This page is basically about how I started Deano Designs Perth, back in 2013.
Taken from the blog on the Smooshie Face Treats website, compiled by my good friend Holly, the owner (and bestest treat maker in Oz!!) FEB 2020
Feel free to treat your pets, order your treats via this link: https://smooshiefacetreats.com.au
https://smooshiefacetreats.com.au/blogs/smooshie-face-hq/happy-as-piggy-in-fleece
Everyone walks thousands of miles in a lifetime, along the way sometimes you are lucky to meet people who you instantly feel connected to. They help put a hop in your step, bring your mind inspiration & a smile to your face. Robyn Cooper is one of those people to me.
Ive only met Robyn a dozen or so times but I feel like I’ve known her for years. Maybe because we can both talk 1000 miles an hour, or that although we have been on different journeys our paths have been very similar in regard to trying on at lot of hats. She’s a straight talker, down to earth & and all round good bird.
Who is she? Robyn is the owner of Deano Designs (Handmade fleece bedding & cage accessories for small animals), hoomin mother of one gorgeous son & six piggies, Perth’s very own pop up piggy parlour extraordinaire & the creator of the group ”Poop for Plants”.
I asked Robyn to share her story with us as i believe this blog may spark inspiration in people who have always wanted to start a small business. That even later in life trying something new might end up being the very best job you’ve ever had.
Happy as Piggy on Fleece
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I love hats, don’t you?
I have many hats in my collection, but you can’t see them. I wear a different one for all the jobs and responsibilities I juggle from week to week.
The hats each day can vary – I’m a mum to a very bright 7yo old son, shop assistant at a local pet store, seamstress with my own business making fleece bedding, guinea pig groomer, and owner of a ‘Poop Group” .
I’ve worked in many roles and in several fields since leaving school in the 80’s. And over the years, I learned that having a varied and mixed skill set could indeed be an asset. When I was young, it was proper to have a long term employment record, not swapping and changing, as it was seen to mean you could not stay still and work your way up.
During my working life, I’ve sold power tools, stationery, packaging, safety equipment, paper, industrial fasteners, hardware, woodworking machinery, run pet stores, and found it easy to adapt to each change. Along the way I collected more skills – the feathers for my hats.
In 1995 I spent a year in Cairns, North Queensland working in a retail tool store. I spent my weekends and days off exploring the rainforest, mountains and beaches – photographing anything that moved, flowers, rock formations etc
When I was 32 I decided to take a year off from working, and went to the local TAFE college to study Certificate 3 in Applied Environmental Practice. This was basically a course that would be a prerequisite for working for the Dept of Environment or similar now. Learning about ecosystems, revegetation, agricultural land management, resource management, waste management, recycling etc, were included. I loved it. A green hat perhaps.
I volunteered with some local landcare groups and took part in monitoring, sample collections etc over the next few years, and my interest in the environmental changes around me grew.
At 41, I met my partner Rob, and our son arrived when I was in my mid 40’s. Brave to some, a miracle to others. This event brought a baby blue hat, for my collection.
I continued to work part time, firstly for a friend with a 4×4 accessory store. It wasn’t really the right fit for me. Doing accounts payable in a back office I found a bit boring. So, I took the plunge. I put an ad on Gumtree that I was looking for a job. I went about it kinda like this:
“Gen X and looking for 1-2 days work in pet store or similar. I can make good coffee, send a text, use Google or a UBD, can speak to people face to face, use an alarm clock, and drive myself to work. There’s nothing hanging out of my face that should not be there, and I have no nasty words written on my body.”
To my surprise, I got a call from my local pet store, they did not know if I was a woman or a guy by my advert. I have been working there for nine years now . I have known the owners of the store for 20 years, so they are a bit like extended family. We’re good friends, so it’s not like going to ”work” really.
HOW DEANO STARTED – There was a time whilst working at the pet store, we could not buy ferret hammocks from the regular suppliers. So I offered to try and make some. I would never have considered myself a seamstress – far from it. I made half a dozen square hammocks and took them to the store. They sold in a few days, so I made some more.
Deano Designs Perth was born. It all started with a dozen handmade cotton hammocks in a cardboard box.
I registered the business in June 2013, and the roller coaster ride began.
Hammocks were followed by more hammocks, tunnels, little bags, pocket beds, more tunnels, cuddle sacks, double decker hammocks – the box became two boxes on the shelf.
One day, a regular customer named Sandra came in and started asking me about fleece liners, and could I make them for her. I had no idea what she was on about as I had not heard of them.
She gave me some google info and some websites to check out, all of which were in the USA or UK.
The fleece liner concept started in the early 2000’s in UK and USA – and no one in Australia invented it.
Despite lots of searching, I found I could not buy one of these liners in Australia, so I started from scratch to find suitable materials to make the project feesible.
Deano Designs Perth were the first business to make and publicly sell fleece cage liners in Australia, back in 2013.
Over the next few months, I tried several kinds of fabrics, inner layers, fleece types to get the mix just right. I took two into the store for the boss to try out on her bunnies. You wouldn’t believe it – one of the liners got stolen within an hour of it going into the store. We had video footage of this woman picking it up and walking out the door. Probably thought she had a nice doggy bed.
The liners got the tick of approval, and I started making cage liners, and getting my website started to sell online.
My liner size range grew and the website took shape. The pet store wanted me to sell them there too, so I supplied a small three shelf bookcase around a metre tall.
Over the next year my house turned into a fleece zone, it was all over the place. I cut orders out on my kitchen table for two years. I sewed at a study desk in the corner of the family room. When that got too cluttered with rolls, I moved into the home theatre room.
In 2015 my partner Rob built me a proper sewing workshop at home – a 9mx3m shed – insulated, air conditioned, lighting, custom made wooden benches and all.
During this time my customer base was building. I was getting to know how people looked after their animals at home. What they liked and disliked, what worked, what didn’t and what cost a lot more than it should.
I loved finding ways to help people save money, limit waste, and reuse wherever possible.
I kept my pricing reasonable, made good quality products, and expanded my product range even further.
While speaking with people on Facebook groups, through the Deano page, and of course, in the pet store, I learned more about guinea pigs, rabbits, ferrets and rats.
When I was young my sister had a guinea pig, I can only remember it was white. But rabbits were illegal to keep til the 90’s.
Our very 1st piggy…
Christmas 2013 I brought a young guinea pig home from the store who was found suffering with mites. Whilst he was there, I treated him twice, but he did not improve. He spent the days hiding under the cubby house, feeling miserable.
So, I decided the only way to really help, and to stop him being flyblown in the warm weather, was to bring him home for some one-on-one care.
We named this piggy Snowy. He was a young piggy, and my son was delighted that he had come to our house to get better. I put a post on the Deano facebook page, asking my group how I should go about caring for this little pig. The input was amazing, from far and wide. Within a few days the improvement had begun, and he was on the mend. I learned a lot from those piggy owners who followed my page. I put regular posts up of Snowys’ progress.
When Snowy was better, had healed completely, it was time for him to go back to the store, and to find his forever home. My son Dean sat on the big chair in our carport and said “No one will ever love Snowy like we do mummy. Can he stay with us?” Snowy found his forever home that day, and soon we got him a friend, from Sandra – our boy Turbo.
Snowy would be the first of many guinea pigs that would come to stay for a while, then move on to other homes, over the next few years. Piggies that were dumped at the store with skin problems, pregnant piggies, piggies with health issues – many of them have been at my house for some ‘time out’ to recover and get ready for the next phase of their lives.
There’s been over 40 babies born at our house. I have a maternity area setup for when it is needed.
Dean has witnessed the miracle of seeing these creatures born, and sadly, he has seen them pass over the bridge here at home too. He has cradled babies, smooched the mummy pigs, and snuggled with his favourites.
We’ve had our share of guinea pigs that have been our own pets, come and go and over the years.
Then we’ve needed to find the remaining one a friend, so we understand that no piggy is left to live alone (unless they’re really antisocial and just can’t have any friends). So it’s been a matter of keeping the numbers even I guess.
Fleece bedding has been a big part of my life for almost ten years. Sewing was never my forte, but I have now made it my career. (My poor mum still shakes her head in disbelief – I hated sewing as a teen – many in my family sew very well.)
I took a chance and took my best shot at something new. I could have never foreseen how big it all got.
At this stage in my life, it suits me to work for myself, be a hands on mum for my son, and still have some room for a day at the pet store each week. It’s my day to go chat to others, help customers find the best solutions to their queries, and of course, cuddle all the guinea pigs.
The Popup Piggy Pamper Parlour?
Customers started asking about where they could take their guinea pigs for haircuts, nail clipping etc as many vets quoted big prices for these services. I started doing grooming on a Saturday morning at my home. This became The Popup Piggy Pamper Parlour.
I enjoy meeting piggies and their owners. It’s nice to chat about them, help owners with their concerns, and sometimes there’s coffee and a biscuit.
BOOK YOUR PIGGIES IN THRU OUR FACEBOOK PAGE: https://www.facebook.com/popuppiggypamperparlour
Ok, I know you are all dying to know – what’s a “poop group”?
In 2018 created a Facebook group called POOP FOR PLANTS – the idea came to me after hearing so many people on rabbit and guinea pig groups talking about the amounts of hay and waste they were throwing away in their council bins each week. All that manure and garden goodness, off to the tip, and going to waste. What if there was a way to have folks that need to offload this stuff, get it to gardeners that could use it for their veggie gardens, worm farms or compost piles? A Light bulb kinda moment.
FACEBOOK PAGES for Poop for Plants are in WA
So I call it my community gift – to the gardeners who need it, and pet owners to offload it.
I’m passionate about the world we all have to live in. Things we do today have an effect on our future, and our children’s future. Discussion leads to action, every journey starts with a single step.
We have an obligation to our pets to care for their needs properly, to our family to provide a safe home, and to make the changes needed to lessen our environmental impact on a global scale.
Robyn Cooper 🙂
February 2023 – So there you have it, thats really all there is to the story.
My son Dean is now 13, and in Year 8. We currently have 6 piggies here at home, the dog Yoda is still crazy – and my 60m sewing workshop is my haven and the ‘mum zone’.
If there’s a few things COVID19 pandemic has brought to us all – I guess – sometimes you need to follow the rules even if you don’t like it, make small changes for the greater good, and even perhaps take a chance on yourself, why wait?
and moving forward…….
Deano Designs Perth will continue to offer great customer service –
no airy fairy stuff, no fake news, no bought reviews, no personal grandstanding – just well made, affordable products that help you care for your pets at home.
I thank all my supporters, and I appreciate that support every day. I only ever show, promote or sell my own work.
There’s even been a few ‘loyal customers’ that have taken the short cut, and used my business ideas to jump start their own enterprise, and have become business competitors.
I believe customers will shop where they want, whether driven by price, social media recommendations, word of mouth, or who has the right fleece print on the day.
I make a quality product, give honest answers and charge reasonable prices.
Deano isn’t about winning prizes, personal grandstanding, gloating how busy we are, or bombarding the world with social media posts every day – I live in the real world.
There’s enough fake out there already.
Proudly, through my own genuine efforts, ideas and hard work – I’ve been here since 2013 …. simple.
The most honest review you’ll ever get as a business owner, is the one that turns up unexpectedly, and the customer expects nothing in return for giving it.
Deano started as a challenge to myself to try something new after age 40.
My business is now my full time career, it fits my life/work balance needs at this stage of my working life, and it supports my son and I financially.
