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

Wet feet

It's been wet.
In fact it's very wet.
It's been pretty much raining non-stop for the past few weeks!
I'm sick and tired of being cooped up inside with the rain drumming on the windows and my terrors slowly getting cabin fever. When we aren't getting wet we are rushing home to escape the big black clouds that are starting to loom over.

So whether it be getting wet from the rain or wet at the seaside I am going to embrace my feet getting wet and pretend.
So...
Eager to play amongst the sand with the Whales, Seals, boats and all things nautical I am going to dress the naughties up in holiday attire, sip soft drinks from our boat beakers, eat lunch from our seaside animal meal boards and dangle our feet in puddles, pretending it's the sea.
When we stop pretending we'll start puddle jumping and then we'll do a little  a little sun dance.
Join in with us and let's entice the sun out of it's hiding place!
Join in with the fun!! GET WET

A products from unikgifts.co.uk

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

Lily loves...

We are spring cleaning in unik HQ.
We are editing and making room for new stock. Tomorrow Sarah and I will be making final decisions and doing the part of our job we both love- ordering more lovelies.
So we are making space for new gorgeous things.

We will be ordering new wooden toys to fill the big gaps from the pieces sold over Christmas.
We are introducing a new "nursery" section on the website so we have been searching for new baby and new mummy products that are beautiful and fit the unik ethos.

We have new makers to add to the website and existing makers who have finished their exclusive products just for us. The Helen Beard porcelain Breakfast sets are being fired this week and will be in HQ next week, fingers crossed.

With the gorgeous comment by Mrs Lily Cooper (nee Allen) last week about the arrival of her new baby daughter, Ethel's, new "blankie" we have asked David of Shuktara to make lots of new lovely blankets for Spring and Summer babies to cherish and dribble over.

The website is nearly ready, we are finding space at unik HQ for all the new gorgeous products. We can't wait!

Until our new treasures are ready to see, we are spring cleaning with a little sale.  Click here to see all the lovely things that are looking to find new homes. They won't be on sale for very much longer so take advantage of our good nature's quick before the sale ends!

Happy Shopping!
Happy Spring Cleaning!

Dear Father Christmas

Dear Father Christmas

My u-ni-k gifts Christmas List

Pedal toy car

Trio nest of cashmere hats

Hand smocked baby bed linen

Make your own paper animals

Party dress

Merino wool new born set

Limited Edition letterpress print

All in one organic cotton sleep suit

A floral hand stitched blanket

Up cycled silver spoon

Silver bangle
Framed vintage playing cards

Organic cotton hat and bootie set

Hand Painted porcelain breakfast set

Traditional printed organic cotton baby blanket

Pedal Plane with propellers and engine noise!

Original Victoria Plum drawing

Finger Print jewellery

Hand carved wooden toys

Silver Hallmarked keepsake nappy pin

Hand knitted squashy animals
Hand carved breakfast board
Personalised Memory box

Love

Me x

Click Here for pictures

Colour Establishment

We have reached the stage in project new home where we are making good and decorating the naughties bedroom. We are not even close to choosing colours for the walls as we are still at taking the layers upon layers of paint off the 1930’s fireplace and taking down the badly put up picture rail stage. But being a women, and a picky woman at that, the colour we choose is an important decision. I refuse to do what Mr Kircher would do if I let him, which is pick up any tin of paint in the shop, probably the nearest to the cash desk and not really worry or care about the shade, mood or feeling of the room it will be situated in. Luckily he is colour blind so I am in charge of colour!

RED- Annafie dress

I am big on colour. I have always been drawn to colour. My favourite colour is RED.

Whether it’s because my favourite dress as a child was my RED boat dress or whether my love for red happened much later in my life, I don’t know.

What I do know is that colour has a big impact on our children. Otherwise why would all the toys in my house be so brightly coloured?

ORANGE- Porcelain Breakfast set

Children are drawn to colour and respond to it. Round about the age of 18 months a child will be able to recognize different colours as they do shapes, size and texture. They probably won’t be able to name a colour till they are 36 months old, but they will be able to point to the correctly coloured shape if you ask him/her to “point to the RED square”.

YELLOW -Mibo paper friends

Eighty percent of information the brain receives, is information accepted visually. Colour stimulates the visual sense and encourages the retention of information. While studying for my GCSE’s I used cue cards in various colours to help me remember facts, figures and findings while studying. Parents are also encouraged to use cue cards in various colours to help children learn through play.

Colours also create different moods. Hues of BLUE, GREEN and VIOLET induce relaxation. Whereas RED, YELLOW and ORANGE stimulate and increase brain activity. 

GREEN - Syot Pedal Car

BLUE - Organic cotton blanket

So with all the above in my mind, I am looking to the things the naughty has warmed to in her little life so far as to clues of her colour preferences. This could be a little problem…apart from the very loved Mr Elephant who is a pale GREY, all the things in her life so far are pretty much rainbow coloured.

When Sarah and I trowel through the products we carefully choose for our children and u-ni-k, we try where possible to always remember how important colour is. Every colour.

So we won’t have a typically BLUE section for boys or a predictable PINK section for girls. We’ll have an array of wonderful rainbow colours to help our little ones learn and grow with the simple things around them.

VIOLET- Organic cotton hat

INDIGO- Recycled Sari Kantha stitched blanket

Muse Music

I find that music inspires my mood, especially if I am feeling creative. I have been bought up with music blaring from a radio or from a music player of sorts and not always my own choice of music.

My Dad was renowned for his music tastes and collection and many a Sunday morning as a teenager I would find myself woken from my slumber to Cream, The Who, The Band or some other form of Eric Claptonesque music BLARRING from my Dads player VERY loudly! For most teenagers this is a bit of a role reversal. But for the Matthews clan, this was very much the norm. So when I moved in with Mr. Kircher, and his house of silence…well it was all a little too quiet for me.

Soon I had a player in most rooms and a lot of the time, all were on, playing some type of music, all at the same time. Something Mr. Kircher has had to learn to live with!

When Ida was born, I wanted to make sure I played the music I loved to her, normally LOUDLY. I choose to play my music rather then nursery rhymes or children’s clunky clonky music  as most parents choose to play. At only days old I was using loud music and bopping as a form of entertainment for her and sometimes also to soothe her. She has always been a little bit of a rock chic and already bops, shimmy’s, wiggles and sings in the back of the car as the radio blares out. She is like me; she doesn’t enjoy silence unless she chooses to contemplate for a little moment. We play and have fun with music…any music. And I often play a little of Clapton, The Who or Cream very loudly and tell her that this was her Granddaddy Allan’s favourite. Music was such an important part of my Dads interaction with my sisters and me. Without him around I am making sure she hears who he was as his music explains him well. And it is always played LOUDLY!

Me, My Daddy and my sisters Katie and Sarah

At u-ni-k HQ both Sarah and I have very different music tastes. Sarah is a radio 2 fan whereas I am very much an avid follower, listener and supporter of 6radio. Music inspires me, winds me up, calms me down and very much, is me. So while I’ve had my sewing machine out getting ready for the first Christmas craft fayres we are participating in over the next few weeks, I have been choosing carefully my music to listen to. Hoping it will inspire me and my love of aesthetic will come flooding back after being hidden in my back pocket for well over a decade. I was always a cutter, sticker, gluer, painter, drawer, moulder…just ask my Mum. I was the messy one that filled the bin with off cuts of unwanted paper and left the sink with paint splats. Luckily I have learnt to recycle and tidy a little better!

I have also leant to choose my music wisely.

Thinking about music choice made me stumble across this written piece by Edmund de Waal OBE. I met Edmund through working at egg. He showed his work at egg during it's very early years and now flourishes with his prestigious work being shown at the V&A. He is an amazing potter, writer and teacher. His apprentices are renowned for being “his” apprentices. And he too finds muse music very important.

Enjoy reading about his playlist, seeing his minimal, understated beautiful installation of ceramics and most importantly listeaning. I myself am sitting back and spending a moment listening to his muse music while my little ones sleep. 

Click here

 *Our ceramicist, Helen Beard apprenticed with Edmund de Waal. See her whimsical, naughty pots here