SARA Davies once harboured dreams of becoming a teacher.

Instead, she’s leading a transatlantic craft firm to international repute.

A North-East entrepreneurial success story, her tale is one of inspiration and how seizing an opportunity can change your life.

It’s also one that has seen her recognised with an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list, for services to the economy.

As a management degree student at the University of York, she founded Crafter's Companion from her bedroom.

The company now has bases in the UK and the US and supplies enthusiasts with all manner of tools to satisfy their creative cravings.

Yet it could all been so different.

Mrs Davies wanted to be a teacher, but, after a conversation with her father, she struck on the idea of launching her own venture and spent a year with an arts and crafts mail-order business to make it happen.

Now, with an MBE beside her name, she’s more than relieved her little talk took place.

She said: “This really is testament to my brilliant team and amazingly supportive family”, she said.

“I’m thrilled, honoured and so genuinely humbled, and I hope to inspire the next generation of entrepreneurs to follow their dreams.

“Right from growing up I always wanted to be a teacher, but my dad discouraged me.

“He said because of my drive and passion and will to do things, I would find myself just wanting to teach those that were interested because they shared that same desire.

“So I went off to university and in my last year I organised a placement at a craft company, which really helped me understand the industry.

“At that time, craft was booming and I went back to university and converted my bedroom into an office with a fax machine, filing cabinet and laser printer.

“I started with an envelope maker; people were making all of these lovely cards but they needed something to send them in.

“So I went to a joiners shop and asked them to make me a design for the tool in MDF.

“I touted it around the whole industry and wouldn't take no for an answer.

“It was sheer persistence, I would not stop banging on the door until someone let me in.”

Her perseverance has more than paid off.

Last month, Crafter’s Companion, which has sales of around £15m, officially moved into the former Holiways Ford showroom, in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, turning the site into offices and a shop.

Mrs Davies says the venture is a UK first, adding its store, which is equipped with demonstration areas to teach people the art of papercrafting, sewing and home décor, has the potential to bring coachloads of crafting fanatics to the region.

The move, from the old Davies’ family home in Coundon, near Bishop Auckland, has also taken the firm’s UK-based workforce to more than 70, with some new starters switching to the North-East from London, Bristol and Nottingham.

She said: “We’ve come from humble beginnings but I always wanted to be the best at what I did.

“I wanted that at university, I wanted the first-class honour and to be the best in class.

“Crafters sniff these types of places out and I hope it will make people think, ‘when I next have a weekend away, I want to go there’.

“The staff have taken so much pride in this move and many of them remember Coundon and how we would pack the boxes together.

“This move feels amazing.”