Beautiful Fairy Photo books specialises in creating
customised and premium quality photo books and keepsakes. Our motto is
‘Sprinkle your memories with magic’, as we aim to capture the preciousness of
everyday life by using beautiful graphics and printing our work with
professional print companies.
Beautiful Fairy is named after my sister in law and business
partner Louise’s first child Ella. Ella was born sleeping at 21 weeks. A friend
who had lost her daughter suggested to Louise that she try digital scrapbooking
to help her through the grieving process. When Louise lost her second child
James as a result of a cord accident at 38 weeks, digital scrapbooking became
an important tool for sharing her baby boy with us. During the year following
James’ birth, Louise worked on her memory album while I created a pregnancy
album of my second child. We shared our digital creations through email and
online chat. Our albums became more than just a collection of happy snaps- they
were a powerful medium for sharing our hopes, dreams and fears. It was during
this time that we began discussing the idea of creating premium albums for
others who did not have the time to make their own.
Our business beginnings may seem very sad, but to us it just
seemed natural to honour the children and the role they had in creating a
passion in both of us and helping us form a very strong friendship. We have a
perspective that others perhaps do not have, and believe very strongly in the
magic to be found in everyday life. The years of your life spent raising
children are very intense, and stressful, and at times it is hard to stop and
take it all in. We hope to help people pause and reflect on their lives and take
in all the amazing everyday moments.
I also have an honours degree in history, and have spent
countless hours in archives looking over accounts, letters and diaries from
everyday people. Every single word was crucial to me and my research. I really
notice how much of our lives are not being recorded. People keep blogs, not
diaries, they IM or email instead of writing a letter. Our lives are digitally
recorded. Closing a Facebook account or a hard drive failure can mean every
memory you have is lost. This obsession to record our lives for posterity is a
massive driver for us. We have an information pack for interested people and along
with product information we include sheets with ideas for recording memories. If
someone cannot go ahead with an album, our hope is that they will still take
the time to make notes and back up their photos.
Beautiful Fairy has been running as a business for about 18
months now. I began putting the basic administrative side of the business
together as Louise worked her way through her first six weeks of motherhood
with her beautiful daughter Chloe. Working on it every day is an absolute joy.
We love our work. We love the challenge of creating something bigger from our
‘hobby’. We also thrive on the role we have as memory keepers. When someone
looks at our work, contacts us and hands over their most treasured memories,
asking us to create a keepsake for them... it is an honour and a privilege that
we take very seriously.
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