Meet The Maker - The Handmade Clothing Company

This is the last post in our series of Meet The Maker blogs and we have a lovely treat for you. Here at Poppy and Honesty, we regularly get asked if we make liberty print children's clothes and the answer is no (too fiddly for these Frank Butcher fingers)  but we know a woman who does. This week we meet Amy from The Handmade  Clothing Company...

I’m Amy, Mum to three, Seth (11), Theo (6), and Eden (4)  and the founder of The Handmade Clothing Company. After a few years working different Visual Merchandising roles in fashion retail stores I decided to go to uni. I graduated from London College of Fashion just before having my second son. I was so fed up to have ended up in another retail role that I decided to start sewing things to sell to have a creative outlet. I started with mainly bunting and simple items of clothing. After the birth of my daughter in 2014 a fabulous friend from uni suggested using Liberty fabrics and so the idea was born! 

Liberty Print Dress Similar Here

I started making childrenswear samples using classic prints and had a photoshoot at the end of 2014. I finally settled on a name for the brand and launched the website and Etsy store in January 2015! Gradually more styles were added and I gained loyal customers through Instagram that have really been instrumental in raising the awareness of the brand and growing the business. I wouldn't be where I am now without those first customers that still come back today! At the beginning of 2017 I was so busy that I was able to give up my part time job and to work in the business full time! This has meant so much to my family, I can do every school run, I don’t have to worry about childcare in the school holidays and really be there for my daughter who is still undergoing investigations for an Autism diagnosis. Every single order really does mean so much to me!

Aster Liberty Print Boys Bloomers

This year I am continuing to collaborate with the amazing Magnificent Stanley which is an absolute pleasure! We have an amazing collection of prints for this season and some lovely new styles for Summer. I am also working to grow the womenswear offering which is really exciting! The current items in the womenswear collection have been popular and I can’t wait to have more products to offer to the fabulous women that shop with me. And if things continue to grow at the rate they have been for the last year I will be needing much more space to work and some help!! I am really excited to see what we can achieve once all the kids are at school full time! 

We do hope that you have enjoyed our Meet The Maker series. We always like to support our fellow crafty handmaidens and burly handymen, so if you would like to be featured on our blog please get in touch.

Can you believe it's time for the big bunny ? Other than the supermarkets bursting with confection, I'm not even sure you would even know it was Easter.  Whatever the weather, get into the chocolate and have a lovely long weekend. 

Sophie xxxx

Meet The Maker - Birdy and Pearl

Our maker this week is Sarah, founder of Birdy and Pearl, a small business that makes beautiful liberty print teething jewellery. I first became aware of Sarah's fabulous work when I was looking for a present for my sister in law. She is a proper eco - warrier (not in the trendy, man bun shouty way) and she genuinely doesn't want anything she doesn't really need. Sarah made her the perfect teething necklace, my sister in law wears it all the time and it is always available for my nephew to chomp on. 

Bird and Pearl Teething Nursing Ring

I set up birdy & pearl in the autumn of 2015 as a way of nurturing my creative self and pursuing a dream I had had since I was a child - opening my own shop. Previously, I had worked in publishing and then as a primary school teacher, a career which I put on hold after my second child was born.I have always adored Liberty of London's art prints and fabric, I actually worked at Liberty while I was at university. I also love babies - hence my rather large family. I came up with an idea which would Birdy celebrate these two things.

I initially started making wooden bead-knotted necklaces after stumbling across a tutorial online. I found out that these necklaces were often used by mothers as nursing or teething necklaces. Their purpose was to distract and engage babies while they were being fed or held, preventing little fingers from scratching skin and pulling hair. I loved this idea and wished I had found or made such a product years before when my children were little. I quickly realised that my sewing skills were not up to producing a product I could actually sell (should have and meant to go for lessons!). So it was back to the drawing board...

Birds and Pearl Teething Necklace

The internet has been such an amazing resource for small businesses and it was here I turned to continue my research. My heart-lurching, light bulb moment came when I discovered that Liberty made a cotton ribbon cord on which I could thread my beads, making my sewing machine redundant.(My first necklace was very similar to the one I made your sister-in-law. It was in Betsy P!) Not long afterwards, while sourcing the wooden beads which I originally made my nursing necklaces from, I came across gummy, tactile silicone teething beads in the most amazing shapes and colours. Keen to be original and unique I did further research and established that although there were companies, mainly then in America and Australia and at that time only a handful in the UK (not any more, sob!), that made and sold teething and nursing necklaces, there was no one making them using Liberty ribbon cord! This then was to be my USP and birdy & pearl was born.

Birds and Pearl Nursing Bracelet

I created my Etsy shop at the end of 2015 and officially opened in mid-January 2016. Sales have grown steadily and my customer feedback has been really encouraging and deeply rewarding. Instagram which I'd used (@thepitts) as a magazine substitute since 2011 has been a fun and effective marketing tool for me and a way of meeting friends and other creative makers like you! (bloody algorithms though. Really impacting sales at the moment. Definitely relied too heavily on ig for sales!) My goal for this year is to carry on growing the business steadily, launch my own website and introduce my necklaces and birdy & pearl to a wider audience.

Thank you so much for tuning in to our blogs during March Meet The Maker month. Next week we have another fabulous small business to share with you.

Happy Spring (brrrrrr) 

Sophie 

Meet The Maker - Eddie and Bee

As part of March Meet The Maker month, Poppy and Honesty is celebrating some of our favourite crafty businesses.  We can testify that all the makers (movers and shakers) featured here, have excellent products and come highly recommended. These blog post give you a little window into the livelihoods of small business owners. Frequently they are mothers working at kitchen tables, snatching a moment to make something beautiful and some much needed dosh. Small businesses frequently offer women the opportunity to work flexibly at home as other professional doors are sadly closed to them after having a family. Although your goodies may not arrive at the click of your Amazon prime fingers, small businesses offer a much more personal service, a better product and you will in fact get more bang for your buck. 

Today we meet  Jo, the life force behind Eddie and Bee, a beautiful handmade children's clothes company based near Winchester.  Eddie and Bee is also part of the Lobella Loves platform, a website that makes donations to mental health charities with every purchase made. 

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Eddie and Bee Cotton Organic Leggings in Enchanted Unicorns

Growing up I always knew what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a fashion designer and I wanted to train at Central Saint Martins, because that’s where John Galliano and Hussein Chalayan studied. So I did. I studied women's wear fashion design and then went on to work a design and production assistant. 

Eddie and Bee Embroidered Frieda Dress

The reality of being a designer was very different to the 3 years of creativity I experienced when training ( and I fell in love and followed my now husband to the south coast) so I left London to become an Early years teacher.

What sets our clothes apart are the carefully selected unique prints and high quality natural fabrics and simple design.I make sure that all of our leggings are made from organic cotton jersey and use low impact dyes. All of our other fabrics are sourced from a high quality producer of Japanese printed fabric and are printed in small volumes which adds to the rarity and uniqueness of the fabric and helps to distinguish our clothing from mass market, high volume competitor. 

I know I speak for makers everywhere when I say that every time you guys place an order , we have a little flutter and a new spring in our step.

Thank you

Sophie xxx