Welcome! I’m so happy you’re here!


Hi, I’m Jillian! I’m a recovering perfectionist. A mother to two. A home educator. A lover of all things handmade. A graphic designer. A believer in natural, self-directed learning. A novice gardener, a nature adventurer, and a bookworm. Welcome to my site!

At Free & Unfettered, you’ll find DIY tutorials, home decor inspiration, planning and organization tips, and Montessori and nature-inspired homeschooling resources.

I hope you’ll follow along with our family’s homeschooling adventure and our journey to turn our builder-grade house into a home, one DIY project at a time.

When we observe a child’s freedom, we cannot do it exactly the same way that we observe the growth of plants and insects. A child, because of his inherent weakness at birth and his status as a member of society, is surrounded by fetters which limit his activity. A system of education that is based on liberty ought to aim at assisting a child in obtaining it, and it should have as its specific aim the freeing of the child from those ties which limit its spontaneous manifestations. Little by little, as a child proceeds along this way, he will freely manifest himself with greater clarity and truth and thus reveal his own proper nature.

Maria Montessori, The Discovery of the Child