Mum Of 3 Shares Her Journey To £100k Profit With Wall Art Business
- Kelly, 33, launched a wall art store online after drawing up designs on her iPad
- The mum of 3 wanted a business that she could work around the kids
- Now the company is on track to make £100,000 in profit
- She reveals sales have gone UP during the cost of living crisis
Being a mum during the cost of living crisis can be stressful if you’re on a budget - making ends meet to cover rising energy and grocery costs can feel like an impossible task.
However, one mum of 3 is actually making more money than ever during the cost of living crisis - and it’s all thanks to her work from home business. Kelly Byrnes, 33, from Lincolnshire, told money-saving community LatestDeals.co.uk how she grew her successful online wall art company.
‘My husband and I have 3 children - Riley, 13, and 8 year old twins Lillie and Alfie. It wasn’t worth paying the childcare for me to go to work; I would’ve been going to work just to pay our childcare bills. I knew I had to be creative and find something I could do to work around the kids.
‘One day I was looking for wall art for my home and I remember looking and thinking it seemed expensive for what it was so I decided to have a go at making it myself.
‘I made a few designs and printed them out on our home printer and quickly realised I wasn’t going to be able to use a cheap £30 printer from Asda! So I started to research different printers and cards.. all the boring stuff!
‘I opened The Little Print Shop on Etsy and quickly realised there was a demand for my prints. I changed my settings so people could order worldwide and had an amazing first weekend. Orders were coming in from all over the world, which was so exciting!
‘It was only when I came to ship the items did I realise I had all of my postage fees set wrong and the majority of the orders I sent out actually cost me money to send them! It was very much a learning curve for me.
‘I absolutely love creating wall art, I’m always sitting on my phone or my iPad drawing up new designs and it really makes me proud to see my prints “out in the wild” when customers send their photos in.
‘My first month was unbelievable, I had taken just over £2000 in sales. I just wasn’t expecting it at all, the next few months were up and down - it really wasn’t a stable income at all and varied massively.
‘Sales have definitely gone up during the cost of living crisis, I believe this is because more people are staying at home and are spending money on making their homes nice.
‘I definitely outgrew each stage in the business quite quickly. My plan was to make a little on each order and sell a lot rather than make a lot and sell a little.
‘In my first 12-18 months I didn’t have much spare money to be able to offer more sizes and I couldn’t afford big new printers so I ended up having to buy secondhand printers to keep up with demand.
‘My work premises is VERY SMALL, way too small! I work from home which has its pros and cons. I love that it allows me the flexibility to be at my children’s sports days etc but it also means that I never truly switch off. I often find myself sitting at my desk at 10pm fulfilling orders to give me a head start on the next day.
‘In my first year I made around £5000 - it was probably less than that actually as I kept forgetting to keep a track of all of my expenses! I am now on track for the next tax year for profits of around £100,000.
‘If you are thinking about launching your own online business, just take a leap of faith and do it. Be prepared to put in the time to make it work. Most days my screen time does exceed 10 hours a day.
‘It can be exhausting at times fulfilling orders, doing the post office runs, running social media, keeping up with messages and new trends…but to see something you have made doing so well is worth it!’
Tom Church, Co-Founder of LatestDeals.co.uk, said: ‘Wow, I thought my life was busy with work and one child but Kelly is truly an inspiration juggling her business with three children. Her artwork is really impressive as well!’
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Thanks for sharing ,wow! what a busy lady indeed with 3 children as well! Great prints,love them all.Carry on doing a brilliant job. 
