u-ni-k blog: Helen beard egg cups

Showing posts with label Helen beard egg cups. Show all posts

Monday, 25 June 2012

Monday Mentor, UKhandmade

UK Handmade is a design led online magazine committed to showcasing and promoting the best creative talent the UK has to offer. The term 'handmade' is now an indicator of quality, care and professionalism that is second to none and something we at UK Handmade wish to encourage and celebrate.

Artists and designers from across all of the art disciplines have a place here including photography, textiles, jewellery, fashion, art and design. In a time when people are realising the importance of spending quality time with the family, small businesses are being started from the kitchen table and becoming an integral part of our overall lifestyle. We want to bring back the skills of our grandparents, grow vegetables with our children, to make do and mend and return to an ideology that previous generations took for granted.

But we are realists too; in order to live like this in today’s world we need to be financially self-sufficient. An increasing number of online selling venues are allowing makers and designers to sell their goods with very little set up costs and as a result handmade items are not only experiencing a renaissance but a whole new community of small businesses are working together to promote and support the handmade movement.

UK Handmade is at the heart of the movement, providing advice and resources to its members as well as collaborating and connecting with businesses to further the handmade cause for the benefit of all through the online magazine, website and forum.

UK Handmade Porcelain by Helen Beard at u-ni-k gifts

See the on-line magazine here

Today we use our Monday Mentor Blog to thank Anna and her team for supporting creative people with little business's and for being passionate about what we do.
We have our small business on the UKhandmade directory, we have written an article for the website and also have had our baby wear featured in a Eco baby wear article.

Thank you for allowing us, the little people, to have a voice and for supporting us all.

We appreciate you.

What you do is marvellous!

Thank you

Monday, 19 March 2012

Spring...

Tomorrow marks the coming of a new season with the Spring Equinox. This means the sun shines directly at the equator and the length of the day and night is almost equal.

With the coming of the spring equinox and spring season many people celebrate new beginnings. Many cultures celebrate holidays and festivals, like Easter and Passover.

So with that in mind I celebrate with all things fluffy, gambling, quacking, cheeping, growing and spring like!

Lets hope that Spring brings us glorious sunshine, gambling lambs and lots of happiness.

Happy Spring time.
Click here to see our Springtime/Easter gifts

Wednesday, 7 March 2012

A Treasure for my little Treasure

Meet Helen Beard.

She is unik’s ceramicist.

Meet the Naughty, aka Ida.

Meet Mr Elephant, The Naughties trusted, loved and MOST favourite thing in the Whole Wide World.

I asked Helen to make a special Breakfast set just for Ida. Featuring The Naughty and her Mr Elephant himself.
Here is the finished product.

Here are the images I sent to Helen to inspire and direct her when making Ida's breakfast set.

Helen Beard’s distinctive pieces begin with drawings of quirky individuals and curious places, which she uses to illustrate her hand-thrown pots.

She likes her pots to tell a story, creating whimsical scenes that capture the insignificant yet precious moments that make up our daily lives.

Every bespoke set Helen makes is individually thrown in Limoges porcelain on a potter’s wheel before being hand-painted. The pots are decorated using a technique that Helen developed to create an effect similar to watercolour and ink. Her freehand line drawing is transferred onto the pot using a form of relief print. Colour is painted over the drawing using different washes of ceramic stain, and finally the pots are dip-glazed and smoothed down ready for the final stage of firing. Each is unique – a work of art, but also a functional piece of domestic ware.

These Breakfast sets are being made exclusively for unik gifts. If you would like a Breakfast set made for a little person that you know and their treasured companion please contact sales@unikgifts.co.uk

As a new Mum herself, Helen is working on new shapes to enhance the Breakfast sets.

A beaker with handles, a lower depth bowl and a plate.

She is also working on a non bespoke Breakfast set and Bathroom set for unik.

I LOVE this Breakfast set. Ida LOVES her Breakfast set. She recognised Mr Elephant immediately and loves having boiled eggs for Breakfast in her special little egg cup.
Thank you Helen for making something so special. We will treasure them forever and ever.

We currently have some of Helen's daily ware available on our website. To view Click here.

Helen has made bespoke collections for egg Knightsbridge, Donna Karen, Wigglesworth Architects, Brighton and Hove Museum, Edinburgh Museums and Galleries Trust, London Southwark Council and Betty Davies Scottish Fashion International in Edinburgh and Hallmark UK. She has had her work showing at Fortnum and Masons, Sofa New York, Crafts Council and Collect at the V&A Museum, CAA solo focus at The Contemporary Applied Arts. She apprenticed with Edmund de Waal.

sales@unikgifts.co.uk

Monday, 5 March 2012

Chocolate free Easter

Our Yolk folk paper friends.

With Easter only around the corner shops are filling up quickly with chocolate eggs, chocolate bunnies and chocolate chicks.

This year we at unik have been looking at Easter gifts to entertain and be kept all year round. To cuddle, to make, to eat upon and to play with.

Here are a few of the gifts that you can find on our website that will be a little more entertaining then the normal chocolate eggs that you find in supermarkets.

Be original, Be unique, Buy gifts that won't be gobbled in ten minutes...

Prices start from £6.