The innovation: What was the biggest breakthrough for you with your business?
Bells Bumz is a family business for me and for my little boy Zachary. I want to help families everywhere by making cloth nappies and accessories accessible that are high quality and affordable.
I made the decision to not sell individual items direct and instead showcase my amazing Bells Bumz Family Stockists to ensure that their businesses are fully supported so I do not divert sales away from them.
The Bells Bumz Family Stockists include a range of lovely eco / cloth nappy shops in the UK and internationally. They are mostly run by work-at-home mums, therefore, by not selling direct, I am supporting more small family businesses to grow, together. Through choosing my factory carefully, I have made sure that Bells Bumz is also supporting the families of the people who work there and who make the products.
Continuing the family theme, I have grown the “Bells Bumz Family”. I made the decision after my first range to only use hand drawn or hand painted artwork purchased exclusively from the artist, designer or illustrator so that I was supporting more families. I also decided to partner with other work-at-home mums who make homemade clothes in fabric to match the nappies, again supporting more family businesses here in the UK.
Yin and Yang: How do you balance work and family?
I started Bells Bumz for my family, for Zachary, and whilst currently I need to work my main job alongside building my business, I know that long term this is building a brighter future for Zachary and for every child by reducing world waste.
My vision when I started Bells Bumz was to create comfortable, reliable, affordable cloth nappies and reusable products to protect the planet and its people now and for the future, so no one is unable to afford reusable products for their children. Bells Bumz Eco – Creating havoc against world waste for everyone.
The drive: What challenges have you overcome?
I have been in a position as a single mother where I was unable to afford cloth nappies for my son. It was very important to me that I used cloth nappies as he had lots of medical conditions and I was wary of the chemicals in disposable nappies. The realisation that you can’t afford to do something for your own child is absolutely devastating. I reframed my experiences and turned this into a force for positive change for the world. In the UK I have gone a step further launching Bells 4 Change. With the current cost of living crisis and the rising number of children, young people and families living in poverty, I wanted to do something to help.
I decided to launch Bells 4 Change which includes our new Bells Bumz Eco Grants, providing cloth nappies and other reusable products such as cloth menstrual pads to those in need alongside our affordability strategy, Nationwide Cloth Nappy Incentive Scheme, other charitable donations (both in the UK and abroad), supporting Nappy Libraries, and our warranty which includes an offer to repair and repurpose old cloth nappies, regardless of brand, to give or raise funds for good causes.
For better or worse: What are the pros and cons of running your own business?
I love running my own business, being innovative in product design and also in how to use my business for good in terms of helping others. The cons at times are the time it takes and the time away from Zachary. There are times when because I work hard to make Bells Bumz a success, people think that Bells Bumz is a much bigger business than it is. I am the sole owner and employee of Bells Bumz and sometimes people do not realise just how much every single like, share, comment and purchase mean to small businesses such as mine.
Hopes and dreams: What next?
What’s next for Bells Bumz? Who knows, I would love to see Bells Bumz expand across the world, and even make it to more mainstream shops so that more people choose to use reusable products, saving money and reducing world waste.
Visit the Bells Bumz website to check out their range of cloth nappies and accessories. You can also follow them on Instagram and Facebook, and join their Facebook support group.
