A Leeds mum of two built a business worth £250,000 from the comfort of her own home thanks to a £5 sewing machine picked up at a car boot sale.
Emma Cattell, now 35, wouldn't have believed you if you told her a spontaneous Ikea high-chair purchase for her then one-year-old daughter would spark into a venture now worth a quarter of a million pounds.
Her 'small business' Bobbin and Bumble grew from simply wanting a girly highchair for her daughter to shipping hundreds of orders to Australia, Iceland and Dubai in just a few weeks.
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"Me doing this thing accidentally turned into orders across the world," said Emma as she told YorkshireLive how she got hundreds of 'accidental' orders after making her daughter Robyn, now 7, a highchair cover.
She said: "I had ordered the infamous IKEA highchair after lots of recommendations but it came with an ugly red and blue striped cushion cover.
"I instantly thought to myself, 'That's so ugly, I’m going to go online and find a pretty pink one that I can wipe'. I knew I wanted something that didn’t exist. So I went to the local car boot and bought a second-hand sewing machine for £5. Then I got a metre of oilcloth fabric and my mum taught me how to sew.
"I had made my first IKEA high chair cushion cover."
After making her first high chair cover Emma casually started posting photos of her daughter online, and it was here that she realised there was an interest in the covers.
She said: "People would notice it and ask where I had got it. When I told them that I had made it they would respond with 'you should sell them'. Well, I didn’t think you could make a business out of chair covers, it just seemed a bizarre concept."
It was at this time, back in 2016, that online selling platforms like Etsy had just started to become frequently used by small online businesses, so Emma made the decision to start uploading a few orders.
"At the time I had moved to a new city away from family and friends, I had a young baby and was a stay-at-home mum. I just woke up and thought to myself that I would list them on Etsy and if I could sell one a week it would give me something to do whilst my daughter napped.
"So one day out of the blue I just decided I would list them. And they started selling immediately."
Emma went on to say that she never intended for the business to grow into what it is today, making nearly 1,000 orders a month to customers all over the world.
With all of the success Bobbin and Bumble has had over the last few years, Emma has also opened up about the struggles that come with running your own business, as she says working for yourself isn't always as 'lovely' as it may seem.
Emma talked about the often unseen pressures, she said: "I often get comments about how working for yourself looks lovely, but people often don't know how hard it can be."
One pressure Emma faced to reach get Bobbin and Bumble where it is today was the relentless working hours, especially in the lead-up to the birth of her second child, Jasper, where she had long hours and little support afterwards with no flexibility to take maternity leave as a self-employed business owner.
She told us: "I was working right up until the week before I gave birth to my second, sometimes 90 hours a week.
"I had to turn off notifications from social media on my phone when I was pregnant as it caused me so much anxiety, I couldn't switch off."
Emma went on to say how 2020 and 2021 were the hardest times, although it was when her business orders skyrocketed during lockdown, the pressures to run it all by herself were intense.
Bobbin and Bumble has now expanded to sell baby changing mats, hospital bag organisers, nappy changes, weaning accessories and of course the original IKEA high chair product, first inspired by her daughter Robyn.
As Emma said: "I always tell her 'It all started because of you and now it's all for you."
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