Children’s art franchise built on sand

A FAMILY who set up a sand-painting business for children’s parties less than a year ago has secured £50,000 in business angel funding and is moving into Sir Tom Hunter’s Entrepreneurial Spark incubator centre in Ayrshire.

A FAMILY who set up a sand-painting business for children’s parties less than a year ago has secured £50,000 in business angel funding and is moving into Sir Tom Hunter’s Entrepreneurial Spark incubator centre in Ayrshire.

Kids Bee Happy was launched by Alistair and Sandra Patterson following a family holiday to Turkey, where their daughter Jessica fell in love with sand art.

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Having sold their previous company – Boxby, which arranged for antiques bought through online auctions or dealers to be delivered by a network of white van drivers – to American logistics firm Uship, the Pattersons saw the potential to set up a franchise business in the UK.

They have already signed up more than 20 franchisees in Scotland, England and Wales and are now moving into Hunter’s “west coast hatchery”, an incubator centre for start-up businesses at his head office at Dundonald. Jim Duffy runs a second hatchery in Glasgow.

Sandra said: “Bringing in the funding and moving to the Entrepreneurial Spark centre will let us concentrate on growing the firm and signing up more franchisees.”

During the sand-painting parties run by the firm’s franchisees, children are given printed images to which they stick sand, creating pictures of cartoon characters, animals or other objects.

Elizabeth Syme, an adviser at Business Gateway, which helped to set up Kids Bee Happy, said: “The business has huge potential and highlights how sometimes the simplest idea can be the most successful.”

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