Making it Personal

We are unique. 

By that I don’t mean our company. I mean us as individual people.

Even as tiny newborn babies, we are unique with our own personalities and agendas.
I still can’t quite believe how polar opposites my two children are.

I have a Wam Bam SamSam who climbs, runs, isn’t affected by new people or places and generally never sits still and causes chaos, whilst constantly saying “mummy cuddle plz”

Whereas my eldest is a babbling bossy boots, who reminds me a lot of my nattering Grandma. She draws, colours, scribbles and never stops talking but put her in a public space and she becomes mute, sweet and angelic…. she constantly tells me “I’m too busy Mummy!"

Every  baby born  has a personality. A “theme tune” so to speak. Then we give them their very own personal name to define them a little more. The newness of the name makes us smile, every time it is spoken. Then slowly, day-by-day the name is comes familiar and fitting.

Every child is unique. So we embrace that by trying our hardest to find things that are as different as every Mum and every baby. Something you haven’t seen before on the high street. Something that is totally unique and one of a kind. Something that will be treasured and kept forever. Something that grows with age just like our little ones do.

Finding makers that understand and believe in the same ethos as us is hard. But we dig deep and wait till we have that sudden lovely rush of excitement, or tremor of tears when seeing that perfect thing.

Our makers are just as unique and special as the babies they make for.

Their signature invisible cashmere seaming.

Their wobbles of whimsical porcelain.

Their beauty of the hand drawn line.

A uniquely hand forged heritage piece of silver.

Wonderfully cheeky stitches to capture a softie's new face.

The unique signature of letterpress print.

A sweetly hand stitched sari.

A perfectly printed fingerprint in a piece of silver.

A charming captured expression carved into wood.

These captured hand strokes, whether it be with knitting needles, pencil, pen, potters wheel or hand stitched are what make them unique. Keeping them precious and real.
Keeping them wholesome.
Wabi sabi.

 

Support handmade in 2013!
Keep the little crafty people busy.

Make sure you see our Monday maker’s blogs throughout the year, capturing the personalities of our makers and how they personalise what they make. Making personal things to capture smiles & personalities. 

#Supporthandmade  

unikgifts.co.uk

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

May... Strawberry Month!

We're celebrating Strawberry Month!

Have you noticed how our Facebook cover has gone all strawberry red?

www.unikgifts.co.uk

We love strawberries, both Anna and I have wild strawberries in our gardens and our Daughters can be found foraging our vegetable patches for the delicious red delights...

So whether you like yours with cream, ice cream, sugar, black pepper, or just on their own, remember to celebrate strawberry month with a splash of red!

Sweet dreams

Meet Fairy. 
Fairy Pi.

She lives at the bottom of your garden where the grass gets soggy and the mushrooms grow. 
She loves to stand in the rain, watching the drops fall. 
As the rain runs down the mushrooms, she likes to collect it and make pretty pools with it to float petals on. 

She collects cobnuts to share with the squirrels and loves to dance with the dragonflies when nobody is looking.

Your garden is her home. She loves to play in it while you are sleeping.

She is a special fairy.

She looks after you while you sleep and makes all the nasty dreams you have go away.
 Just call her name and she’ll turn a bad dream into a beautiful one. Even when she’s busy dancing with the butterflies during the day and bats during the night…just call and she’ll be there.

She’s a very special fairy with a very special job. 
She looks after you.
Sweet dreams
x

These are my working drawings and scribbles. I am working on a group of fairies, pixies, elves and  gnomes to look after every little ones bad dreams.

Coming soon to unik gifts

Oompa Grampa speaks wise words...

This is aimed at all the grandparents out there who like me are enjoying immensely the joy of having beautiful grandkids.

Time goes by in a flash and it only seems like yesterday that I was stepping on small toys in the dark and wondering if there was enough money in the bank. There never seemed to be enough time to read the paper let alone to enjoy things with my children.

Now in the autumn of my life and blessed with 3 adult children who are making there own way in the world and my two daughters have married super guys, [though against the rules both of my son in laws’ are taller than I!] So I find myself elevated to being a granddad [or Oompa!] and it is a role I thoroughly enjoy.

My two beautiful granddaughters are not only different in ages but also in tastes:

Kathryn is known as ‘Danger Baby’ and is 18months old. As you know she's an outdoors girl who loves to get her hands [feet, clothes and everything else] dirty!

Poppy is 4 years old and lives on a stud farm which is run by my daughter and son in law. She also lives very much an outdoor life around the farm and is learning to horse ride on a weekly basis.

I live in Germany and have spent many years here. Additionally my children grew up and were partly educated over here. Therefore my children discovered many things about living in Germany which they still miss today. They miss great choice of wooden toys, the tastes and traditions they grew up with. The memories are still with them and fondly remembered by them all. 


Being an ‘old’ guy with old fashioned ideas I steer clear of cheap and easily broken plastic tat when buying Kathryn & Poppy presents. Therefore classily made wooden toys which last forever, are amongst my favourites and I can now treat my granddaughters to these treasures. Thankfully I live nearby to Markus Kampe who makes beautiful wooden toys for children. 


During a recent visit to Germany my ‘DangerBaby’ granddaughter was extremely active and exhausting to keep amused [her usual self]. A visit to his workshop came to the rescue and the 30+ minutes of peace we had while DangerBaby played with all his magical creations was a welcome respite. He now works with u-ni-k to share his classy and magical wooden toys.

Yet another favourite where us grandparents cannot fail is a superbly home made cuddly toy with character and lovability. Again there is a super range available at u-ni-k of lovely toys to say to a particular grandchild that they are special and you love them.

I have to say that u-ni-k has taken all the hard work of present buying from me. There is always a chance that us grandparents are ‘out of date’ and therefore buy the wrong things which are soon broken or discarded. I trust that Anna & Sarah at u-ni-k to choose what present is right because they are mums with young children and therefore they are on the toy battlefront all day long.

The wise amongst us elder folk know from experience that the cleverest and most needed person in any family is the mother, they know best and always will. I believe that is the main reason why I love www.unikgifts.co.uk and have no hesitation with recommending it to all grandparents who are not worldly wise enough to be as astute as myself !, ;-)

I wish to add that I am not just any old granddad, I am Granddad [OOMPA] of the Year as voted unanimously by Poppy and Kathryn who like there clever mummies – are never wrong!.