Where we began..

Hey there!

Thanks for stopping by our blog – we are excited to be launching Luella York online store here in the crazy year that is 2020! A  global pandemic has swarmed in and hit us hard and we have questioned whether now is the right time – but you know what, when is ever the right time?! We all have things we  want to do whether it be move house, change jobs, get a pet, have a baby the list goes on, but you get the jist… and all things which we question and put off because we think it’s not the right time!

Well that’s certainly true for us – … we are entrepreneurs who have been working in a variety of industries over the years, with lots of ideas of our own which we want to make a business success, we started building Luella York back in 2018. I went part time in my full time job because they were hitting hard times so it meant that I had time to start doing something I had always dreamed of.. running my own business. So together with my hubby we made a start in building the concept and searching for products.

Being a designer I was able to turn my hand (in my sister company http://www.luellasdesignstudio.co.uk) to working on the brand logo and colour palette but I also wanted to learn how to build websites so I used the time to train on WordPress and become a website designer in Nottingham, UK and I am proud to say I have achieved just that.  Luella’s Design Studio is my first business and I love working with our local clients and those further a field to create their business branding, websites, stationery and logos.

So rewind to 2018, we started the motions of Luella York but wanted to wait for the ‘right’ time to launch. We’d bought a new house and hubby was busy renovating 7 days a week so we could move out of our rented flat and I was busy with my sister company http://www.luellasdesignstudio.co.uk working on my clients websites, branding and social media. I was also building @luellayork_store along the way with my new website design skills.  Oh and work (my full-time/part-time job!) picked up again, so I found myself working more hours in my full time job and things for ‘us’ had to take a back seat.

Glad to say the house was complete within 7 months and we moved in! We also had some amazing holidays in 2018 and 2019 and then we found out we were pregnant! YAY! Something else that we was waiting for the ‘right’ time – if we knew Covid-19 was coming in 2020 I’m not sure any of us would have thought bringing a baby into this mad world we now find ourselves in would be the ‘right time’ but we had to just take each day as it came and stay safe, which we did by following the government guidelines and in the middle of lockdown, delivered a beautiful baby girl.

Six months later we are still in some form of lockdown; only going out for walks and barely seeing any family, let alone friends. WhatsApp, Facetime, Microsoft Teams, Zoom have all become new friends of mine and our daughter is navigating through a very techno world at a very early age!

Then there is the masks, seeing people in masks is ‘normal’ to her! In hospital everyone that handled her was wearing a mask apart from us, seems strange to think that that wasn’t normal procedure in hospitals until now. It definitely will be normal from now on I’m sure but honestly, I never imagined back in March when I came home from work to ‘self isolate’ (that word felt new and exciting at the time!) that this would be the world we would be delivering our baby into! That’s a whole other story in that blog link for you to read!

So with all this time on our hands being in lockdown on mat leave, ok I say all this time, yes we have a baby and are running around most of the day looking after her – feeds, nappies, playing, walks means the days fly by! But now had to be the ‘right’ time to launch Luella York, with Christmas fast approaching us, the vast majority of population choosing to avoid the high streets, online shopping at an all time peak so we decided there was no time like the present and to multitask parenting and becoming entrepreneurs…. wish us luck! Lots of it as we know whenever the right time is there are challenges ahead, but we are excited to start this journey and bring great products to you.