Claire Malone and Fiona Davies have big plans for their new company ‘Little Pinkies’. Started in November of last year, Little Pinkies specialises in handcrafted fingerprint jewellery, creating, as their website says ‘a unique first impression’.
Claire and Fiona have seen their business grow rapidly from humble beginnings. They have so far promoted themselves locally, attending craft fairs and receiving orders by way of recommendation and word of mouth.
Using a precious metal clay compound, Little Pinkies take an impression of a child’s or adult’s fingerprint which is then fired and turned into a unique piece of 99% silver jewellery (which can be hallmarked), usually in the form of a charm necklace / bracelet or cufflinks.
Both Claire and Fiona saw a niche in the market for a unique memento of a child’s early years. With two children each and being busy mums, fingerprint jewellery allowed them develop an existing hobby and provide a unique service to the local community.
“A lot of our business came locally at first and involved us visiting clients to obtain a fingerprint impression” said Claire. “However, we were finding that more and more people were contacting us from further and further a field to request an appointment, quite simply we could not cope with the demand ….. we were in dangers of becoming victims of our own success!”
Fiona adds, “at first we were producing children’s fingerprint jewellery but it soon became obvious that adult prints were also popular. Our wedding cufflinks with the brides fingerprint have proved a really popular gift for grooms to wear on their big day”.
The solution came one morning as the budding entrepreneurs walked home from a local playgroup and the Little Pinkies Casting Kit© was born. This allowed clients to create their own fingerprint impression which they could send back in the prepaid packaging with an order for one of the jewellery items. The whole process from ordering to receipt of a finished product usually takes about two weeks.
“After we came up with the initial idea for the Casting Kit we realised that we could offer our service to a wider range of potential clients and as such we took the bold step of developing and launching our own website, www.littlepinkies.co.uk, in March”, Fiona explained. “We like to support local companies and source the majority of our raw materials and services locally where possible.”
“We’re also currently looking into sponsoring a local charity or something similar” adds Claire “it’s important to us to share our success.”
So how do two busy mums find time to run a business and a home? “It’s not been easy so far”, explains Claire, “but we have had wonderful support from our families and husbands, quite simply we could not have got this far without them.”
And what about future plans? “Well, now the website is up and running we are busy taking orders from all sorts of places, we even had someone in the Tuvalu Islands visit our site last week”, says Claire.
Sounds good, well visit www.littlepinkies.co.uk for your chance to win a pair of fingerprint cufflinks, the ideal gift for Fathers’ Day.
