Creating treasured keepsakes and thoughtful gifts
We’re Deb and Kym, two friends-turned-business partners who have slowly built two online businesses, The Christmas Cart and Gifts and Keepsakes. We are driven to help you make all your seasonal celebrations and special occasions memorable and meaningful.
We met 20 years ago, both running our own small businesses (Deb in marketing, Kym in graphic design) - and started our business as a side hustle. In the first few years it evolved and grew and it didn’t take long to see how much customers were loving our products. Fast forward to now and we have close to 4,000 products and a faithful team of kickass staff.
We have shared so many amazing experiences over the past 18 years and are super proud of where we are now. As you can imagine, it’s not all been smooth sailing, there have been LOTS of challenges, but we are both so grateful to be doing something we love and are inspired everyday to improve and grow in some small way.
We are so similar and yet so different, and like many of the best long-term relationships, we have learnt to play to each other’s strengths. We have a friendship that started with respect, grew with trust and we now share one of the most loving and positive relationships. In life and in businesses, we know we have each other’s backs.
Deb lives in a country town just outside of Sydney - you’ll likely see her enviable view from her kitchen in photos shared in the group. With her husband, Michael, four adult children, a growing number of grandkids, and the sweetest cavoodle called Harlie, her house is rarely as peaceful as it seems in the photos - but that’s when it’s most perfect. There’s not much she’ll say no to if you offer her a glass of chilled white wine and a cheese board. Deb’s love of crafting, styling and pretty things is critical to the product development and marketing of the businesses.
Kym lives in the gorgeous hinterland of the Sunshine Coast. Born and raised in Queensland she moved back home with her hubby Shane when her boys were young to be closer to her family. Like many of us, family is everything to Kym. Her family celebrations are casual affairs, full of laughter and with a focus on yummy food lovingly made by many hands each having their specialty (Kym’s being lemonade scones). A graphic designer by profession, and recently converted ‘dog mum’, Kym is integral to all the design elements of the businesses and managing the websites.
Sharing our love of celebrating throughout the year has led us to create three fun and exciting ways to give you oodles of ideas, tips and all the support you need to make your next celebration special;
1. The Celebration Central Facebook Community: a place where you can share your ideas, ask questions, get inspired, enjoy member-only exclusive offers and content, and most importantly, connect with people, like you, that just love celebrating. Be sure to join us here.
2. The Celebration Central Weekly newsletter: it’s packed with tips and tricks, specials and promotions, it’s everything you need to help you prepare stress-free celebrations, find thoughtful and unique gifts, and decorate your special events like a pro. Be sure to sign up.
3. The Celebration Central YouTube Channel: where we bring you videos highlighting the latest event decorating trends and informative step-by-step videos to help you take your seasonal celebrations and special occasion decorating to the next level. Make sure you subscribe to never miss a video.
And of course our Gifts and Keepsakes Facebook and Gifts and Keepsakes Instagram pages are one of our favourite ways to keep in touch with our fellow celebration crazies. There’s plenty of decorating tips and inspiration as well as product features and amazing competitions too.
So that is a bit about us, and all of the fun that we have helping our customers to create, decorate and celebrate the special occasions in their lives, (especially Christmas!) as a way of making beautiful memories with the people they love. We would absolutely love to help you share the spirit of Christmas in your own unique way so be sure to follow us on our socials and get in touch by emailing info@giftsandkeepsakes.com.au or call us on 1300 72 47 10 if there is anything that we can do to help.
Here at The Christmas Cart we love to share the fun and joy of Christmas. Our Christmas Glitter Fairies and Elves are passionate about helping our customers create the perfect Christmas decoration or Christmas gift, with a special glittery personal touch.
It all began in 2008, when Deborah Quinn and Kym Aldred seized an opportunity to open a personalised Christmas decoration pop-up shop to compliment Milestones 2 Memories, a business they had established some years earlier. As two mums who love Christmas and enjoy nothing better than sharing the festive spirit, this was an opportunity they couldn’t turn down.
So Deb and Kym came together, utilising their respective skills as a marketer and designer, and this is where The Christmas Cart all began. What started as just a bit of fun “on the side” for the pair to enjoy and share their love of Christmas, soon grew into a blossoming business providing personalised baubles and many other Christmas keepsakes at affordable prices.
The number of retail outlets has grown each year and now The Christmas Cart and Milestones 2 Memories combined have over 20 pop-up shops throughout the eastern states of Australia that open from 4-6 weeks depending on the location.
In 2010 we launched our website to make it possible for people from all over the world to order from our beautiful range of Christmas baubles, gifts and decorations. Our personalised Christmas baubles look perfect in every unique location from a chateaux in France, a farmhouse in New Zealand to an apartment in New York, not to mention a warm and loving family home anywhere in Australia .
Getting to know our customers is one of our favourite aspects of being in business, and so in 2011 we created our Facebook page The Christmas Cart. We now have over 25,000 friends who share their lives and love of family and Christmas with us. Our Facebook page is a mixing pot of all things festive, funny and heartfelt. We offer lots of Christmas decorating tips, inspirational stories and regularly post our favourite recipes, because let’s face it: one of the best things about Christmas is all of the food! We also love to share what is going on in our lives with our customers through stories and photos that make us all smile, and of course there are regular offers and competitions for our friends.
So that is a bit about us, but now we would love to hear a bit about you, so please stop by our Facebook page, pop in to one of our shops at Christmas time, drop us a line via info@thechristmascart.com.au or simply call us on 1300 72 47 10. We would love to help you share the spirit of Christmas in your own unique way.