After being made redundant just before maternity leave and with her partner unable to work due to a back injury, Stacey Dennis had just £30 in the bank.
The 33-year-old, from Pontefract, West Yorkshire, who has also created a poignant range of cards aimed at people battling cancer and mental health issues, said: ‘My first cards had cheeky slogans like ‘Happy Valentine’s Day – Fancy a threesome?’ and they clearly hit the spot, as they did brilliantly.
‘My mum had bailed us out with a £1,000 loan when Jay couldn’t work and I even managed to pay her back in just two weeks.’‘We sold about 10,000 cards in total,’ said Stacey, proudly. ‘It was at that point that I realised we needed our own website. Back in January 2015, the family were almost penniless after Jay’s injury meant he could no longer work as a self-employed renderer.
After taking time off to spend with her baby, she looked for assignments she could fit around Layla but the work was not reliable. so when Jay had to stop working, they had no solid income.Reflecting on her success she said: ‘We never meant to build a business. It started out as a way of making some extra cash to put food in our bellies and put the heating on.’