“I’VE got Christmas covered - on the cheap,” says Sara Davies.

The Queen of Crafting and Dragon’s Den investor is heading to Bradford to share her festive hacks and shortcuts for a perfectly styled Christmas.

Want fancy festive decorations around the house on a limited budget? Sara will show how to upcycle gift bags and turn them into beautiful snowflakes in just five minutes. Instead of buying expensive kits to create a marbling effect on baubles, she’ll show how to do your own marbling using nail varnish...

From gifts to garlands, cards to crackers, wrapping paper to mantelpiece decorations, Sara will be showing audiences how to craft their own Christmas with practical demonstrations, top tips and her down-to-earth know how.

The idea for her debut tour came about after she appeared on Strictly Come Dancing last year. Invited to take part on the Strictly arena tour, Sara’s connection with live audiences caught the eye of producers. “When I explained my day job was in crafting, they suggested putting a show together,” says Sara.

She was inspired by watching Yorkshire chef James Martin on stage: “It made me realise I could do the equivalent with crafting. I thought the tour should be in the run-up to Christmas because that’s peak season for decorating your home.

“There’s a lot of card, glue and glitter gone into this tour. Whether it’s making a front door wreath, creating cards, decorating your festive dinner table or wrapping presents, I’ve got it covered.”

She’s a big advocate for making personalised Christmas presents for friends and family: “You’re giving a little part of you to loved ones. Anyone can go and buy something but not everyone makes time to create something.”

While crafting on stage, Sara will be sharing her remarkable success story. It starts in the north east; her parents ran a decorating shop in a village near Durham, later taken over by Sara’s sister and her husband. As part of her management degree at York University, Sara did a placement with a craft company: “I’d go to numerous consumer shows and make it my business to talk to the public.”

She quickly identified a gap in the market. While people enjoyed creating cards, they had difficulty finding an envelope to fit their handiwork. “It occurred to me that if I could come up with a device that made envelopes of any shape and size, I’d be on to a winner,” says Sara. And so The Enveloper was born: “My dad’s a trained engineer and between us we created a simple plastic scoring board with grooves in it. You place a piece of paper on the board and run a tool along whichever groove is going to give you the custom-made envelope for your uniquely designed card.”

Sara was barely 21 when she launched The Enveloper on TV shopping channel Ideal World, selling 30,000 units within six months. By the time she graduated, the business was turning over £500,000. In her final year at university, she launched her company, Crafter’s Companion, from her student bedroom. On graduation, she began pitching crafting products to TV shopping channels and building a website for selling her products. Now her craft range is everywhere from market stalls to John Lewis, Hobbycraft shops and online. Over two-thirds of her workforce are based in the north east. Her empire also takes in major stores in America, accounting for at least half her total business. Last year the worldwide turnover of Crafter’s Companion topped £38 million. And Sara’s still only 38.

In 2019 she was invited by Dragon’s Den producers to become one of their panel of potential investors. “I always maintain that if you can do fast-paced, high-energy shopping TV, live, you can do any type of television. Pre-recorded TV, by contrast, is a walk in the park,” says Sara, who quickly bonded with fellow Dragon Deborah Meaden: “She took me under her wing. She’s put in 15 years of groundwork to help another woman succeed in the Den. She’s been a fantastic mentor, on and off-screen. To this day, I never stop asking her advice.”

And Peter Jones? “He’s a class act. I’ve learned so much from him. Viewers see around 12 minutes for a pitch. I get to see the two hours it takes to record that pitch and I still marvel at the way he operates.”

Her best investments? “Willsow is a company that makes children’s books about vegetables with seeds embedded in the back cover which you plant in the garden. You can watch, say, the carrots grow. Such a neat idea.”

Sara and husband Simon have two young sons. Simon was an accountant for a pharmacutical company when Sara’s crafting business went through the roof. He went on to look after the finances. “It was the best thing that could’ve happened. It freed me up to concentrate on marketing, sales, product development, TV shopping and so on,” says Sara. “With two kids and all the juggling that involves, we rarely take our work home.”

* Craft Your Christmas with Sara Davies is at George’s Hall on Thursday, November 24. Call (01274) 432000 or visit bradford-theatres.co.uk