would almost certainly have hidden from if she were here.
Following on from Episode 21, where I shared a letter to my Nan about the grief of losing five of her six children, I felt the pull to tell you more about the first of those children to leave us. My mum. The woman who shaped me more than anyone else in the world, in both her life and in her death.
In this episode I wander back through her story — from Manly Hospital in 1954, through a Northern Beaches childhood full of siblings, Sunday school, Bob Dylan and that long, silky brown hair, right through to the weatherboard cottage on 105 acres in Bargo where she finally found the slow, earthy, rooted life she had always craved.
Along the way you’ll hear about:
* The hippie teenager who became a mother at 18 and never looked back
* A Jersey cow named Blossom who was anything but angelic at milking time
* Homemade bread, chocolate cake, and the most expensive milk in the Bega Valley
* A rooster incident I will not forget
* The mum who actually looked forward to school holidays
* And the quiet, powerful way she showed us, every single day, that the simple things were everything
This one is full of love, laughter, nostalgia and a few tears. So, pour yourself something warm, find a comfy spot, and come and meet my mum.
Part two — her cancer, her dying, and the rest of her story — is coming in the next episode.
A little reminder from this episode…
She never put a name to it.She didn’t talk, talk, talk.She just did.
But looking back now I can see so clearly what my mum was doing — living intentionally, choosing presence over things, building a home that felt safe and warm and full, no matter how humble its innards were.
She was showing us every single day that homemade bread and a garden and a mum who wanted to be with you — that those things were everything.
And they were.
Something to do after you listen…
This episode is an invitation to write about your own mum — or a motherly figure who shaped you. You don’t have to write the whole story. Start with one small memory. The smell of her kitchen. Something she always said. The way she laughed.
Those small details are the ones that matter most, and they are the ones most at risk of being lost.
Pick up your pen this week. Write it down. Pleasey.
If you enjoyed this episode, follow Tell Me Over Tea wherever you listen — and if you feel inclined, leave a little review. It helps more story-lovers find their way here.
Kim x

Where to find me:
✨I write, on Substack, a weekly newsletter, you can subscribe to that here: Betty Mae Wrote newsletter. It’s the space where I share stories (both mine and other people’s) and it’s also a way of keeping up to date with all things Betty Mae Wrote, Little Life Stories, Lovely Letters and the podcast.
✨To find out more about my writing membership, Little Life Stories you can do that here: Little Life Stories
✨I’ve created a simple and beautiful starting point for your own storytelling: The Five Minute Memory List.It’s a short, exercise (a cuppa’s worth), to help you gather memories and begin. It’s fun and easy peasey and it’s something you can use in your letter writing, journaling and personal life writing. You can grab that by subscribing to my newsletter (you’ll find it in the welcome letter one you’ve signed up): here
✨The Tea + Toast Letter Club! A little moment to pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy spot, and enjoy a letter (and some other goodies) in the mail every month. You can read more about it here.
✨If you’d like to get back into the gorgeous slow soothe of letter writing, please know you are always welcome to join: The Lovely Letters Project (it’s free!)
✨Or if you simply need a good old sticky beak around the place, please head on over here to the website: www.bettymaewrote.com
✨Oh and if you’re an Instagram type, be sure to follow me on Instagram: @bettymaewrote

Music: Kim on the uke;) Rattling teacups – also KimProduction and Editing: Surprise, surprise, guess who? Yep! Kim again!
Art by Lewis Dillon (thanks, Lew!)



This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bettymaewrote.substack.com