Last year, Jane Banks set up LaserFlair, an exciting lasercutting and engraving company based near Upper Largo.

With experience in the pharmaceutical and papermaking industries, a couple of redundancies and a creative streak, Jane knew that manufacturing was what she loved. So she converted an outbuilding into a workshop, invested in a big machine and is the proud owner of a new British manufacturing business specialising in personalised goods and services.

Her materials are sourced and her products are designed and made in the UK, and she takes great pride in the quality of her products and fast delivery times to make her customers as happy as possible. ‘Once customers have placed their orders, they get very excited and want to see their personalised products as quickly as possible!’ she says, and her website is bursting with glowing testimonials to prove it.

LaserFlair works with many small businesses in Fife, engraving olivewood cheeseboards for The Guid Cheese Shop with their logo and makes gifts for Bonkers, both in St Andrews. She engraves slate table ware for the St Andrews University shop and works with Fifex in Tayport to create components for interactive displays for museums, Dundee Sensation and the Edinburgh Science Festival.

Jane has also worked with customers around the UK. Recently, she made stencils for a school in Stornoway for the children to use to etch local designs onto the backs of iPhones as part of a project to encourage entrepreneurship. She also undertakes commissions, creating big romantic gestures for paper wedding anniversaries, delicate wedding favours from plywood, and bespoke laser cut wedding invitations and baby announcement cards, all using customers’ own artwork so they get exactly what they want.

LaserFlair also offers a range of laser cut products. Her best selling line is baby keepsakes, intricately cut from solid oak with names, birthweights and dates of birth cut through. She also creates artwork and exhibited her laser cut wood line art at the Pittenweem Art Festival last August.

To make the business as viable as possible, Jane has done everything to keep overheads as low as possible and roped in her husband to take care of the technical aspects of setting up the business, all without compromising on quality of equipment and product and service delivery.

In these interesting times, it is possible to do something completely different and create a new business on a budget! Want to know more?

You can contact Jane by mobile at 07534 103549 and email jane@laserflair.co.uk.

There’s a website and online shop: www.laserflair.co.uk.

You can ‘like’ laserFlair on Facebook and follow @LaserFlair on Twitter.