Meet Bev Tonks of Bee Crafty!

by Hilary Pullen

Can you tell us how you ended up becoming a professional paper crafter, what was your journey into this career?

Bee Crafty is a true family business, right from its creation to now over 18 years later  and began when mother (Julie) borrowed a stamp set she had bought me (Bev) for Christmas to make cards for her cross stitch pieces, her love for card making was almost instantaneous and at the time my Dad (Billy the laser-cutter) was working for an overseas company and started bringing back new products from the continent, mum was asked to get more for friends and its sort of snowballed from there. I started working with mum in 2005 after I finished Uni and I always wanted to make our own range of stamps in in 2012 I got my wish when we bought our first stamp making machine, and then in 2016. Dad starting his own laser cutting company to become the supplier of all of our bespoke templates and MDF products.

Can you tell us about your range of products

Our product range is everything we love to use Stamps, Templates & Masks, MDF surfaces & Embellishments and now Dies, washi tapes and ephemera.

What are your main influences when it comes to inspiring your new ranges

All of our ranges are born from what we or our customers want, if I want a design for a project then that can spark a whole range and customers are actively encouraged to come to us with what they want as nothing is more important for us than our customers crafty happiness, and we cover a wide range of styles because mine, Sams & Mums style is very different so it means between the 3 of us we can create really varied ranges x

What advice would you give to someone who wants to follow in your footsteps and make crafting their full time job?

I always tell my kids Knowledge is Power so make yourself as powerful as you can (new stamp coming soon maybe 😊) So make sure you find all the information and go in with your eyes wide open

Can you let us know what you’ve got coming up?

We have just launched our first range of dies on Hochanda which was absolutely amazing so we will be hopefully bringing more of those to match the stamps PLUS more gorgeous stamps designs of course plus Inkabels templates & Masks, But like I say we are always looking for feedback so don’t be shy if you have an idea of something you’d like please let us know

Bev Tonks x