Lockdown Mama launched Business selling T-shirt painting Kits!

Never in a million years did I think I would be a Mum launching a business in lockdown

…with a newborn in tow and with both children by my side every day, along with my other new job as a homeschool teacher! It literally seems ludicrous and probably does to most people looking in too.

Lockdown life has been the most stressful, bizarre and challenging time for many parents - and for all parents in some way or another I think - I am yet to find a Mum or Dad who has sailed through lockdown unscathed, but I think the journey it has taken us all on has formed who we are now and will reflect how we move forward as we ease out of it and enter different phases as we learn to live around Covid.

This Haruki Murakami quote sums it up perfectly for me.

“And once the storm is over, you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, whether the storm is really over. ... When you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about.”

Launching a Mum run business in lockdown, having the opportunity to learn new skills, and finding something I could share with Amelie (that wasn’t homeschool!) has held my hand through the storm in many ways.

As a Mother, especially of a baby - your identity can get a little lost, and when the intensity of a newborn is compounded by a lack of support or interaction with friends and family in lockdown, a lack of headspace as you have another child to try and guide through a mind boggling and worrying experience we have no blueprint for, and many nights up feeding whilst scrolling terrifying news reports - it can all feel very overwhelming.

So this lockdown launched business evolved in a way from survival! The something else I needed to guide me through lockdown life, to make my days about more than ‘being Mum’ and to give me a little window to the outside world we were locked away from.

But I think I can only see that in retrospect, I don’t think I realised at the time how important the decision was…

It came about all of a sudden, I can still remember Lockdown 2 being announced and our plans to stay in a cottage in Somerset for half-term being scuppered, and me thinking ‘this is a sign’…I need to just give this idea I’ve been thinking about a go…I need to reach out to all the poor kids locked down away from their friends and families, their schools, their normality and see if we can spread some of the joy we have experienced. I need to launch our lockdown business now or never in a way - it just felt the right time and something was telling me to push go.

So I bought some stock, roped in my tech minded husband (thank goodness he agreed to help!), my design minded brother (thank goodness he agreed to help!), and we set up a website and bam we started selling our T-shirt painting kits several days later. It all seems like an absolute blur but I know for sure this lockdown launched Mum run business helped me weather the storm.