I started a lockdown business with my four-year-old daughter

Lying in bed at home in Molesey, Surrey, I felt something plastic clinging to my forehead. Reaching up, I peeled it off to find a googly eye staring back at me. In my bedroom – now my HQ – boxes of coloured wool, stickers and card were piled up around me. My bed was pushed over to the far side of the room, allowing space for my new L-shaped desk. If someone had told me at the beginning of lockdown that my house would look like this, with my garage transformed into a crafting workshop, I’d have laughed. But since setting up a business with my four-year-old daughter, Fifi, life has changed a lot.

At the beginning of 2020, things looked very different. I’d been working as a marketing consultant, and as a 44-year-old single mum, my days were full and stressful. When lockdown started, life only got busier. I scrambled to help panicked clients adjust, while explaining to Fifi – whose preschool had closed – why I was constantly on work calls.

As a sociable only child, she found always being at home isolating and became my constant shadow – it’s been just the two of us since she was nine months old, but lockdown brought a new level of intensity. One day, I was in a Zoom meeting when her little face popped up behind me, suddenly belting out Over the Rainbow to a sea of colleagues. Panicking, I thought to myself: ‘This is all going wrong.’

Determined to spend more time with Fifi, with no distractions, I took a week’s holiday in April. We spent mornings in our pyjamas and afternoons doing crafts. On a walk, we collected twigs to make a ‘gratitude tree’ and wrote all the things that made us smile on paper leaves. As we drew, we talked, and I noticed how relaxed and focused she became.

By the end of that week, Fifi was playing confidently on her own, painting garden pots and drawing butterflies, and I felt much calmer, too. It struck me that crafting together would help other families adapting to change.

The seed of a business idea had been sown. We stocked up on basics like pipe cleaners and pom-poms, and began creating little craft boxes for children. Fifi counted out the items for each box and we hand-delivered them together on the back of my scooter – first to a friend. A week later, I set up a Shopify account, and by the weekend we had seven new orders. I got out a big map of the UK and showed Fifi that we’d had orders from Devon and Glasgow – she was amazed.

Two months on, Fifi and I are closer than ever. Now, I feel so excited for what every day will bring, whether that’s testing out new craft projects or going to the Post Office together to send out parcels.

The business has taken on a life of its own. We get 70 orders a week, from as far away as Singapore. I’m still working but if it continues to grow, by the end of this year we could comfortably live off it. Lockdown may be easing but I’m not giving up on our little business – having seen the benefits, I really believe craft activities can help kids with their emotions.

Best of all, Fifi and I are no longer on two separate schedules, and I don’t have the daily worry of how to keep her engaged. She’s my co-founder and chief activity tester – and she helps me fulfil our orders, from printing them to putting the stamps on packages.

I’ve learnt so much from Fifi; she lives in the present and is focused on what’s in front of her. She starts school in September, so having this extra time with her has made me so grateful. She’s already asking, ‘When I finish big school, can I start another business?’

As told to Anna Clarke. £1 from the sale of every Happy Craft Box goes to the NHS Charities Together Covid-19 appeal

Have you started a new project during lockdown? Have you found creative ways to work from home while parenting? Tell us about your experience in the comments section below.