A Whinberry & Antler wedding!

Hello! Well, I am getting married one week today so I will have to close business for a couple of weeks to enjoy celebrations and then the lovely landscapes of Scotland (must make sure to take my sketchbook)! I will be making the products on the company website unavailable for purchase from tomorrow onwards until the 6th May.  It's quite tricky when you work by yourself to leave business for a couple of weeks, but once I am back there will be some new products available! See you soon. 

W&A.

Embrace crumbs and settle down for a good brew.

Spring has started with a bounce here at W&A with quite a few new product lines! I am very excited to be adding to the Whinberry & Antler collection, especially as some of these are items that I have wanted to make for quite some time now, but it was essential to find the right supplier.

If you have been following W&A on facebook then you will know that the brand new napkin range is now available on the company website - http://www.whinberryantler.com/product-category/homeware/napkins/. I decided to make these after many requests from customers at both the Country Living Fair and Frome Market. They have had a great response and will be in stock in the lovely shops 'Sparrow' in Shaftesbury (https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sparrow-uk/379718708724751) and 'Vintage' in Shrewsbury (https://www.facebook.com/vintage.shrewsbury?fref=ts) from the middle of next week.

I'm really pleased with how these photographs turned out. Taking product photos has definitely been a learning curve - when I look back now at the first photos that I used I can't believe how bad they are! My tips would be;  keep it simple and try to get as much natural light as possible! We have a conservatory which is fantastic for taking photos as it allows so much light in from many angles. And never under estimate the powers of photoshop for brightening up your photos! Here is an example of one of my before and after photoshop pics:

Another new product that was quite hard to capture on camera was the new duvet set! These bedding sets will be printed to order in your choice of design. Currently only available in polycotton, I will be ordering some 100% cotton sets too. http://www.whinberryantler.com/product/bedding/woodland-duvet-set/

But I think that my most exciting announcement is the new range of Whinberry & Antler mugs! I have wanted to do a ceramic range for such a long time now and I absolutely love these natural coloured sturdy half pint mugs. They have a beautiful tankard style shape and really have a traditional yet clean contemporary design. I tried out a few different styles of mugs, but as soon as I saw these I knew that they were the ones to use! It has been so lovely receiving feedback about the mugs on facebook, twitter and instagram. I took the photos for these yesterday so now I am just waiting for the stock to arrive next week and then they will be available online too! 

These mugs will hold half a pint which makes them perfect for a good mug full of tea! 

Now.... let's put the kettle on...

W&A

Anyone for Whinberry Pie?

Over the past few weeks the organisers of the Frome Super Market - now rebranded as the Frome Independent (nice new branding it is too) - have organised various workshops for the traders to attend. I have been fortunate enough to attend all of them covering accountancy, social media, making the most of the web and this weeks branding. I thoroughly enjoyed this Mondays workshop on branding. The workshop was led by Luke Manning of the award winning Pencil Studio based in Frome (http://pencilstudio.co.uk/) and was another great chance to meet like minded people to exchange ideas! Very much looking forward to the next market in just under two weeks.

Whilst in the branding workshop we each had to describe our company, what we did, and the brand surrounding it. This got me thinking that perhaps there was not enough information on the website about where the name 'Whinberry & Antler' actually came from. So I thought that I would create a little bit more information on the 'About' page to illustrate where the name came from.

So I created a new page 'What's a Whinberry?' - as a lot of people often ask if I am either Whinberry or Antler at markets! 

I also thought that it may be really nice to include a Whinberry Pie recipe. So you can now find out the story behind the name and then bake yourself some very tasty Whinberry Pie!

Follow the trail

You may have noticed a few changes on the W&A website homepage over the past few days... Well, I have been having a few little doodling sessions and thought that it might be quite nice to include some deer footprints in the website banner image as I have been trying to think of a nice way to use this space for a while now. It's also given me a few ideas for future products. So here you go, follow the deer trail to W&A!

I also experimented a little bit with one of the new designs on Photoshop to create a little Valentines image for whinberryantler.com. It was nice to use a little bit of colour which I might try to use in some future screen prints.

I hope you have a lovely (badger badger badger) Valentines day! W&A.

Getting creative with ceramics

I've wanted to create a ceramic range for a while now but it's taken me a while to decide on how much of the manufacturing process I wanted to do myself (in an ideal world I would be doing all of it!). It seems that the best way forward is to use a British company to manufacture the items for me so that I still have time to draw, print and sew all of the other Whinberry & Antler products. As I'm sure anyone who has ever tried running a business selling products they have designed or made, you soon learn that there is only so much you can do yourself!! 

Yesterday, whilst in a stationery shop in Frome, for which I am a very frequent customer, I picked up a ceramic pen to have a bit of fun with. This is a pen that once oven baked onto the ceramic leaves a design that is dishwasher proof, which is so important now that most households today use a dishwasher. And nothing is more disappointing than when a design on your favourite mug starts to fade.

So I came home and grabbed an old white plate from the cupboard and got drawing! 

I am quite pleased with the result. The lovely feedback that this plate received on the W&A Facebook page has really made up my mind : I need to do a ceramic range!

The only downside of the porcelain pen is that it does leave a raised surface and tends to go a bit textured in areas that are coloured as the ink layers up on itself. Plus whilst I enjoyed drawing this plate, I would certainly find it difficult to maintain stock levels!! However, I have now placed an order with a company in Cornwall to get the very first collection of W&A mugs made up (very exciting!). They source their ceramics from Stoke and then do the entire process themselves in house.

So hopefully if you get a chance to come along to the Frome Super Market on Sunday 2nd March you'll get a chance to see the new products in person!! I can't wait for customers to see them! 

Stay tuned and watch this space for photos....

New ideas for a New Year

Well 2014 has been off to a good start after a very busy Christmas season. Over the past month I have been really thinking about the year ahead and what that means for Whinberry & Antler. Creative Thursdays have gone well in January with two new designs complete... I am trying my best not to share these until they are on finished products! 

A sneak peek.... 

I have also been attending some workshops organised by the Frome Super Market for their traders. They have been really useful (accounting and social media covered so far) and I'm really looking forward to the next sessions. More than anything it has been great to meet other designer makers in the area - working at home is great but it can be quite isolating, so having the chance to meet like minded creatives is always so nice. In particular I have met fellow screen printers Robin and Mould (http://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/robinandmould) who design bright and bold animal illustrations to make lovely homewares and Lost Shapes (http://www.lostshapes.com) who screen print ethically sourced clothing with their quirky designs - definitely worth checking them out!!

W&A will be back at the Frome market in March - the market runs the first Sunday of every month from March through to December. Very much looking forward to another lovely Sunday in Frome - this really is the best market I've ever been to so definitely worth getting there if you can! 

Scenes from the market in December, it was very busy and had such a friendly thriving atmosphere! 

Some Antlers and a Big Bus.

Hello,

Well, a little while ago I decided to try and battle a creative block by introducing 'Creative Thursday' to my week... and what a difference it has made!

The best thing to do when drawing seems hard is to just... draw!

I have been drawing a selection of animals in various styles and very soon they will be put onto my silkscreens so that I can start printing and making them into cushions, tea towels and more! I am aiming to have all the new designs out for Christmas- in fact they will be launched at the Country Living Christmas Fair in London at the end of October. There will also be a few more product lines as well as some new fabrics; so I am very excited about launching the new products. Here's a little snippet of whats coming;

Finally some Antlers!

In other news, I am heading into Shrewsbury this week to join the Start-Up Britain bus as it stops in the Square on Thursday morning. I will be there meeting people with new ideas for businesses, helping to give out advice and encourage people to pursue these ideas. I visited the bus when it stopped in Telford nearly two years ago, with not much more than an idea, some business cards and a small cutting of my first sample of printed fabric (featuring the marching hedgehogs)- I met some really nice, friendly and helpful people and was even awarded a Dell laptop for Best Business Idea that day! It was a pivotal moment for me and really gave me faith to pursue my idea. I am looking forward to encouraging others to do the same! Please have a look at the website and if you are near Shrewsbury (or any of the other stops) and thinking about a new business, no matter how small the idea, be sure to come along!

http://www.startupbritain.co/tour/shrewsbury-am-

I shall be off now, before I say too much more about the new products... I don't want to give everything away and ruin the surprise!

Thank you for visiting and reading, hopefully see you again soon.

Jacinta, W&A