A friendship and then a partnership
Once upon a time in the Land Down Under, two creative and adventurous mothers, conceived the idea of starting-up “Cosy Cubbies”. The story unfolded as follows:
Jenny and Jane met at the neighbourhood Council’s “Mothers’ group”. They were two uniquely different women with distinctly different backgrounds however, their beautiful, perfect, intelligent, angelic children were almost the same age. Jenny, a “textile magician”, with a certificate in fabric design and construction, is petite with beautiful, fine features and dark brown hair and Jane, a teacher and “computer whiz” by training, is medium in stature with a shock of strawberry blonde hair and an impish sparkle in her green eyes.
When the original “Mothers’ group” finished, the two continued to meet for lunch and children’s dates. Their husbands secretly thought that their friendship was just another excuse to eat, drink and laugh on a Friday afternoon. Little did they know that there were great ideas brewing between them. Time passed, children were born, joys and sorrows were shared but still the friendship grew from strength to strength.
Cosy Cubbies is born
During the festive period in 2004, Jane bought a cubbyhouse for her daughters. Upon viewing the bare interior of the playhouse, it was obvious that it needed a big dose of “cosy”.
As the two friends were leisurely lunching, sipping Chardonnay and listening to the laughter of their children, they discussed creative ways to “cosy” the cubbyhouse. Suddenly and quite obviously the idea of “Cosy Cubbies” was born. Secretly they wished that childbirth was as painless as the birth of an idea!
And so, the end of this story is the beginning of another. From the conception of the “Cosy Cubbies” idea, the two friends combined their individual talents to create a handcrafted collection of furnishings.
In 2006 the dynamic duo came up with another idea – covering sandpits. Jane had added to her cubbyhouse a sandpit for her children to build great monuments in, but the neighborhood cats and possums decided to make themselves comfortable in the sand and so the idea of sandpit covers was conceptualized.
With lots of experimenting, the ladies came up with the idea of using bunji loops and knobs to keep the covers attached to the sides of the sandpit, and with Jenny’s long and exquisitely manicured nails, the idea of placing the bunji knobs a certain way to keep her nails intact was paramount in the design.
This entrepreneurial team then started venturing out to sell their covers to other home owners with sandpits and it wasn’t long before local kindergartens, schools and daycare centres came calling asking for their sand in their pits to be keep covered from pesky possums and prowling cats and so the sandpit business exploded.
A couple of years later an even more exciting design was invented – using chain encased in the hem of the covers to keep it weighed down. This method has become the most popular with commercial sites as the covers are so easy to set-up.
The ladies have been manufacturing covers Australia wide and have made thousands in all shapes and sizes. It seems there is nothing they cannot “cover”.
Fun and “FLOLOWS”
The latest invention namely “FLOLOWS” or floating pillows, was initiated after the friends realized that their kids and four-legged children needed a tool to enjoy the outdoors, especially during summer. The “FLOLOW” (Jane’s husband came up with this innovative name) can be used in the pool, at the beach or in a river. The entrepreneurs are also making a difference by recycling their sandpit covers’ off-cut materials and manufacturing the “FLOLOWS” with these materials.