Kettering's creative card-designing sisters - from K-Pop to popping the question

A pair of Kettering sisters have turned their side hustles into booming businesses by selling their bespoke greetings cards to customers at home - and across the globe.

Hannah Panther, 25, has followed her big sister Charlotte, 31, into creating greeting cards for a living after lockdown disrupted her job and she wanted to thank key workers.

Charlotte had already founded the Lazy Day Club, specialising in stickers and cards celebrating Korean culture, when Hannah joined her at the family kitchen table with her own range.

Now the pair share an office, working side-by-side as they design and make their own brands of cards, an arrangement that has lasted as the sisters say they are 'very, very close'.

Hannah, owner of Willow & Green, said: "It didn't start off as a business, but during lockdown we wanted to say thank you to key workers so we gave out little business cards with messages on them - to the postman and others who were working so hard.

"People liked them and asked me to design cards for them. It grew by word of mouth. I would deliver them to doorsteps because people couldn't get out."

As lockdown eased, Hannah worked alongside Charlotte in their family home in Kettering, with mum Bev and dad Phil being roped in to help.

Charlotte's Lazy Day Club business grew from her passion for all things Korean - learning to speak read and write the language - that led her to setting up an online language school with her Korean friends from school.

As a well done the students would be given a personalised card featuring K-Pop artists and the side-line then turned into a business in its own right.

She even sells her cards and stickers to customers in Korea - a country that she has not yet visited despite her passion for the culture.

Charlotte said: "It's gone massive. I sell stickers and cards with K-Pop boy bands. They are so popular. I would love to go to Korea."

Hannah learned helping Charlotte with her orders and now both sisters are busy running their online shops, designing and sending the purchases off to customers ordered through their Etsy sites.

All of the cards are printed on recycled hammer card and sent in biodegradable 'cello bags' after being hand-creased with a gadget made by dad Phil.

Both sites offer personalised cards and a range to mark occasions, anniversaries and life events.

Hannah, a former make-up artist said: "I commission art work from across the world and put the designs together. I use my skill as a make-up artist to design the cards - it's a blank canvas. It's got very big, very quickly. Especially popular are positivity cards like 'sending you hugs' - a massive issue during the lockdown."

And when it comes to celebrating each other's birthdays, sadly they aren't treated to one of their special designs.

Charlotte added: "When it comes to our birthdays we're too busy to make one so we tend to buy one last minute from a supermarket."

Check out Charlotte's Korean inspired cards here at Lazy Day Club and Hannah's Willow & Green designs here.