As the owner of internet business Hunkydory Home, Alison Ellerbrook produces fun and funky pieces to brighten up any abode. She talks to Sarah Millington

IT may be a cliché, but Alison Ellerbrook really is a victim of her own success. After starting her company, Hunkydory Home, ten years ago, by last year, she found that it had grown beyond her wildest expectations. This might sound like the ideal scenario, but for Alison, it was the opposite.

“The business was doing really well financially and everybody was saying, ‘you should grow it and get staff’ and I was getting men in suits coming along and having meetings,” she recalls. “I completely and utterly freaked out. I don’t want to be a business woman and I don’t want to be a manager. I’d spent about seven years selling lots of different things as well as my own cushions and lampshades and, last January, I thought, ‘I’m going to go back to what I started doing’.”

This was making mainly cushions and lampshades from fabrics sourced from anywhere and everywhere that fitted with the Hunkydory look. Bold and bright, this is a reflection of Alison’s taste, using simple, almost childlike patterns to achieve a vintage – yet clean and modern – effect.

It all started with Alison’s desire to fulfil her potential. Having given up on a degree and flitted from one job to another, including working as cabin crew and in sales, she ended up at an interior design shop in Morpeth. The products it sold were quite traditional and Alison, who lives in Longhorsley, Northumberland, felt there was scope for younger, trendier styles.

She began making cushions from vintage fabrics and selling them on eBay, expanding into lampshades when these proved popular. Before she knew it, she had the makings of a business. “I went to the Prince’s Trust and they gave me a loan to get set up with a little website,” says Alison, 38. “That’s where I started.”

While she has no formal training, Alison has a strong sense of her own style, and people often remark on this when they visit her home. Her artistic flair is inherited from her mother – though it has taken time to develop.

“My mum is really arty-crafty – she’s really talented – but I didn’t do anything arty at school,” says Alison. “My mum was a dress designer for a bit and did lots of sewing, so I probably picked up on that at home. I think it’s confidence as well. I would always say, ‘I’m not creative’, but then I just think I’m going to do something I like. I think if you follow what you like, other people will like it too. I’ve always liked Scandinavian design because I grew up in Norway and I think that bold design stuck with me. I’m also quite nostalgic. I live in the past.”

While she makes a lot of her cushions and lampshades herself, Alison has help from a seamstress for some of the orders. Her decision to curtail the business may have been controversial, but it has allowed her to branch out in a new, more satisfying direction.

“Much to the dismay of my accountant, I decided to downsize because I wanted to create my own fabrics,” says Alison. “That enabled me to have the time and space in my head to design. I’ve basically designed a small collection of fabrics that I use to make cushions and lampshades and some coasters.”

The range, Retro Flowers, is very much in keeping with Hunkydory Home’s style. Alison’s stepfather, a graphic designer, helped her come up with the bold, floral prints and she has chosen a heavily textured, hopsack fabric to show them off to maximum effect. The collection is entirely UK-produced, which customers like, and Alison enjoys the fact that it is small-scale.

“I like working from my kitchen table,” she says. “My husband and my family all run their own businesses and I’ve seen the level of stress and I don’t want that. If I can run the business and earn an income, that’s fine. I don’t want to be rich – that’s not my motivation.”

While she enjoys the flexibility provided by running a modest-sized business, combining Hunkydory Home with being a mum to eight-year-old Izzy, Alison is keen to further explore her creativity. She would love to design more ranges – maybe focusing on children’s products – but plans to stick mainly to cushions and lampshades.

A huge endorsement has come from the niche website Not On The High Street, which has featured Alison’s products since it began. “I think they started about a year after I did so I was one of the earlier ones,” she says. “It’s a really good gateway to access a lot of people.”

After ten years, she feels she’s in a good place. “I just like to go with the flow really and not put any deadlines on myself,” says Alison. “I’m happy with what I do and I’m successful because I’m doing what I want to do, where I want to do it and when I want to do it. I can’t ask for more than that.

www.hunkydoryhome.co.uk