Hello
My name is Gemma founder of Syd&Co. I grew up being obsessed with drawing and animals. As a little girl I used to create folders of drawings of horses, dogs and cats and even though I never had a dog I used to study all the different dog breeds dreaming of the day I would get one.
Syd&Co initially started on my kitchen table where I used to free-machine embroider and make personalised pencil cases for friends and family. I would do this whilst working as a full-time secondary school teacher. Working long hours, I would grab every minute of time I could to get my little business going. My personalised gifts became very popular but also physically demanding to make as I made everything from scratch. In 2017 I took a leap of confidence and with the profits I made from my pencil cases I invested in some print equipment.
Even though we are obsessed with dogs Syd&Co was named after my beautiful Burmese cat Syd (who was such a feisty character) Sadly he died when he was 7yrs old, but it was when this happened, and I got my dogs that I transformed the business and my mindset and plucked up the courage to leave my job as a teacher.
At Syd&Co we believe in creating gifts and clothing that has meaning that you will want to look after and cherish. All your orders are individually created just for you. We pride ourselves on our well-made, thoughtful and unique products. All our pet and people illustrations have been drawn by me I and I think this is what makes us stand out from the crowd.
We now have hundreds of different gifts and an archive of hand drawn pets and people. Our gifts do take a little bit more time to purchase than something straight off the shelf, but we love the idea of allowing you to create something special whether it’s through a choice of colour, a phrase or by adding your precious pets.