A 15-year story, a 15-year adventure

Bordeaux, 2010. Dorothée is a genetic engineer at the university hospital and the young mother of two little girls: Valentine, aged two, and Louison, who has just been born. Although she is passionate about her job, she does not feel completely fulfilled by it. In the evenings, she compensates by trying her hand at a thousand creative hobbies, dabbling in everything, searching for that spark that she feels is missing.

Valentine draws all the time, everywhere. Her creations pile up on the fridge and cover the walls. Dorothée looks at them with emotion. These little masterpieces are precious; they tell the story of her daughter's world. The idea of seeing them end up forgotten in a box breaks her heart.

One evening, she had a brainwave: what if these drawings became jewellery? She scanned Valentine's creations into Photoshop, isolated the outlines and placed them on coloured backgrounds. She printed them, stuck them onto brass findings, then poured epoxy resin over them. Mounted on Liberty chains or cords: the first personalised pendants were born.

Those around her were immediately enthusiastic. The HappyBulle concept was born.
Personalising jewellery with children's drawings, their handprints or their first writings.

The HappyBulle website was an instant success. Dorothée constantly developed new jewellery designs and explored new personalisation techniques. The whole family pitched in to help.

Everyone contributed as best they could. At weekends, Valentine and Louison had fun unpacking the letters from their plastic blister packs to save time during shipping. Jérôme, her husband, helped with the graphic design and animation of the website.

Soon, HappyBulle took over every room in the house. Starting in the master bedroom, the workshop now occupied the entire living room. Boxes piled up, chains, findings and resin domes invaded the family space.

Dorothée worked late into the night to fulfil her orders, taking great care to satisfy her first customers. Each piece of jewellery was unique, each parcel prepared with love. The adventure exceeded anything she had imagined, but one thing became clear: she would have to think bigger.

Three children, two demanding jobs, impossible to continue like this: a choice had to be made. Dorothée had just given birth to Aimée, their third child, and decided not to return to the hospital so she could devote herself entirely to HappyBulle.

The deal with Jérôme was simple: they would give themselves six months to see if the business really took off, and if the results were there, he would leave his job in digital to join her.

May 2014, Mother's Day: orders were flooding in like never before, all the signs were positive, it was time. Jérôme resigns, and together they mortgage their house, take out a bank loan and create the company Happy Corp. They find small offices in Mérignac, France, which they equip with their machines and stock, then recruit their first employee, a graphic designer responsible for reworking the children's drawings before engraving.

Those around them were concerned, but Jérôme and Dorothée believed firmly in their project and worked day and night. The orders were coming in, and HappyBulle was no longer a side project, but a small business that was growing.

HappyBulle has grown by 300%! The company is a real start-up that is booming. We continue to move every six months, as our premises quickly become too small.

We recruit and train seasonal workers for Mother's Day and Christmas. We negotiate with carriers and structure processes. Our fleet of machines is constantly expanding to meet growing demand. New jewellery collections are being created non-stop.

Dorothée and Jérôme are working every day. All this with three little girls aged 3, 6 and 8 and a busy family life. The days follow one another at a frantic pace and continue with homework, baths and bedtime stories.

This is a year of hypergrowth and restructuring for the company. HappyBulle is no longer an adventure, it's a marathon. Exhausting but exhilarating.

The press takes an interest in HappyBulle! These are the first appearances in the media. Dorothée appears on Europe 1, M6, TF1 and many other television programmes to tell her story.

A unique concept in France: transforming children's drawings into jewellery! Journalists are won over, the public is touched. That's it, HappyBulle is famous! Recognised for its unique concept of personalised jewellery, for this simple but brilliant idea of enhancing the works of budding young artists.

This media exposure accelerated and reinforced the growth of the small family business. They had to keep up with demand. It wasn't easy every day with three children at home. But what pride they felt to see their baby grow and be recognised! Seven years after the first resin piece of jewellery was made in their living room, HappyBulle became a benchmark.

The world has come to a standstill. No one knows what will happen next. Jérôme and Dorothée reacted early on, well before measures were taken at national level in France.

The entire team is equipped with masks. The building is disinfected twice a day: every door handle, every machine, every desk, every work surface. Suppliers' boxes are quarantined. Rotations are organised for lunch breaks. Some of the teams switch to remote work.

But the heart of the small business, the workshop, cannot stop. Orders continue to pour in, customers need comfort and connection with their loved ones. So the production team works for months with masks screwed onto their faces, in difficult conditions.

A huge thank you to our fabulous team for holding on and agreeing to work in these conditions! With such dedication and motivation! Thanks to them, we were able to get through this chaotic and uncertain period without ever disappointing our customers.

HappyBulle is now a mature and structured company with a well-established organisation that allows our customers to receive their jewellery within 48 hours, personalised with the most beautiful engraving and in the shortest possible time.

We owe this daily performance to a remarkable team, each member of which shares the same goal: customer satisfaction.

The workshop team crafts each order with extreme care, aware that it is your story that they are engraving on these pieces of jewellery.

The customer service team is constantly attentive and responsive, responding to your requests and comments without delay.

The digital and sales team runs the website, designs new jewellery, sets up exceptional collaborations and perfects the online customer experience every day.

We know that life as a small business is not always easy.
Thank you to our team, without whom none of this would be possible.