Creme De La Creme Cornwall

So you've followed my journey throughout my entrepreneurial ventures and since my visit to The Market Cornwall today I wanted to share with you more from my little Business Creme De La Creme Cornwall.

A couple of years ago I acted on a complete whim when I bought a Vintage Caravan on eBay.

I was so excited to get let my creativity loose on an exciting new project so I headed down to the diy store to stock up on some serious man machinery, some pretty tiles and invested in George Clarke's amazing spaces latest book.

I spent hours trawling Pinterest for inspiration on Van renovations and endless hours watching youtube How To tutorials to learn some new DIY skills, tiling being one of them, which is strangely therapeutic!

Before long i'd drawn up my designs and headed out to rip out the entire interior and begin from scratch.

I was already running another small business creating homewares from concrete, again, Pinterest inspired when boho chic nomadic interiors went huge, along with other homewares such as paintings and up-cycled furniture. As well as vintage clothes and handmade jewellery accessories, So the original plan was to run the Caravan as a creative outlet shop for my products.

I wanted to make sure that the van stayed versatile and could be re-created at anytime just incase i fancied using it for something else, this was the best decision I made..

So I started by ripping out the vintage interiors, wardrobes and beds etc and went on the search for pallets. I wanted to be as sustainable as possible so I sourced old reclaimed items only for the entire build.

P.s. taking pallets apart was nearly the most difficult part...

So I started by creating a skeleton woodwork frame to support my worktops, which were reclaimed scaffold boards and then I used mdf boards leftovers as my cupboard fronts and mounted pallet wood in a rustic fashion on top.

The paint I chose was new, but even then, I made sure the paint was environmentally friendly and non-toxic.

And the tiles were new also because I couldn't find enough matching vintage tiles for my backsplash.

After calling in some favours from my creative friends the van was complete.

Off I went on my marketing drive to create a buzz around my sustainable new business and soon enough the caravan was a hit.

You know me by now though right?.. of course, I got bored.


So I combined my love of baking and changed up the van, I'd been inspired by my travels across Europe and the US to create a Food Brand for surfers and beach lovers, naughty food with a health kick.. Remember the super food hype? I jumped straight on it, I researched how I could use these powerful foods in all of my recipes and exactly what health benefits they had.

That's when Creme De La Creme was born, I was baking the moment my children went to bed, right through until 3am most nights then setting off at 6am most mornings depending on which event I was travelling to.

I wanted my brand to represent the Beach Lifestyle, so first on the list was a coffee machine, who doesn't love coffee and cake at the beach?! Next I wanted to offer pre-surf superfood smoothies so I went on the hunt for local produce that I could mix up, I served sweet waffles, fresh fruit, cream and coulis in the mornings and of course cake. I really wanted to get creative with the cakes too, so every cake I served was a recipe that I designed myself, my Passionfruit and Peach loaf cake topped with lemon drizzle and pistachios was by far the best seller along with my raw vegan chocolate and orange sponge. As the van became more popular I started receiving requests for bespoke orders, which was an unexpected and fun way to spend the days I wasn't due in for any events,

I quickly realised I was ready for expansion, I wanted to add another line to the Creme De La Creme brand.

Vegan, Raw, Superfoods where getting more and more hype so I looked into sourcing raw chocolate and creating my own chocolate superfood barks, they were so successful that I started to get orders in from stockists, which again I hadn't event thought of.

I got such a buzz from taking the van to creative based events and meeting all the other vendors and small business owners, I call them the makers and shakers of Cornwall, because we were like an exclusive collective of people all making a living doing what we love. It was an amazing experience and by far the best business decision I ever made. So I planned to expand.

I put all my efforts into grabbing some retail space to bring Creme De La Creme to the streets of Newquay, at the time, Newquay was thriving with new beachy businesses popping up, I couldn't wait to join the creative hub that Newquay was once again becoming along with all of these amazing businesses, but then everything went on hold whilst the retail space I wanted went up for sale, ending their rental potential. So back to the drawing board I went. As winter drew in I put Creme on hold too, I focused on my marketing freelancing and gained income that way until I figured out what I wanted to do next. A year passed by where I freelanced crazy with Festivals, Events and helping build other people's brands that I decided to sell the caravan itself instead of the Business on the whole, in the hope that a retail space would pop up soon enough.

You've followed my journey since then, I'm still marketing, working with some amazing brands, still travelling for work, still working my other brands but I literally cannot wait to share my next creative little venture with you all!

I'll end this with a quote thats kept me going throughout my journey..

"A wise girl knows her limits, A smart girl knows she has none."