Calling all crafters! Have you ever daydreamed about setting up your own craft shop, selling beautiful jewellery and handmade products? If so, you’ll be pleased to hear that Pica Pica caught up with Michelle Rudd from Birdy’s Boutique who did just that!

What is Birdy’s Boutique?
Birdy’s Boutique is an independent shop based in Lincoln and online.
At Birdy’s we sell a wide range of clothing including dresses, skirts, cardigans and leggings as well as handmade jewellery by many designers including Kitsch-Tique, JiJi Ki Ki, Love From Hetty & Dave, Mozzy Pop, Plastic Bat and our own jewellery designs. We also stock a wide range of handbags and purses, as well as scarves and a fabulous selection of cosmetics by Jelly Pong Pong and Stargrazer.

What is your background as a designer?
After completing my A-Levels in Art & Design and Design & Technology, I decided university wasn’t for me, I wanted hands-on industry experience. At 19 I started working as a Trainee New Media Designer for Home Entertainment, who later changed to Choices UK. Since then I have worked for several design companies, working to improve my skills as a full time Graphic Designer. I have always been interested in crafts, from the age of 16 I would spend endless hours making handbags and purses out of scraps of fabric. Nine years later, I now design and make items for the boutique, we stock our own greeting cards, felt brooches, jewellery and small fabric purses.

How did Birdy’s begin and what was the inspiration behind it?
Owning a boutique seemed a great way of combining my love of fashion, design and business. In October 2008 I opened Birdy’s Boutique in a small Shopping Mall in Lincoln. Within seven months we’d moved to a larger premises, five times the size of the original boutique to accommodate the expansion of Birdy’s and the brand.
I’m often asked, ‘why is the boutique called Birdy’s? My partner actually nicknamed me Birdy, for my ‘bird-like’ expressions. So the obvious name was Birdy’s Boutique!

Michelle at Birdy's

Reasons for location?
Lincoln is a great tourist location and has a large university. Even though there’s a lot of competition in Lincoln with other boutiques and independent shops, Birdy’s definitely offers something new & original.

What was your main objective when starting Birdy’s?
My only objective for Birdy’s Boutique as a store, was to create a great shopping environment for customers, where they could browse the rails and try on beautiful dresses in our spacious fitting rooms!

Did you receive any funding to set up the business?
I had my own investment money from savings.

Have you got any tips for people looking to set up an independent craft business?
The best advice I can offer anyone looking to set up their own business is to be patient, be organised and have a plan. Try to be realistic when putting a business plan together, think of what you’d like to achieve and then make it happen.
Stay focused, it will take time to build up regular customers and for people to pass on the good news about your business to their friends!

Pica Pica would like to thank Michelle for her interview and wish her every success with Birdy’s Boutique in the future!

Image courtesy of Tatty Devine

In issue one of Pica Pica we investigate the murky world of intellectual property theft and copy cat designers. It’s taken a while, but thanks to cases such as Hidden Eloise vs. Paperchase, the mainstream media have begun to pay attention to the problem. Ahead of the pack, open blog You thought we wouldn’t notice… has been calling out the copycats for a few years now so we spoke to them to find out a bit more about the site and the inspiration behind it.

What inspired you to first set up the blog?

I come from a street-art background and I was seeing so much of my own work & that of my peers used without our permission. Most of the time it is just not worth a legal battle but I thought it would be nice if we could at least let people know that this was happening.

Was it always an open blog? And why did you choose to do it this way?

Yeah from the start I wanted anyone to contribute. I knew I couldn’t supply enough content from what I see, and it also meant that it would include much more subjects than I was knowledgeable in, such as music or web.

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