Natalie May was 37 when she walked into a doctor’s office in 2017 expecting reassurance. Instead, she heard the words “ovarian cancer.” A fit, healthy mother, she had noticed changes in her menstrual cycle and went for testing. A large ovarian cyst was found. Surgery followed, and then pathology confirmed the diagnosis.
“I think I spent the rest of the appointment in a daze, waiting for the doctor to say ‘but it’s all going to be OK’ or ‘just kidding’ but he never did,” she recalls.
Her treatment included a radical abdominal hysterectomy and appendectomy, followed by six months of chemotherapy. She credits her family, friends, and the crafting community for helping her through it. As soon as treatment ended, she went back to teaching papercraft — a passion she’d developed two decades earlier after working at a papercraft shop in Adelaide.
From home studio to a million-dollar business
In late 2019, May was declared cancer-free. She decided to make the most of what felt like a second chance. The entrepreneur launched an online store for papercraft supplies while continuing to teach at workshops and craft fairs.
During the pandemic, her husband built her a studio at home. She taught classes in the backyard, ran online workshops, and the business took off. Natalie May Scrapbooking grew from $20,000 in annual revenue to nearly $1 million in five years. She now operates a physical store in Adelaide’s CBD.
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“I’m the only physical retail scrapbooking store left in South Australia,” she says. “I think having an online presence and being relatable were key to the business’s rapid growth.”
Many of her customers weren’t comfortable with online shopping. May ran Facebook Lives showing them how to add products to a cart. “We intentionally kept our website simple,” she explains. “It made all the difference.”
That kind of hands-on teaching is a thread that runs through everything she does — and it’s the same approach she now uses to talk about the disease.
Using papercraft to spread health warnings
She has used her platform to speak about her experience.
“When I run my workshops, I take the opportunity to talk about ovarian cancer, my journey, the symptoms and signs to look for, all while women are busy crafting,” she says. “I have an audience of women around Australia who have daughters, grand-daughters, sisters, aunties, so a key part of my tutorials is raising awareness for the disease.”
Many cancer survivors in similar situations turn to social media or charity walks.
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May’s approach is quieter — embedding health messages into a hobby. It reaches women who might not otherwise hear the warning signs. She’s received emails from attendees who went to their GP after hearing her talk.
“Cancer doesn’t just happen to you; it happens to your whole family, your community, your business,” she says. “Women tend to put themselves aside and focus on everyone else. I really want to use my voice, my workshops, my scrapbooking retreats to warn women not to ignore the symptoms.”
She caught her own cancer at stage 1 — something she calls “extremely rare.” Most women are diagnosed at stage 4, when it’s often too late.
She now works with Flinders University and Adelaide University as a consumer advocate on research teams.
“Something good had to come out of my experience,” she says.