Well, about Sandra. 

Fold in Love Studio grew out of years of doodling in my school exercise books. Some of the characters and faces that appear on products today can be traced back to sketches from around 2017, when I was still in secondary school and just beginning to take illustration seriously. Even then, I was taking on small commissions for classmates, making trinkets for school events, and designing labels, stickers and accessories for community projects, simply because I loved making things and seeing them used.

 

My journey into selling my work started in late 2018, after a conversation with an art teacher nudged me to open an Etsy shop and start peddling my handmade goods online. Exam seasons came before I could immediatly try my hand at setting up an online storefront, so the idea sat in the background for a while. In 2018, I opened my first Etsy shop under a different name, selling handmade jewellery such as origami star dangle earrings. The shop opened and closed in stages as I balanced GCSEs, A levels, university, part-time/full-time work and caring responsibilities, which meant many products were made to order and often paused when life needed more attention. Even so, new designs kept appearing in my sketchbooks in the quieter moments.

 

During university, the idea for Mood Tabs really began to take shape. As a reader and student, I was tired of standard sticky index tabs that curled at the edges, lost their grip, left residue on pages and sometimes even tore them. I wanted a reliable, sustainable alternative to the study materials I’d been relying on for years, so I started exploring a completely glue-free design. At the same time, I was noticing how few characters in the stationery world actually looked like me – I rarely saw my complexion reflected in the illustrations I was using every day. That became a big part of my drive: to create stationery and small items where people of different skin tones and backgrounds could see themselves represented in spaces where they often hadn’t been, especially in the stationery space. 

 

I first developed and pitched Mood Tabs as a finalist in my university’s Business Start-Up Journey programme, presenting an earlier version of the brand (then called IntentionALL) to a panel of peers, judges and members of the public as part of the annual start-up competition (you can read more aboure the programme here). That experience helped me refine Mood Tabs into what they are now: reusable, page-safe paperclip markers with small illustrated moods and expressions that let you tab by feeling, idea or theme instead of just colour. With 25 designs in the range and a glue-free, reusable format, they’re designed to be gentle on pages, kinder to the environment, and a more personal way to see yourself reflected in the tools you use every day.

 

Over the years, I’ve poured my savings, time and energy into testing materials, refining designs and making sure each piece feels good in real, everyday use. Earlier this year, I took the leap, stepped away from full-time employment and decided to give Fold in Love Studio my full attention (at the very least, for the next year). This space, this little corner of the internet that I'm calling my own, is the result: a small, growing collection of stationery and accessories designed to help you see yourself in every moment, express how you feel, who you are, and find tiny moments of joy in the middle of ordinary days.

Thank you for supporting a one-woman studio and choosing handmade – it genuinely shapes the kind of world we get to build together. If you’d like to be part of that, have a browse, pick a piece that feels like you, and stay in touch.