A woman who turned her lockdown side hustle into a proper job has made nearly £500k. Dominique Croft, 27, started making jewellery in January 2020 alongside her role as a content strategy manager.
She then ramped up production during the lockdowns in the following months and, in the middle of 2021, decided to go full-time. Dominique quit her nine-to-five and concentrated on Elk & Bloom - and is now reaping the rewards. She says some months bring in sales of £30,000 and, after selling 12,000 items, she has nearly made her first £500k.
Dominique said: "Jewellery has always been a proper passion for me and I have always been creative. As much as I loved my corporate job it wasn't for me.
"I have always been interested in business and I have always been creative and digitally savvy. I also wanted the flexibility and I think Covid-19 made a few people want that. The decision to quit the job wasn't a spur of the moment one. I had been running my business for a year-and-a-half but it was nowhere near what it is like now.
"It worked out really well, we had made £30k in one month - that was a real turning point for me."
Elk & Bloom was founded in January 2020 from Dominique's kitchen table when she spotted a "gap in the market". She said: "I have always felt like the jewellery business was missing a mark.
"It was either very high end or on the other side of the market - where it was low price and low quality. Want I wanted to do with Elk & Bloom was create accessible jewellery. It is not throwaway fashion - it is gold and silver pieces that are affordable.
"It is mid-market that anyone can purchase and feel special about purchasing which I believe had made it grow so much."
Dominique still single-handedly runs the business from her home, but says she would expand to a bigger team in the future as the business continues to grow. She said: "I am really happy with how far it has come because I get some really lovely messages from people and that is such a big part of it.
"It is more about the customers that give me so much motivation to really enjoy it. I was speaking to someone recently who bought ten necklaces for their bridesmaids at their wedding and for themselves and their daughter.
"She wrote a note to her daughter and said ‘I want this to be your ‘something old’ when you get married’ - that is the coolest thing."
Since launching, Dominique has sold more than 12,000 pieces of jewellery and is set to make her first £500k. She said: "The last year has been a whirlwind, I have just been trying to get the orders out and build the business up.
"I sometimes think 'how have I got here' - I am loving it. When I quit my job it was for me a moment where I was thinking, Could I do this, is it possible for me to do it.
"It was my fiance, Will, who pushed me and said I could do it. He is really supportive and I wanna tap him up to work and share the success with me."
Dominique says her new career has been very rewarding - but warned others that you have to love the job as it will consume your life. And she added that it's important to know your strengths.
She said: "If there are things you are not good at or don't enjoy, figure out another way to get those tasks done and work on things you are good at and you have those strengths at.
"All my jewellery had to be photographed and I did try at the beginning to do my own shots and model it myself but it didn't work, the pictures didn't look very good.
"I needed support and a photographer who knew what they were doing."