Bustle & Sew

Bustle & Sew is a creative business offering a large catalogue of handmade products, digital magazines, and crafting resources. With over 360 products, more than 1000 blog posts, and a strong following of magazine subscribers, Bustle & Sew blends digital content with eCommerce. Their site also integrates regularly updated blog content and active Instagram engagement, reflecting their vibrant and growing online community.

The Brief

Bustle & Sew approached us to redesign their existing eCommerce website, which had become outdated in both design and functionality. The site had been live for several years without a major update and was starting to suffer from performance issues. The main requests were to deliver a fresh new look, improve usability, and dramatically increase load speed. The site also had multiple conflicting plugins, causing code errors and significant delays, particularly a script issue adding over 7MB of unnecessary JavaScript.

The Solution

After an initial meeting, we audited the existing website to identify problem areas—particularly in terms of performance and code structure. We discovered that many of the site’s issues stemmed from an overload of poorly integrated plugins.

Working closely with the owners, we created a comprehensive site map and wireframes to align on layout and content hierarchy. Once agreed, we developed full design visuals in Photoshop, finalising colour palettes, typography, and styling.

We then built a custom WordPress theme from the ground up, incorporating only the essential plugins—including WooCommerce for eCommerce functionality, to ensure reliability and ease of use. This bespoke approach helped eliminate plugin conflicts and significantly improved the website’s speed.

The homepage was carefully structured to manage a large amount of content: a full-width image slider, featured product sections, recent blog posts, and live Instagram feeds. Product pages were optimised with high-quality galleries, prominent “Add to cart” buttons, and PayPal checkout options, improving both aesthetics and usability.

The end result is a fast, fresh, and user-friendly eCommerce website tailored to support Bustle & Sew’s unique blend of products and content.