{"id":37027,"date":"2025-09-22T17:23:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T17:23:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/37027\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T17:23:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T17:23:15","slug":"northland-sisters-stripey-caterpillar-venture-celebrates-dahlias-and-butterflies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/37027\/","title":{"rendered":"Northland sisters\u2019 Stripey Caterpillar venture celebrates dahlias and butterflies"},"content":{"rendered":"

The girls\u2019 work is also printed on greeting cards and mugs. <\/p>\n

Their mum Jennifer Ives said:\u201cThey\u2019ve gone through a huge learning journey. <\/p>\n

\u201cEvery aspect of it, marketing, branding the website. … what they\u2019ve produced is amazing. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact they\u2019re both doing it and supporting each other is really nice to see.\u201d <\/p>\n

Milly\u2019s creations won her a top prize at the Young Enterprise Scheme (YES) Trade Fair at the Old Packhouse Market in Kerikeri on August 16. <\/p>\n

This year\u2019s fair saw teams from 18 Northland schools showcase their business ideas, from jewellery and kids cookbooks to BBQ rubs, and bath bombs. <\/p>\n

\"Gracie-Mae'sGracie-Mae’s photographs include a variety of colourful dahlia flower heads.<\/p>\n

Milly entered the Stripey Caterpillar concept and won Best Trade Fair Presence Award, which celebrated stall presentation, promotional materials, customer engagement, and overall impression made on the judges. <\/p>\n

She was also chuffed at being the youngest and only home-schooled student there. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was pretty happy with that because there were just under 80 stalls there and all of them were older than me,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a very big stall, full of colours and textures which was really attractive to people.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Dahlia Kids\u201d, Milly and Gracie-Mae featured in the Northern Advocate in 2021 after starting a business growing and selling dahlias<\/a> from their lifestyle block on the outskirts of Kaikohe. <\/p>\n

The property, called the Green Footed Kiwi, hosted dahlia pick-your-own experiences and was run with help from their mum and youngest sister Lexi-Rose. <\/p>\n

Since then, the girls have had success breeding dahlias and have won several trophies at the National Dahlia Show. <\/p>\n

That includes the Northl Island show in Hamilton in February 2024 where they won best cactus dahlia. <\/p>\n

\"MillyMilly and Gracie-Mae with a variety of their nature-inspired artworks and photo prints. Photo \/ Jenny Ling<\/p>\n

While they have put their dahlia-growing business on hold for now, the sisters are selling their nature-inspired products at the Kerikeri Packhouse Market, and the monthly Saturday market in Pakaraka. <\/p>\n

Milly said her $250 cash prize from the trade fair will go towards her new goal, to create a \u201cbutterfly house\u201d. <\/p>\n

This will be a large enclosed area where she plans to grow dahlias and other \u2018butterfly-friendly\u2019 plants like swan plants, echinacea and daisy flowers. <\/p>\n

The butterfly house will be used for conservation and education purposes, with people being able to experience and release monarch butterflies. <\/p>\n

Ives praised her daughters\u2019 positive attitudes. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s their attitude that makes a difference. It\u2019s their enthusiasm for it. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re learning the value of money and the value of hard work.\u201d <\/p>\n

Jenny Ling is a senior journalist at the Northern Advocate. She has a special interest in covering human interest stories, along with finance, roading, and social issues. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The girls\u2019 work is also printed on greeting cards and mugs. Their mum Jennifer Ives said:\u201cThey\u2019ve gone through…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[95,16202,2046,31861,34216,9632,34219,33118,34217,34218,2061,111,43,139,1067,69,13792,31472,384,24809,34215,12806,102],"class_list":["post-37027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-and","tag-butterflies","tag-career","tag-carving","tag-caterpillar","tag-celebrates","tag-connecting","tag-creative","tag-dahlias","tag-flourishing","tag-nature","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-northland","tag-nz","tag-pair","tag-path","tag-people","tag-sisters","tag-stripey","tag-venture","tag-with"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}