In conversation with Craft Your Christmas host Sara Davies
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
Ahead of crafting queen Sara Davies' arrival in Aberdeen next month, Richard Barber caught up with her to find out what audiences can expect...
Deck the halls with boughs of holly – and here’s Sara Davies to show you how!
The crafting entrepreneur and Dragon’s Den investor will be crisscrossing the UK from November 19 in Reading until December 11 in Edinburgh on a 13-date tour of the UK she’s called Craft Your Christmas.
The genesis of the idea came about totally by chance. Following her run in Strictly last year, she was invited to take part in the arena tour that followed. Sara's connection with a live audience was immediately apparent, and the producers talked to her about doing her own tour.
She said: "When I explained my day job was in crafting, they suggested putting a show together."
They then gave her the example of the chef, James Martin, who toured his own show which involved him cooking on stage and sharing with the audience anecdotes about his back-story.
“I went to see James’s show with a couple of girlfriends.
"We had a few drinks first – we were all a bit giddy – and we had the best time.”
Feeling really inspired, Sara said: “It made me realise I could do the equivalent with crafting as my theme.
"But I thought the tour should be in the run-up to Christmas because that’s peak season for decorating your home.
“I’m the biggest fan of Christmas and overflowing with tips on how you can do it yourself.”
From gifts to garlands, from cards to crackers, wrapping paper to mantlepiece decorations, the queen of crafting will show audiences how to craft their own unique Christmas with a range of practical demonstrations.
Giving examples, she said: “Christmas decorations around the house.
"I’ll show how simple it is to upcycle gift bags and turn them into beautiful snowflakes you can hang around your home in only five minutes.”
"A more sophisticated task would involve marbling festive baubles, and you can buy kits that will produce that effect but they’re expensive.
"So, I’m going to show the audience how to produce your own marbling using nail varnish.
“There’s a lot of card, glue and glitter that has gone into this tour.
"Whether it’s making a wreath for your front door, creating unique cards, decorating your festive dinner table or perfectly wrapping individual presents, I’ve got Christmas covered – on the cheap!
"I can’t wait to share this with audiences all around the UK.”
She is also a great advocate for making personalised Christmas presents for friends and family.
Explaining she said: “That way, you’re dedicating love and time, creating something homemade and giving a little part of you to loved ones.
"Anyone can go and buy something but not everyone makes time to create something.”
Throughout it all, she’ll be sharing her personal story of how she became the UK’s undisputed crafting queen...and it’s certainly some story.
Sara’s extraordinary journey starts with growing up in what she calls an entrepreneurial environment.
Her parents, Frank and Susan, ran their own decorating shop in a village outside Durham, subsequently taken over by Sara’s sister, Helen, and her husband.
As part of her management degree at York University, Sara did a placement with a craft company.
She took to it like a duck to the wet stuff, explaining: “I’d go to numerous consumer shows and make it my business to talk to the public.”
Quickly Sara quickly identified a gap in the market.
People enjoyed creating original cards but were then faced with the problem of finding an envelope to fit their handiwork.
She said: “It quickly occurred to me that, if I could come up with a device that made envelopes of any shape and size, I’d be on to a winner.”
Thus The Enveloper was born.
Explaining Sara said: “My dad’s an engineer by training and, between us, we created a simple plastic scoring board with grooves in it.
"You place a piece of paper on the board and run a tool along whichever groove is going to give you the custom-made envelope for your uniquely designed card.”
She then applied for a patent “and that was the start of my career in the craft industry”.
Barely 21 when she launched The Enveloper on the TV shopping channel Ideal World, selling 30,000 units within six months, by the time Sara graduated, the business was turning over £500,000.
By this stage, in her final year back at university, she’d already launched her company, Crafter’s Companion, running the business from her student bedroom.
On graduation, she began pitching crafting products to TV shopping channels as well as building a website for selling her wares.
Now you can find her range of craft products everywhere from market stalls to John Lewis, in Hobbycraft shops or via Amazon.
Over two-thirds of her workforce of some 200 employees are based in the north-east of England, but her empire also takes in major stores in America which accounts for at least half her total business, the products distributed from warehousing in California.
Last year, the worldwide turnover of Crafter’s Companion topped an astonishing £38,000,000...still Sara’s only 38.
In 2019, the producers of Dragon’s Den approached her to become one of their regular panel of potential investors.
She said: “I always maintain that, if you can do fast-paced, high-energy shopping TV, and you can do it live, you can do any type of television.
"Pre-recorded TV, by contrast, is a walk in the park.”
Crafter’s Companion remains the only enterprise she wants to be involved with full-time.
She said: “But, by investing in other businesses, I can share with people the benefit of my experience.
"And what I can give people is so much more than the money I invest in them.”
The inspiration for her role as a Dragon was Deborah Meaden.
Explaining she said: “She really took me under her wing.
"She’s put in 15 years of groundwork to help another woman succeed in the Den.
"She’s been a fantastic mentor, both on- and off-screen.
"To this day, I never stop asking her advice.
"[Peter Jones] has become a great friend.
"He’s such a class act.
"I’ve learned so much from him.
"Viewers see around 12 minutes for a pitch.
"I get to see the two hours it takes to record that pitch and I still marvel at the way he operates.”
So what are her best investments?
She said: “Willsow is a company that makes children’s books about vegetables with seeds embedded in the back cover which you plant in the garden.
"And then you can watch, say, the carrots grow.
"Such a neat idea.”
She’s also keen on a company called Mini First Aid, a franchise operation through which medical professionals teach first aid in schools and for parent groups, and said: “It’s owned and run by a husband-and-wife couple with six kids.
"I invested in the people as much as in the product.”
With husband Simon Sara has two boys, Charlie who is six and Oliver who will be nine in December.
It’s not every man who can stand by and watch his wife’s vertical success, but Sara said: “Listen, I could not do what I do without Simon’s support.”
He’d worked as an accountant for a large Dutch pharmaceutical company as his wife’s crafting business went through the roof.
Then the day dawned when he returned home, announced that he’d handed in his notice and that, in three months’ time, he’d be joining Sara; she’d remain the figurehead of Crafter’s Companion while he’d look after the finances.
Commenting Sara said: “It was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.
"It freed me up to concentrate on marketing, sales, product development, TV shopping and so on.”
Furthermore Sara confirmed that they don’t find it hard working alongside one another, “With two kids and all the juggling that involves, we rarely take our work home.”
So what is Simon’s view of the upcoming crafting tour that will take his wife all over the UK?
Commenting Sara said: “He knows how excited I am about it.
"But then, my aim is to get more people into crafting which is a good in so many ways.”
The whole point of this tour, says Sara, is that it’s all about sharing crafting with friends and family.
Concluding she said: “So, bring your Mum or your Auntie or your best girlfriends, treat yourselves to a Prosecco or two and have a fabulous night out.
"What better way better way to kick off the Christmas season!”
