PUCKET - THE TOURNAMENT

We are going to hold the inaugural York Pucket Championships on 3rd April at 7pm at the Lamb & Lion on High Petergate, York.

There will be a unique Pucket Bucket trophy for the winner and of course a bottle of champagne, all competitors will get a hot pie to sustain/console them.

For those of you who aren't familiar with the game of Pucket there is a clip above, it's fun, fast and incredibly simple. Quick fingers and a steely nerve are an advantage!

Entry forms will be available from the shop from Friday 9th March, the entry fee is a mere £2, Hurry though as there are only 32 places available on a first come first served basis. All of the entry money goes straight into the prize pot.

Pucket is available to buy both in the shop and through our site here.

EAT IT

John and I have been working on a new product idea since Christmas, its now ready to buy.

Eat it is an interactive wall chart designed to encourage kids
( and fussy adults ) to try out a few more fruit, vegetables and other wholesome foods.

There are 100 foods to try on our list from blackberries to brussel sprouts and cherries to chick peas. For those with small children you probably know how hard it sometimes can be you get your little one to try a parsnip or perhaps even a slice of cucumber. Eat it is designed to encourage a spirit of foody adventure.

Alongside each food there's a related fact and an opportunity to rate that food by colouring in a smiley, sad or not too sure face.

Our first batch of Eat It charts arrived from our printers on Friday and we've spent the weekend bagging them up.

The price is £9.95 and you can get yours here.

Eat it will also be available for wholesale customers through Luckies

A GOOD WATCH

ACCUMULATED!

Those who follow the Snowhome blog may remember that we posted about The Accumulator at the end of 2010. It is a pound coin saving device that I designed for Suck Uk and is now distributed worldwide.

It was nice to receive this photo from one of our regular customers, thanks Leo!

Its taken him 14 months to fill and the £250 saved is going to pay for a weekend in the Yorkshire Dales. I'll have to keep saving, I have my eye on this place in Wharefedale.

FEED THE BIRDS

Thought I would post these great images from Camilla Engman's blog of the Born in sweden bird feeder. With the snow and freezing weather it's important to keep all those little birds alive. I also have one at home and I find peanuts are a favourite snack for the wee guys.

You can buy one here.

LOVELY STUFF

The shop is looking a bit bare. I'm in the process of buying new stock for the year ahead and am in a ruthless mood this year.
Instead of re-stocking with more of the same I think that it's time to have a little shake up. I want to bring in some new ranges to replace some of the things that lost their lustre. Of course, this is an ongoing process when buying for the shop, but this year were going to have a stricter policy. Less plastic, more passion. More timeless than titillating. I want to source items to enjoy daily and to treasure, I also want to find these things at a fair price - which is increasingly difficult these days.
So, to kick things off I received a box today from a supplier who fit our manifesto nicely. The box from All Lovely Stuff was beautifully packed and contained some nice new products.
Here's a little taster, we'll be adding these new things and others to our site soon.

LONDON WORD MAP - FREE DELIVERY !

To promote and celebrate the launch of our new Word Map of London we are offering free delivery of the print for a short period.
The map was officially launched last weekend at the Home show and received a great response. There is a choice of bus red or smoke grey and the size is 60 x 80cm which is a ready made frame size.
The word entries on the London map include some rather bizarre references some of which may need to be Googled in order to understand them fully!
Click here to order your London map with free postage.

HOME 2012

A quick picture of our stand from HOME - LONDON at Earls Court this week (the intense light and funny carpet made it a bit hard to expose the camera, sorry).

It was a great show for the snowhome wholesale side of the business, as we used the show to launch the new "Word Map of London" which was well received and we managed to pick up some great new stockists. The show was also a great place to look around and find some new stock for the shop for new year....if you've been in the shop lately you'll understand that it's needed!

John also exhibited at HOME (on the stand behind) where he also launched some great new products, soon to be stocked in snowhome. (See his stand below).

It's all so Quiet

For the next few days I (Laura) will be running the shop while Angus and John are at 'Home' trade show in London. I thought I would like the time to myself, spring cleaning and organising (my favourite thing to do) but to be honest I feel a little lonely without the boys.

However I have a list as long as my arm so I am sure I will be kept very busy. As well as selling the Word Map at' Home' Angus will also be ordering lots of great new products for the shop. I love this time of year when we can start making plans for the shop hunting down new products and brainstorming new ideas. We will keep you up to date with what's happening in the coming month.

LONDON 2012

A belated happy new year to all blog readers.

We are straight back with a new product which will be launched this weekend. The Word Map of London is our latest word map and has been made in collaboration with illustrator and friend Alison Hardcastle again.

It follows the same principals as our best selling Word Map of the British Isles but this time takes our capital city as the subject. The research covered each of the 32 boroughs of greater London plus the city of London itself and uncovered many fascinating facts which are woven together to create the new print.

We will add it to our site before the weekend and will be promoting the London map at th Home Show ( trade only ) at Earls Court from 15th to 18th January. More news very soon...

THE CHRISTMAS BREAK

It's here again. The time of year when things can finally stop.

As much as I love being self employed and running snowhome I cherish the time on Christmas eve when I lock up th shop and take a break for 10 days. As usual the past six weeks have been very busy and I'm extremely grateful for that. Thank you to all who have supported Snowhome this Christmas and throughout the year,it's not possible to have a good shop without having good customers ( and good staff ). Our tenth year has been eventful and entertaining, never dull! I hope that next year brings more of the same.

The shop will be closed from 1 pm on 24th December, we won't be back until 4th January so no internet orders will be processed until then. To anyone who stumbles across this and takes the time to read it, I wish you happiness and good health for Christmas and the new year ahead.

PUCKET = FRANTIC FUN!

We think we have found the perfect game for you and your family to burn off all of those Christmas callories. It's Finger Flicking fun for nearly everyone, and it's going down really well in our shop.

I'm sure that Angus wants you all to know, that he is shop champion..................so far anyway! Somebody may have been practising this Sunday.

Available via the snowhome shop, Click Here to buy.

LOVE DOVES

Love Doves were born from a self initiated brief by John last year. As they proved such a success over the festive period last year, John has re-made us an exclusive batch. The Love Doves are laser cut from Birch Plywood and flat packed so they can be sent to your loved ones anywhere in world. Click Here to buy online.

HOLIDAYS ARE COMING

I got a bit of a surprise this afternoon when the Coca Cola truck thundered past the shop, a sure reminder that Christmas is fast approaching.

It's been nice and busy for the past two weeks and I'm frantically re-ordering the bestsellers to keep the shelves full.

Our web sales have been really good since mentions in both the Telegraph and the Times recently. Our last dates for mailouts this year will be Friday 9th December for Europe and USA and Tuesday 20th December for the UK.

Finally, for those who missed out first time, the large Tux penguins are back in stock and available to buy online here.

TELEGRAPH - SHOP AWARDS

Since last weekend, snowhome has received a healthy increase of both internet orders and footfall. A small percentage of these customers all have one thing in common.....they have read about snowhome in the Telegraph, where we have been nominated for 'The Best Small Shops in Britian Awards'. From this feature we have even had a few sales direct to celebrities, I would love to say who, but I better not....I don't want ruin any suprise christmas gifts now do I (you just don't know who's reading this blog).

Anyway, this is a competition, so now we've finished bragging we'd love to receive your votes. Please CLICK HERE to nominate us if you feel we are up to it. IMPORTANT scroll down to the BEST FOR INTERIORS section when voting.

TUX

Say 'hello' to TUX, he's a plywood penguin that has literally flown off the snowhome shelves this weekend. At only £4 we're sure he's going to be the perfect Christmas accessory. TUX flat packs into a standard C6 envelope (see Johns packaging design above) which makes him a perfect mail out gift.

Click here to purchase your very own TUX.

An even bigger success on the snowhome shelves over the weekend was TUX mini's. A set of 12 mini flat pack penguins for £10.90 (see in image above) unfortunately after one day on the shelves they were out of stock, but do not fear, we will add them to the snowhome website as soon as more stock comes our way.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

BEARD PACKAGING

John worked on some simple packaging for the new knitted beards yesterday. Here are the prototypes.Everything should be ready by the weekend, in good time for the cold winter months ahead. The competition to win one will be announced early next week.

BEARDS ARE IN

Here is the snowhome family modelling the first batch of home knitted beards. Very warm and very sexy.

We are working on some nice packaging for them and expect to have them available to buy on the website in a few days. There will be a post to let you all know when they are ready and maybe a competition to win one......

CHARDONNAY WITH BEEF ?

Hot of the screen printing press and due to arrive in the shop tomorrow; A Guide to Pairing Wine with Food - The perfect tea towels for foodies.

Become the sommelier of your own kitchen with these comprehensive and easy to reference wine pairing tea towels.

Available in white and red wine versions, these organic cotton guides give pairing ratings for 34 whites or reds with 55 different food entries - that’s 3740 possible combos covered! Pairings are rated as excellent, good and best avoided so you’ll never make a food faux-pas.

Foods are grouped into 7 categories; Meat & Poultry, Seafood, Flavours & Herbs, Taste, International Dishes, Vegs & Vegetarian, and Dairy.

There’s also info. on grape variety, acidity, body, tannins and sweetness for each wine listed.

Well done to Stuart Gardiner for yet another clever and useful design. We especially enjoy the way that the knife and fork sit next to the wine in the logo....nice!

2 colour print on organic unbleached cotton. Made & printed in the UK and only £9.95 each. What more can you ask for?

SALE

Buying for the winter season is in full swing here at snowhome, so we thought we'd get rid of a few old things to make some space for the new. The sale is in store only, so if your looking to get your hands on some design classics with as much as 70% off RRP then be sure to call in.

ANYONE FANCY A KNITTED BEARD?

Earlier this week Angus and I went down to Birmingham NEC to visit the Autumn Fair trade show. Now that summer is over : ( we were on the look out for some new products to stock for Christmas. One of our favourites were these Beard Beanies. They will be a bit pricey at £40 but we just loved them, What do you think? Should we stock them?

I think they're perfect for cycling around a cold city during the winter months, because if like me you can't really grow a proper beard then you will know all about that freeeezing cold chin.

FREE WORD MAP FOR LIKING US

We want you to like us on facebook. We're even bribing you by offering a best selling Word Map of the British Isles to the 50th and 100th people who like us on facebook.

Like us by clicking here and then just click on the LIKE THIS button.

GRAZE

Every Wednesday the postman brings me a Graze box, it's a birthday present from my Mum.

The whole Graze concept is very nicely thought out right the way through from the website to the clever packaging. It's an exercise in very good branding and it works because all the details are consistent. To be honest , I'm more a fan of the cute box design and the little craft booklet than I was of yesterdays "love mix" but I can use the website to delete love mix from my future orders. One of the best things about the Graze experience is receiving a neat little present in the the post every week, when I'm used to bills and invoices a box of goodies is always a more than welcome delivery.

A POSTER DESIGNED LIKE THIS WILL PROBABLY SELL

NEW PRODUCTS

Last week we received a range of new and old favourites from Joseph and Joseph. Thought I would share a few of these with you as they make cooking and dining a less stressful experience. The Garlic rocker is a personal favourite of mine. it's beautifully designed, easy to use and is a treat to keep nice and clean!

And the Double dish is great for serving olives and pistachios. As well as hiding any waste from view, Double Dish eliminates the need for additional empty bowls on the table! Genius!

DECADE

Last week saw our tenth birthday as Snowhome. It's hard to believe that it was ten years ago that I first tentatively opened the doors of the little shop at No. 38 with a homemade shop-fit and barely any stock.

Things have changed, we've got a bit more stock now and a lot more experience but many things have stayed fairly constant ( largely due to my resistance to dramatic change ). I still work with a few of the companies that I did in that first year, many of them have become friends as have the customers who have supported Snowhome. Without good staff I wouldn't have made it to 10 years, thank you to those who have been part of the team and made work not feel like work!

I'm not sure what the next ten years will hold, I hope that we will continue to evolve in our own haphazard way and attempt to turn some of the ideas we have into reality instead of just talking about them!

LONDON

We had a quick trip down to London last week - just before people started misbehaving down there.

The reason for the trip was a meeting with a design company to pitch a couple of product ideas, the meeting went very well and hopefully something will come of it. If anything develops I will post news on the blog.

John and I also took the chance to have a snoop round some shops while we were in London, here's John almost asleep in an Eames lounge chair in Skandium, he had been up all the previous night getting presentations ready for the meeting!

I also took the decision to start a Snowhome wholesale business. I was in discussion with a couple of distributors regarding the Word Map but after a good deal of deliberation I have started to take on the distribution myself. I will be looking to sell it into a network of national design shops and specialist retailers so if you're interested or know a shop that might like to sell our best selling Word Maps please do get in touch.

The idea is to build a small portfolio of own brand products that we self distribute to selected retailers. It's a big step and wholesale is a business in itself but I like a challenge and I think the time is right. There is also an opportunity for some creative freedom which I find exciting, I have a few ideas up my metaphoric sleeve and am already working on a new Word Map which will be launched at the Top Drawer/Home show in January 2012.

As ideas become products the shop, website and blog will be the testing ground, thank you to all the customers who have supported our own brand products; I'm as big as... YouToDo, The Accumulator, Flower Grenades and of course Word Map over the last few years. You will be the first to know about our new additions.

STUDIO

John and I made a studio visit the other evening after closing. Phil and Will are regulars in the shop,they are both are creatives and have made things that we've sold in Snowhome. They invited us over for a look at their new studio, it was inspiring to be there and took me back to a time when I spent most of my own time in my studio and visiting friends in theirs.

Studios are great, primarily creative working spaces but always full of quirky stuff and fascinating objects. Studios remind me of allotments, both share the same eccentric resourceful character and both possess a sense of potential. Check out the cardboard box light shade!

Thanks to Phil and Will for the relaxing couple of hours, we look forward to working on a project with them both over the coming months. You can have a look at their websites by clicking on the names at the beginning of the post.