Kelly Atkins, Carpet-Burns
A young designer has turned a housework disaster into an innovative and thriving business, with help from learndirect Learning through Work.
Kelly Atkins, now 27, was doing a spot of ironing on the floor when she discovered she’d melted the carpet into a hard plastic surface. Rather than getting upset, the Applied Arts student got inspired, and started to experiment with the new material.
Four years on, Carpet-Burns is an award winning business, and the sole suppliers of HTC (Heat Treated Carpet), a new and 100 per cent recycled, environmentally friendly material which can be used like plywood.
Kelly says: “It’s amazing how much has happened since that first ‘light-bulb’ moment. I started making accessories and handbags out of burnt carpet as part of my BA at Derby University, but it soon became a three year material research project. As the project started to develop into a business, I found I needed a whole range of new skills, and that’s where learndirect Learning through Work came in.
“Having graduated, I was still in Derby doing some lecturing to make ends meet and working to get Carpet-Burns off the ground, applying for funding and grants and exhibiting where I could. The leader of the Learning through Work programme at Derby approached me and asked me if I’d like to create an MA out of creating Carpet-Burns. It just seemed to make sense.
“I’d heard about learndirect from adverts on the TV, but I had no idea it could work for me and help me achieve a post-graduate business qualification. With Learning through Work you design your own modules, and it’s all planned, managed and supported online. That made it easy for me to fit it in around Carpet-Burns, because it meant I really wasn’t doing any ‘extra’ work. Everything I did and everything I learnt I would have had to do and learn anyway in the process of building the business. This way I got a qualification too.”
Each module is externally examined and quality assured like any other ‘traditional’ qualification, but can be based on real, practical projects. For one section of her course, Kelly developed the www.carpet-burns.com website. She continues: “I learnt about what to include on a site and how to manage designers to get what I wanted. In the two and a half years it took me to complete the MA, I also covered areas such as business planning, finance, marketing, and product and material development. All of that’s been invaluable, and I’ve learnt about it by doing it, which suits me down to the ground.”
Kelly graduated from learndirect Learning through Work with an MA in Sustainable Design and Business last January. She says: “At every stage I’ve had brilliant support from my Learning through Work tutors, who’ve helped me really tailor everything to my needs. I just wouldn’t have been able to get the qualification any other way, and Carpet-Burns is now going strong as a material design, research and development company.”
Indeed, over the years the company has attracted funding from the Prince’s Trust and NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts), and awards for innovation and design including the Best Graduate start-up from New Statesman, Most Innovative Product award from the Royal Institute of British Architects, and Kelly herself has won both the Shell Live Wire award and has been named Young Entrepreneur for Social Enterprise.
“At the moment we’re working on an exhibition for the 100% Design show,” explains Kelly. “We won the space as part of a prize having won an award at last year’s show. Organising Carpet-Burns presence there last time was actually another one of my Learning through Work projects. It’s a really prestigious interior design exhibition and a great chance to get our product on show.
“I’m also working on setting up the mass production of HTC, and a nationwide carpet collection scheme to re-cycle old ends and waste from the carpet industry. Carpet waste accounts for an estimated 2 per cent of all land filled waste, and it takes up to two hundred and fifty years to biodegrade. HTC retains the colour and pattern of the original carpet, and can be moulded, drilled and sawed like wood – it’s a fun and unique way to re-cycle. It’s also a high performance, durable material than can be used for anything from flat-pack stools and tables to coasters, decorative surface covering, flooring or panelling. It’s even been used to make wardrobe doors on an episode of Channel 4’s Changing Rooms.”
Kelly’s work on re-cycling and sustainability has opened up opportunities for her to speak to a range of audiences about her experiences, Carpet-Burns, and the potential of HTC. She even sits on a board encouraging other young entrepreneurs to get their ideas off the ground.
“I would never have guessed a small ironing mishap would lead me through an MA and to my own re-cycling business,” says Kelly. “I’m doing something I’m passionate about, and proud of, and it’s definitely been worth all the hard work. Now I’m looking forward to the next set of challenges.”