Journal
Here you’ll find a collection of seasonal stories, thoughts, ideas, some obvious, some (hopefully) less so.
Enjoy.
ALL IN SEASON MAKERS STORIES INSPIRATION
Featured
Here you’ll find a collection of seasonal stories, thoughts, ideas, some obvious, some (hopefully) less so.
Enjoy.
Every Tuesday I walk to my mother-in-laws house for lunch. When I get to the door I’m met by the smell of something good. In the kitchen the table is laid and there is always napkin for each of us. When I mentioned how much I loved this we began talking about the significance of napkins. It turns out that the napkin has quite a history.
Wednesday 01 May | 7pm - 9pm | £70. Join us and Bleakhouse Flowers on May Day to create a hand-tied Spring Bouquet masterpiece. Read on for more information and tickets.
Our cheery little Christmas Micro Market is back for 2023. Saturday 25th November from 12-noon until 5pm. An independent shopping experience washed down with a little mulled wine. Sounds lovely, right?
Simple Shape x Bleak House Flowers bring you the Christmas Wreath Making Workshop. Thursday 30 November from 7-9pm (workshop will be between 2-2.5 hours) Get your ticket now. Tickets, £70
Coming full circle with Katie Mitchell. Read our Q&A. Katie will be teaching a macrame workshop on Thursday 2nd November at our Simple Shape Studio-Shop
Thursday 27th April | 7pm - 9pm | £55. We are once again joining forces with Tobby Wu from Bleakhouse Flowers. This time to offer a Flower Arranging Workshop. Read on for more information. Tickets: HERE
We have passed the equinox in the Northern hemisphere and the sun is now officially moving northwards. With spring in the air we have added some fresh new things to the shop, all designed and made in the UK, of course.
Details of our Christmas MICRO MARKET, including times, locations and makers.
How To: Dress a table for an Occasion (I’m thinking Christmas, but you can take the principals and use them for all occasions really!) Just add people and you’ll be set for a great event.
Join us on the first evening of advent, Simple Shape is welcoming back Bleakhouse Flowers for an extraordinary Christmas Wreath Making Workshop. 7-9pm. This is a ticketed event.
If you’re local to South East London, put these dates in your diaries! Book onto our fantastic workshops and join us for the return of our Micro Christmas Market…shop local and independent this Christmas.
Our Simple Shape Studio is going to be a mass of felt, embroidery thread, beads and sequins for our Christmas Decoration Workshop. Author & presenter, Christine Leech, founder of SewYeah will be passing on her skills. We asked her 6 questions about her creative roots.
Trapping heat and effectively insulating yourself is a successful and time-worn way to stay warm when the weather turns bleak. And a wool blanket is a simple and excellent way to do that.
Saturday 19 November | 2pm-4pm. We have joined forces with SewYeah to present a Christmas Decoration Workshop. Join us and make an embroidered, beaded Gingerbread House or a Babushka Doll.
Saturday 23rd April | 2pm-4pm. We are bursting with excitement to be hosting a Spring Flower Bouquet Workshop here in the Simple Shape Studio taught by Tobby Wu of Bleak House
Get outside, clear the cobwebs away, keep moving. January and February will give way to Spring soon enough. Photo story from Camber Sands.
The food and the people are the focus, the table is the landscape. We have all the things to help you create a great landscape for your food and guests.
Here are the details of what Simple Shape is up to in the run up to the Christmas break and when you need to order to be sure your gifts arrive in plenty of time.
It's not news that soft lighting and scents can create an atmosphere but don't wait for an occasion to do this, autumn-winter nights are occasion enough.
We do argue about egg timing but, fortunately, we generally agree about egg cups, wooden plates, jugs of flowers, the nicest accoutrements to accompany said boiled egg. Here they are, all the nice things.
Blue Monday, the so named most depressing day of the year, got me thinking. It got me thinking about ‘the blues’. But rather than focus on the darkness that the 'Winter Blues’ elicits this is my personal version of Blue Sky Thinking…
We thought it might be helpful to pull together all the lovely gifts that we have that are under £50. And, of course, if you’re on our mailing list then POSTAGE IS FREE (always).
The black and white of it is that we’re resolutely refusing to fall into the ‘For Him / For Her’ approach to seasonal shopping. Instead we’ve organised the collection into colour groups. In our Monochrome Edit we have things that are black, white and a good few shades of grey.
If a natural tone is what you’re after in your homewares shopping then our Natural Selection Gift Guide including alpaca wool throws, wooden boards, copper watering cans, walnut coffee scoops and jute twine…all designed and made on these shores is a good starting place.
All of our gifts are handmade, crafted things that have ALL, without exception, been made in the UK and Ireland and that each support a designer, maker, small business or unique industry. If this is what you’re looking for, then this is the gift guide for you. Here is our Colour Injection edit.
This is going to be a winter like no other isn’t it. A winter where we will find ourselves collectively hibernating. We have gathered up some of the most lovely blankets and cushions for you to squash yourselves into until spring.
Occasionally we add new things to the Simple Shape collection - here is one of our latest additions from the super design duo, Superfolk.
This is going to be the most British of summers for most of us. Seems like the best time to celebrate our island, make for the coast and turn a picnic into an occasion, you might as well!
The upside of being at home more is being around to pick the blackberries from the brambles that cascade over the wall by my studio from the next-door neighbours garden. This recipe for Blackberry Ice Cream is really worth the effort. Find yourself a patch of brambles and get going.
Our apron has become an essential tool belt for cooking, for gardening, for woodwork, for DIY jobs, for art students. It has been shared around. It is a hard worker. It’s grubby and needs a wash.