In our ‘Inspiring small businesses’ series, we share and celebrate great stories from small business owners who started and run their own business. By bringing you closer to these inspiring businesses we hope that you find motivation, tips, and ideas for building yours. For our next interview we spoke to Clare Davies , Founder and Paper Florist at Petal & Bird, a creative company creating realistic paper floral arrangements for special occasions.

I call myself a paper florist and at Petal & Bird I create bespoke realistic paper flowers for special occasions and events. I pride myself in the high quality of my work offering couples bespoke lasting floral collections for their weddings, recreating wedding bouquets for couples to celebrate their first year ‘paper’ wedding anniversary with a lasting replica of their wedding flowers. As well as creating bespoke blooms for birthdays, celebrations and special occasions. I also share my passion with others through my regular paper flower workshops.

What's the story behind your business?

Petal & Bird all started when I began making handmade items for my own wedding in 2016. I really wanted to hold on to as many memories from our special day as possible and hated the idea of our wedding flowers dying just days later. So I began looking into ways I could create the flowers myself and fell in love with the craft of making paper flowers.

I got such a lovely recreation to the flowers I created and we were really lucky to have our wedding photographs featured in a national wedding magazine that I thought I better put a name to my work just in case someone else wanted me to create them some paper flowers.

My first few orders started to come through and I have continued to grow my business ever since. I still have my wedding bouquet and see it every day. It is such a lovely reminder of our special day and how this new adventure all began.

What inspired you to start your own business?

I had been working as a secondary school teacher for 11 years and was ready for a change and myself and my husband had a lust to go travelling and exploring. After leaving my job we went traveling for 3 months and it was great to get away and gave us a chance to evaluate what we were doing and what made us happy. On our return I began to really work on building my handmade business with renewed energy and I was so happy to see it take off and orders start to come in.

What is the most difficult aspect of running your own business?

I think when it’s just you in your business it can be quite hard sometimes to not take everything personally, it can become quite all consuming. Remembering to take a break and step away to see things with fresh eyes has been really important. Be that a floral collections I’m working on or the admin side of things.

What is the best thing about running your own business?

I love running my own business and the variety and flexibility it provides. In an average day I am working on the social media for my business (which sometimes feels like a job in itself!), writing blogs and updating my website, putting quotes togethers for customers, to packing up orders and trips to the post office and then finally making the flowers themselves. I love that I can take ownership over everything I create and it is a really proud feeling to see it grow and become successful.

How has your business been affected by coronavirus and how have you adapted?

Sadly the majority of my late Spring/Summer wedding have been postponed till next year but it’s been lovely that my couples has postponed and not cancelled and reassuring for them to know that their flowers will wait and still look beautiful.

This has meant my availability for bespoke and ‘paper’ anniversary recreation orders has opened up so I have been able to complete more of these types of orders than I was expecting too, so it has been great to see orders still coming in during these strange times.

The main challenge this year that was affected by the coronavirus has been having to postpone and cancel workshops that were booked in. I have overcome this with developing a range of Paper Flower Kits that I could send out in replacement of the booked sessions, including a bride’s hen do which I really wanted to attend. The kits went down really well and so much so that they have been a great replacement for my regular monthly paper flower workshop sessions that I would have been teaching once a month. Although I am really looking forward to getting these sessions back up and running when it is safe to do so, working around this challenge has added a new product range to my business which I am going to continue to develop.

What advice would you give to someone looking to start their own business?

Make sure you believe in the product you are creating and selling, be authentic and original.

To find out more about Petal & Bird visit their website or follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.