Lockdown making has been the of us!
From the crafting queen to the mum who makes luxury hand gel, meet the women who turned the crisis into a career opportunity
With Covid-19 changing the way we shop, eat and play, small business leaders are being forced to think creatively to fight the downturn.
here, four inspiring women describe how their ventures are not just surviving but thriving, buoyed by changed habits and the demands of the ‘new normal’.
From craft boxes that help soothe anxiety to spicy home- school lunches and luxury hand sanitisers created by a nurse, these business brainwaves prove that even during lockdown there are opportunities to be seized . . . KEEP THE NATION CALM WITH MINDFUL CRAFTING
SaleS of our crafting subscription boxes tripled in the first six weeks of lockdown. People were using them to make themselves feel better. We had lots of emails from subscribers saying how important they were as a means of soothing anxiety or getting through what was a confusing, worrying time.
i know how that feels. My husband and i launched Makebox+Co. after suffering the devastating stillbirth of our son Bertie at 36 weeks. he had been a really active baby during pregnancy, then one day i stopped feeling him move.
When we had a scan, we discovered the umbilical cord was knotted and wrapped around his throat three times. he must have died days before.
in the middle of that horrible time, just over two years ago now, i made things as a way to soothe myself. For many years i worked as a stylist on theatrical shoots for fashion magazines. this was my way of working through the tidal wave of emotion.
We started the business in the shadow of huge sadness but it also felt like a positive thing. One of the first things i designed for MakeBox+Co was an embroidery bee for our Bee Kind box — Bertie’s bee.
all my children have animal symbols. My son teddy, who’s six, has a bear, and our new baby Posey, who’s one, has a bunny.
i expected to sell just a handful of bee kits but we sold 250 within the first month, and suddenly realised the potential of what we were doing. We have sold more than 30,000 boxes in just over a year’s trading.
the venture is still very young and when lockdown was first imposed it felt quite scary. We had just received some initial investment and taken on a big studio space in South london. But demand was immediately up and with our 20 staff, we quickly found ways to make and pack the kits in a socially distanced way.
every month you get something new to try, such as punch needlework or paper crafting or lino printing, at a cost of either £250 a year or £24.99 month-by-month.
Our rope-weaving rainbow kit has become especially popular because of the ‘Say thank You to the NhS’ phenomenon. actually, i created that rainbow last summer for Posey, with donations from each sale going to tommy’s, the baby charity that helped us so much when we lost Bertie.
Within the community of parents who have lost children to stillbirth or miscarriage, the baby born afterwards is often called a ‘rainbow baby’ to represent something beautiful that emerges after the storm. i love the way it has been interpreted differently. that’s where the symbolism lies. makebox.co NURSE WHO CLEANED UP, NATURALLY
WheN i left school at 16, i wanted to go into medicine but didn’t have the right qualifications, so i became a secretary at an auction room instead. eventually i started the art gallery Purdy hicks in london.
at the age of 50, with four children, and having been very affected by watching my cousin die of multiple sclerosis, i decided to retrain as a clinical nurse specialising in palliative care. i loved nursing and often joke that i have a degree in hand-washing. But when i reached 60, i took a break from it. it can burn you out with 11-hour shifts.
My friend Charlotte and i brainstormed starting a new business, and Purdy & Figg was born.
We set up a garage laboratory and created a range of natural cleaning products using essential oils. We wanted to reduce the number of toxic chemicals in the home and consumption of singleuse plastic.
Our products had names like Counter Clean, tub Scrub and loo lava. We also trialled a handsanitiser last winter.
in January, when the news of coronavirus started coming out of Wuhan, we knew it was serious. My sons Charlie and Jack, who run their own start-up businesses, said: ‘Mum, why don’t you make the hand sanitiser your signature product?’ So Charlotte and i developed a new quick- drying hand sanitiser spray that kills 99.99 per cent of bacteria.
Our formula has over 70 per cent alcohol, gentle witch hazel extract and the best natural essential oils — niaouli, pink grapefruit and sweet orange — so it leaves your hands feeling soft. it’s a luxury product, but a 50ml bottle (300 sprays) costs just £5.99.
We sold 30,000 in the first month. We have also been able to donate 400 care packages to the _
NhS, with help from Fortnum & Mason and hotel Chocolat. purdyandfigg.com
BIG FLAVOURS FOR SMALL PEOPLE
MY SON was born prematurely and spent six weeks in intensive care before he could come home with us. Naturally, after such a lot of stress and worry, my husband and i wanted to give him the best possible start in terms of food.
i was disappointed with all the processed, ready-prepared jars, so i decided to start making healthy, traditional food i’d watched the women in my family cook for years, adapting the recipes for children.
as well as keeping recipes low in salt and sugar, my focus is always on flavour — i made biryanis and dal, chocolate and tahini cookies, bright green ‘monster’ smoothies with chia and kale, and alcoholfree pina colada popsicles.
When i posted a few pictures of the dishes online, friends asked me for the recipes so my website
mylittlefoodcritic.com was born. it has boomed during lockdown. Before the pandemic i was increasing followers by about 2,000 a month, but in the first two months of lockdown i gained 25,000.
i saw a steady uptick in sales of my four ebooks; i was asked to provide tips for the website of maternity retailer JoJo Maman Bebe, and posted cook- along videos for parents. Next month i’m launching my own app, too.
i have a law degree and i used to be a teacher, but running a business gives me the flexibility i need for my family right now. Of course, no one wants to be in the kitchen cooking different things for everyone who is at home right now. that’s the beauty of introducing babies to big flavours early — children will eat the same thing as everyone else. mylittlefoodcritic.com
ART FOR ALL, NO GALLERY NEEDED
WheN Covid-19 appeared and museums and galleries shut, visits to our website rose dramatically and subscriptions increased 400 per cent. People told us they missed galleries. i think art has always offered a sense of escape.
i wanted to make learning about art more straightforward and accessible, and in 2012 i started organising my own short art classes at london hotels.
But i could only have 40 people in each class. So two years ago i launched the world’s first online arts subscription platform. For the price of a paperback — £8.99 — monthly subscribers are offered more than 150 short films on a variety of topics in art, including the ever-popular ‘Nude in art’.
We have released a lot more free content over lockdown, and so many people have written in we are now set to launch the academy, which is specially tailored for young people aged seven to 17.
last month we won a Webby — they are the digital world’s Oscars. everyone has found the past few months painful, there’s been so much loss.
We’re not key workers, but i’m proud that we’ve brought a bit of pleasure — and wonderful art — into people’s homes.