Behind the scenes - prototypes

We thought we'd share some of the process behind the creation of the Bliss in the Woods range. We worked closely with Creea, a modelmaking agency who developed the prototypes from our drawings. The pieces were sculpted by hand out of a high density foam. It was exciting to see our ideas change from being on paper to actual things we could hold and touch. There was a lot of head scratching and biscuit eating involved to get some of the finer details perfect, which was all part of the process. We started out with lots of product ideas and gradually, through a process of natural selection it turned into the range it is today. It was fun working as a team with Creea and getting the range to the next stage. Check out their website for all of their other creations. Here are some pics of the process and the models they sculpted.

Thames Festival Weekender!

We've had a very busy week last week, what with getting preparations ready for our stall at this years Mayor's Thames Festival. We launched our Tree Series prints at the event too. The location of our stall was amazing, we had the most wonderful view of the Thames. The 2 day event was great fun, and our friends and families popped by to say hi too, which was a nice surprise! We managed to survive some of the rainy showers luckily and had a good time. Meeting lots of interesting people and soaking in the buzzy atmosphere. Here are some pics from the weekend.

Come join us at the Thames Festival at the Crafty Fox Pop-Up Market

We have a market stall in front of the Tate Modern and by the Founders Arms pub as part of the Crafty Fox Pop-up Market. The Thames Festival is a 2 day event opening from 12noon until 10pm this weekend. It celebrates London and its iconic river the Thames – there will be market stalls, dancing, live music and to end the festival fireworks on Sunday evening.

We're launching some new cards and prints which we've made for the market. They're not online yet but will be very soon. We'll also be selling some vintage items, our tree towels and other designers products that we're proud to have on Our Shop. We hope you can stop by to say hello! And please keep your fingers crossed it doesn't rain!

Our Shop Summer Sale

The end of Summer is almost here and while that makes us a little bit sad we're looking forward to autumn leaves, hot chocolate and wooly socks. Check out our End of Summer Sale for something else to smile about, why not bag yourself a bargain.

Nido

Hello! we received a copy of Nido magazine this morning, featuring our red apple storage jars. Thanks Nido! Nido is a german family/lifestyle magazine that features lots of interesting design features and stories. We love the design of the magazine.

Cake + Art

What a perfect combination, Cake + Art! We do like cake over here at Our WorkShop. So when we found out about artist, Amy Stevens' cake artworks, it made us smile. Amy first started making Martha Stewart's cake recipes, then realised that her cakes didn't look perfect like Martha's, hers looked more imperfect. So she thought they were better off imperfect. It's the cakes imperfections that make them so striking to look at. Amy also uses handmade and vintage fabrics and wallpapers for backdrops for her photos. More of her cakes here.
Via cocandme and amystevenart

P.S OUR SHOP'S 1ST BIRTHDAY GIVEAWAY, ONE MORE DAY TO GO!!! Talking about cake....it's Our Shop's 1st Birthday tomorrow! Pop over to our Facebook page and help us celebrate, by giving us a 'LIKE' and you'll be automatically entered into our 1st Birthday giveaway! Click here to enter. We'll announce the winner over at Facebook tomorrow. Good Luck!

New One Stop Gift Shop

Hi there, we'd like to let you know about our new One Stop Gift Shop service. Making gift buying easier for you. Choose a gift, a card, a gift wrap and email us your message. And we'll wrap your gift and write the card and post the gift for you, so no queuing for the post office for you! For more info, please click here.

Our Giveaway - The products!

We thought we'd go into more detail about our fab giveaway which we'll be revealing
on our Facebook page on 1st August 2011. Just give our page a 'like' for automatic entry.

Salt & Pepper Sailboat worth £40
Earthenware shakers to brighten up your Summer table. read more 

Sukie Bright Idea Notebook worth £9.50
Each page is printed with a different lightbulb for your bright ideas. read more  

Cassette Wallet worth £13
A nifty way to store your cash, bank cards and oyster card. read more 

Pocket Pencil worth £5
A pencil with a clip so you can carry it in your pocket. Simple and genius.
read more 

Pencil Sharpener Pen Pot worth £16
Giant pencil sharpener to cheer up your desk. Made of wood and stainless steel. read more 

Vintage Pineapple Ice Bucket worth £30
What can we say? Use it as a pen pot, to store your teabags or for your ice! read more 

Good Action Notebook worth £7
Chunky, durable, lined notebook, scattered with good karma actions. 

Tea Sub worth £9.50
Super cute yellow submarine tea infuser. read more

Limited edition Notebook worth £12
Exclusive hand-made notebook with plain light grey pages. read more

Vintage Ships wheel Brooch  worth £7
Ahoy there! Cute vintage nautical brooch in a kraft gift box. read more

Sukie Plain / Lined Notebook worth £5.50
Plain or lined paper, can’t decide what you need?
Why not have both? read more

MT Patterned Tape worth £3
Decorate your papers, presents, envelopes, notebooks etc. etc. etc. with
this yellow patterned tape

Our 1st Birthday Giveaway!

It's almost our 1st birthday! We can't believe that it's gone so quickly! We want to say a huge thank-you to all the people out there that regularly check out our website and have supported us in our first year.

Yellow is our favourite colour (you'd never have guessed!) and so to celebrate, we are giving away all of the yellow lovelies above to one lucky person (worth over £180). All you have to do is give our Facebook page a like and that’s it! The winner will be randomly picked by us and revealed on our Facebook page on our birthday which is 1st August 2011.

We do hope you like Our Shop and we invite you to leave any comments you have here on Our Blog, on our Facebook page or email us direct. We'd love to know what you think as your opinions are very important to us. Without our customers we wouldn’t have a business, so we say a big thank you to you all. We’re looking forward to Year 2 and have some exciting things in the pipeline. We’re going to be introducing a gift wrapping service to make present buying really easy. Thanks for staying interested and good luck for the giveaway.

Love Pui and Gemma

Click below to give us a LIKE and enter to win our big yellow giveaway!

Sergeant Salt + PC Pepper

Allo, allo, allo, what’s all this then? We've got a lovely pair of salt and pepper shakers come into the vintage section in Our Shop. Check them out, along with other vintage goodies that have just come in!

Sneaky peek

We've been busy the past week preparing for the launch of our Christmas shop. There is still plenty to do, before it's ready, however we thought you might like a peek...full of lots of new goodies. We're launching next week. So keep checking in! x

Everyone's a winner!

We've got some real goodies that have come into Our Shop. Look at these quirky gorgeous medal badges, designed and made by talented design duo Lost At Sea. Each medal is made out of wood veneer, and lovingly hand painted. Don't think you deserve a medal? how about treating someone you think deserves one! Choose from ribbon, round or star designs. We only have a limited number, so catch them while you can.

A little birdie told me Our Shop has a new product...

We just put these cute bird book marks in Our Shop. They come in 3 colours, silver, gold and lime green. This has to be the best bookmark around?

Hoot hoot!

It's Friday, and we've been busy! We've got some lovely goodies to launch onto Our Shop in the coming week.
Here's a sneaky peak of Matt Pugh's Owl. Hoot Hoot!

Essential Mix for the Summer

We've got some lovely arrivals in Our Shop. Retro with a twist, these cassette wallets are handy for a night out to carry your cash cards, loose change and you can even keep your Oyster card in it, and swipe through the ticket barrier. We're also loving the checked trend in this season...checked totes and notebooks! Click here to see it in your browser..

We're open!!

Our Shop is finally open! It's taken months of fun, sweat and no tears!
Take a peek at Our Shop, its packed with lots of quirky and fun stuff, for you, your mum or your mate!
From chic Parisian tea towels, to cornish salt n' pepper shakers, to quirky, spooky vampire cards from Korea.
Let us know what you think, we'd love to hear your feedback on how Our Shop looks and what you think of the products.
Happy shopping! and Happy Friday!! Be sure you join our mailing list, to get all the latest offers and updates!

P.s Here are some behind the scene piccies of the preparation of the shop, its been
great fun putting it all together!

We've got mail!

Not long now, we're still busy getting bits ready for our online shop launch.
A little parcel arrived for us the other day, it was Our WorkShop's newly designed and printed tea towel
sample sent through from the printers. We finally got to see it develop from our mac screens to fabric!
Also along with the tea towel parcel, we've also been receiving lots of other stock for Our Shop, slowly
the studio is feeling a little bit like cardboard city!

Opening soon!!

We're almost ready! We've been busy the past few months sourcing unique, quirky and gorgeous products and
also getting our own products into production to launch our online shop.
Email us if you would like to be kept updated! shopaholics@ourworkshop.co.uk