Award-winning Ilkley entrepreneur partners with Aardman to create Shaun the Sheep eco laundry products

The products have already been selected as finalists for Branded Gift of the Year in The Gift of the Year Awards, run by the Giftware Association.

Ms Turner worked with the Aardman licensing team to create a range of products including laundry balls, laundry fragrance, linen spray and felted soap.

The roots of the collaboration go back to 2019 when she won a stand at the Autumn Fair in Birmingham – one of the biggest home and gift trade events for suppliers and retailers – through Theo Paphitis’s Small Business Sunday network.

She met an Aardman licensing agent and had early discussions about a collaboration but the Covid-19 pandemic paused further conversations. Last year Ms Turner connected with a new member of Aardman’s marketing team via LinkedIn and revisited the proposal.

“It’s been a big project for us but I’m hoping that it’s going to continue to be a successful line,” said Ms Turner. “We’re very happy with how it’s been received so far.”

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Ms Turner, who has a £125,000 turnover and employs two people, launched Little Beau Sheep from her kitchen table in 2015.

She left her corporate marketing career at HSBC after having children to create her own business that enabled her to work more flexibly.

"I found myself living in a top floor flat with no outside drying space and very little indoor drying space and was dependent on the tumble dryer to get things dry,” she said.

"Tumble drier balls cut down drying times and they replace fabric softener and drying sheets to have less impact on the environment.”

She added: “The wool dryer balls, unlike plastic balls, are biodegradable and don’t make a noise in the machine.”

Having learnt felting skills from scratch, she realised that you could make dryer balls out of wool and started selling them on Etsy. Now she sells from her own website as well as independent shops nationwide.

Last year, she became a member of The Worshipful Company of Woolmen - one of the oldest livery companies in the City of London, dating back to 1180, due to all the work she does in raising the profile of British wool.

She is also a supporter of the Rare Breed Survival Trust and The Campaign for Wool. Little Beau Sheep is a British Wool Licensee - meaning that it can display the “Shepherd’s Crook” of British Wool.

Ms Turner, who has shared her views on the power of wool and the tragedy of it being an underrated material in a TedX talk, said: “The problem is that plastic has taken over and become our first port of call because it seems more convenient but it goes to landfill and doesn’t break down.”

She added: "There are so many things you can do with wool. The Woolmen’s Innovation in Wool Award is really good because they highlight new and different uses.

"We need to support these new innovations because that ultimately supports the farmers and hopefully as the demand goes up then the farmers will receive more for their fleeces.”