In 1993 my dream came true when we opened a wool shop on Long Lane in Hillingdon. It was the most talked about shop in the parade as it was very well presented and organised.
We also stocked Anchor threads, Dimension kits. Minicraft soft toy kits and all kinds of latch hook kits. We had wall to wall units with haberdashery - from needles to sewing machines.
I was a cross-stitch enthusiast and I started doing cross-stitch completely with beads on a 14 count aida and 2mm beads.
My customers were so impressed with the 40" x 40" piece of work which I had framed and put it in my shop. That's when I started selling beads.
We imported our own beads from India and packaged them in London , We sold 60 colours of glass seed beads for just £24.99 that's less than half the cost of Mill Hill beads at that time.
As the area was not suitable for retail , we decided to do mail order and in 1999 we started mail order. We printed catalogues and posted them to potential customers as internet sales were not that popular and people were still apprehensive about buying online.
Our beads were so popular that we manufactured our own beaded kits - we had 6 kits designed by one of a local designers in Hillingdon.
In the coming years as online buying became more and more popular we decided to completely go online as our shop lease was coming to an end.
In 2005 we opened our 1st website
www.needlecraftandbeads.com and have never looked back! We now have customers not only from the UK but Europe, America, Australia and Japan.
In 2010 June we opened a shop in Watford mainly selling Gifts and Toys and also have a small range of craft as well.
We have a thriving business and we pride ourselves for surviving the tough times and recessions and to keep serving the community .
At present we have over 15,000 customers from Ebay, Amazon and our website.
The best part is I am passionate about my business and I love it :)
Thank you to all our customers who have made this happen!
Farida
