I’m Laura Dunkley, owner of From Britain with Love. Previously a women’s magazine editor and writer (for titles including M&S Magazine, Waitrose magazine, Woman, Woman’s Journal, Woman & Home, Woman’s Realm), FBWL is where I share my ideas and inspirations with my own much-loved online community.
In case you’re interested, I thought I’d share a little bit about me and what brought me here.
Journalism and making
There was a lot to love about my career as a women’s magazine journalist working long, but exciting, hours in central London. Everything changed after I had my first child and knew for sure that I was done with my old life. We moved to rural Hampshire, I had a second baby and a new way of working began to present itself.
Along with continuing to work as a freelance feature writer, I’d also been painting up old furniture to sell, along with pretty cushion covers, bags and accessories hand made from vintage fabric. It was a labour of love I shared with a close friend and it was totally thrilling.
Our shared project was about so much more than making money. I had properly rediscovered my own creativity and being up to my eyes in paint, sand paper and beautiful fabrics made my heart sing. I also revelled in meeting so many inspiring makers and artists at the local markets and fairs we sold at, becoming a fledgling member of their creative community in the process.
It began to dawn on me that there might be a way to meld together my previous editorial experience and my new-found love of making and makers. What if I could build a beautiful online platform that would offer vital support to this exciting community I’d found, whilst enabling me to remain a part of it?
I started out with a bespoke online marketplace (called Lasso the Moon) which offered the services of my favourite top quality magazine photographers and stylists to hand-picked UK makers that signed up. The idea was that by sharing the shoot costs between them, individual makers would be able to afford standout photography of their work that they could use far and wide. It would also mean that our new online marketplace would look fabulously coherent and the top quality photography would fit perfectly with the branding and design.
I had no live website or concrete business as yet when 35 hand-picked makers took a massive leap of faith and signed up with me ahead of launch. Two days of photography at my house with wonderful Polly Wreford (photographer) and Rose Hammick (stylist) resulted in a collection of truly beautiful images that I still love deeply. Here’s a little gallery made from a few of those first images…
When Lasso the Moon launched a frantic few weeks later at the Country Living Magazine Christmas Fair in London, we were selected as the Editor’s favourite and featured on BBC London news:
We also had long queues of shoppers waiting to buy all of the handmade loveliness we took with us to sell on behalf of our makers. I called in favours from friends in high places who generously featured us all over the media – from Livingetc to The Financial Times and much in between.
Job done, I thought. Job only just beginning I came to realise as the reality of running an online marketplace set in. So much to do and learn and nowhere nearly enough hours in the day. More makers signed up, which was thrilling, but also meant lots more time organising and managing shoots, then hundreds more images to resize in photoshop, products to upload, press releases to write and send out, promotional content to write and share, customer queries to answer, complicated marketplace accounts to oversee… All whilst juggling two young children and a growing realisation that I’d terrifyingly under-estimated just how much I’d taken on. I did get help but there was so much that only I could really oversee.
Once our two little ones were in bed and I’d bolted down dinner, I’d park myself at my desk into the small hours in order to get on top of everything. I’m proud that I taught myself how to use Photoshop, forced my brain to understand search engine optimisation and even managed to learn how to write bits of html coding that actually worked. But I became more and more convinced that I needed to share the dream (and workload) with someone. But it had to be just the right someone.
Sharing the dream
That turned out to be Nicky Sherwood. She had created the very first From Britain with Love website which was an online magazine and directory of UK makers – and I really liked what she’d done. I didn’t really have much more than a gut feeling to go on, but I took a deep breath and made contact. Almost immediately Nicky replied to my email and we met for coffee a few days later. Meeting with a total stranger to discuss potential business deals was more than a little daunting. But my nerves vanished the second we got chatting – and laughing.
Nicky, it turned out, really wanted to run an online shop or marketplace (her background was in marketing for Duchy Originals) and I really wanted to let the shop side of things go so I’d have the time to write content, oversee design matters and recruit new makers. The more we got to know each other the more we realised we were the perfect match so we decided to pool our resources and experience to rebrand and relaunch with a new site that would combine marketplace, online magazine and directory.
It took a year of really hard work but it was such a joy to share the load – and the excitement – with Nicky. The relaunch went brilliantly to plan and everything started to take off just as we’d hoped. Which is precisely when life dealt an unexpected blow. Nicky found a lump that turned out to be stage 4 breast cancer, so before we really knew what had hit us, she was going through gruelling treatment and I was holding the fort.
As the months of her treatment passed, I could see that, totally understandably, everything had changed for Nicky. Facing her own mortality and losing more than a few of the friends she’d made during treatment had left her with a new sense of purpose. She felt passionately about doing something positive to help people going through grief and loss and was mulling over the idea of creating a collection of beautiful funeral and remembrance gifts. ‘Of course that’s what you should do!,’ I said. And I absolutely meant it. But I was also more than a little daunted at the prospect of single-handedly taking over the (albeit beautiful) online behemoth we’d created together.
Following my heart
I sat down with our brilliant web developer, Rebecca Jones, and she helped me work out what was possible and what wasn’t. Beyond her invaluable technical advice, she also helped me to see (over a few glasses of wine) that I had an opportunity to chop away anything that didn’t sit well with me and to follow my heart. That there was no imperative to keep anything going just because it had been the plan before things changed. My heart was telling me loud and clear what I should do so that’s what I did. The marketplace was parked, and I decided to concentrate on writing creative blog content, learning how to share this content to Pinterest in a way that would drive traffic to the site and work to build a relationship with readers.
That was back in 2016 and it’s been my plan pretty much ever since. I now have millions of monthly Pinterest viewers, 100K+ monthly online readers and 90K highly responsive newsletter subscribers. I truly love the community that has grown up around this little corner of the web and I am so happy to be offering the kind of support I dreamed of to the makers that work with me. I am making a sustainable living from doing what I love, and I’m not sure it gets much better than that. A lot of thanks has to go to my current developers, especially Diane Wallace, who calmly fixes things when I break them and always finds clever and creative solutions to my technical questions.
Best news of all is that Nicky’s treatment went really well and she has made a wonderful recovery. I couldn’t be more proud of her and the very special online shop Angel & Dove she has created selling beautiful funeral and remembrance gifts.
If you’re still reading…
…after all that, thank you and WELCOME! It’s great to have you here. I’d love you to join this community of generous-hearted, gentle creatives (whether that’s as a reader, social media follower, newsletter subscriber, maker or caring consumer).
Because when like-minded people come together we can make a difference. I love this quote from John Kounios’ book The Eureka Factor:
“I think everyday creativity is the most important kind. If we can support the creativity of each and every individual, we’ll change the world.”
If you have a story you’d like to share with me, do get in touch – I so enjoy hearing from you.
Live the life you dream of
If you’re a UK maker, ethical producer or creative workshop provider, why not list in our directory? Our mission: to do our bit to help you live the life you dream of: namely making a living from doing what you love. To find out more about what we offer and how we can support and share the love about what you’re doing, check out our Join Us page which has all the details.