Our Story

Hello, we are Lisa and John and we create colourful and unique gifts and cards inspired by our two daughters and their love of fun shapes and colour.

Our story began in the summer of 2009. Lisa had always enjoyed making gifts for family and friends, and so we decided to take a selection of creations to a small local craft fair in Bakewell, Derbyshire. After receiving some amazing feedback from customers, we knew the next step was to utilise John’s IT expertise and open an online shop to share our products with a wider audience.

Shortly after, we joined Notonthehighstreet.com, an exciting up and coming online marketplace to promote products from small designer-makers like ourselves which proved to be a real turning point for us.

At this time, we were both still in full-time employment, splitting our time between our jobs and the business, which was starting to become a larger feature in both of our lives. In 2011, Lisa left her day job to work exclusively on Altered Chic, and we took on a small shop in Chesterfield town centre where we sold both our products and those from other local artisans. However, with the arrival of our daughter towards the end of 2012, we stepped away from the gift shop and moved the business back to our home to focus on the online side of the business which had continued to grow, and decided to pass it on to a family member who continues to run it as an independent gift shop today.

In January 2014 after another successful albeit exceptionally busy Christmas period, we decided that the house was getting a little too full and working in a small workshop out back was no longer practical. Our daughter, Layla, was just starting to walk and it was no longer a suitable environment for the business to continue to grow. We had to move, and fortunately for us we managed to secure two units in The Clocktower which is only a few minutes away from our home. We finally got another pair of hands when my sister, Claire joined the business during the summer. 

Following a brief stint in the world of teaching, in 2015 John took the decision to become self-employed, splitting his time between his own web development ventures and working to develop the business and get his hands dirty when it’s busy. As it often is!

Claire

In the spring of 2018 we welcomed our second daughter, Emilia, into our family.

In October 2019 we were given the opportunity to take on a high street shop in Chesterfield town centre and Shop Indie opened. As well as our own products, Shop Indie is full of amazing products from nearly 100 British independent makers and designers.

In Spring 2021 our small team expanded as Joel joined us at The Clocktower to create all our lovely products. Jodie joined us later that year and we launched our wholesale range of products.

Joel
Jodie

Seeing how well received our products have been for the last 11 years, especially in our gift shop, we knew that they would be perfect for sharing with more independent gift shops and boutiques across the UK.

Whilst we have been fortunate to be able to invest in new equipment, we continue to create our colourful selection of products with love and care – just as we always have done – in our Derbyshire studio.

Please feel free to browse through our collection and contact us with any questions you may have.