Welcome to the world of Smiling Boo - the home of fun and quirky gifts, homewares, apparel and accessories.

We are Maxine and Sammi, a mother-daughter duo (think more Gilmore Girls than Dick Dastardly and Muttley), grabbing life by the balls to bring you creative designs to bring a spark of fun to an otherwise meh world.

We've always talked about starting a business together, but the first nameless inception was going to be cakes and baked goods. Like most people, we loved watching The Great British Bake Off and experimented with our own creations to the point where we were getting pretty good and had made the odd things for friends and family. Then life happened - Sammi flew the nest to live with Little Sis, and eventually got hitched and got a nest of her own.

Then in 2017, the unimaginable happened - our youngest son/brother, Ben, died very suddenly and unexpectedly just two months after his 23rd birthday. We were completely devastated, and such a loss is not something that you move past. Ben was such an easy going lad, who embraced whatever came his way and took whatever opportunities he could. We miss him everyday...

Through all this, we found comfort in crafting, and moved away from cakes to bags and teddies, of all things. Like with the cakes, we watched The Great British Sewing Bee and we started making our own creations and a new business plan developed, and this time the business had a name - Smiling Boo, in memory of Ben, nicknamed Boo from a young age and to reflect his happy-go-luck outlook on life.

The next thing we knew, Sammi had her own Little Miss on the way and the world was suddenly plunged into lockdown because of Covid. That halted things for a couple of years, and during that time we both became obsessed with Cricut and everything that came with it. This time, there were no shows to teach and inspire us, so we had to get crafty and just go for it! Many hours of YouTube and trial-and-error later, we reimagined what Smiling Boo was going to be about. And here we are, 10 years after we first talked about it, officially opening the doors of Smiling Boo. The rest, as they say, is history...