Button Bag Kitten Baskets (Part 2): A Tale of Three Kitties

Hello and welcome to the concluding part of our two-part kitten saga! 

Last week we got our sewing heads on and ended up with a whole new clerical department for ReRetail. Well, in the time since then Kate has been sewing at every possible opportunity and now we're pleased to announce a third member of our team, Mocha:

(L-R) Marmelade, Mocha, Bumble. 

Mocha was named on honour of UK Coffee Week and mostly is in charge of photocopying and shredding. 

After a long day at work, the three kitties were tired, so we were tasked with building them a place to sleep and keep all their kitten things (mostly a bill of string, cats aren't really into owning things). Luckily, the kitten basket kit has instructions on how to turn all the left over bits (and box) into just what we needed! Here's the three of them in their new home:

So there we have it, when not on clerical duty, the kittens now have a basket to sit in/play around. 

That's all for this week! (I know, this was a short one, but we'll make up for it next week, promise!)

Remember that you can (until the end of May) get a free re-usable shopping bag with every order through our webshop!  

Here's a reminder of the currently active discount codes/promotions:

For Free Shipping, use the code FRIDAYFUN - Valid until the 4th of May.

For 15% off all Makedo items, use the code BUILDABOXEY - Valid until the 30th April.

and, as always, for 12.5% off of all our items, use the blog code to the left, and a FaceBook advert code, which is a secret. 

Thank you for reading and that's all for the Friday Fun for this week. We'll see you tuesday for the Spotlight.

As always you can find our shop Here, also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Thursday Roundup 26-04-12

Like these little guys? Want one, for free? Then read on...

Hello and welcome to this weeks Roundup! It's been a busy week here at ReRetail towers, we've got kitten updates, bags from nuns, and free gifts! But that's enough from me, lets get into the Roundup!


Week Recap: 

I managed to get this photo
before being shoo'd away.

Since our Friday Fun, Kate has really taken a liking to the Kitten Basket we featured, and while we'll be back with them tomorrow to finish off the rest of the kit. Kate's been busy all week manically sewing the third kitten to join ReRetails new Clerical Staff (Bumble and Marmalade), these kits really aren't just for kids, they're also for crafty (like a fox!) or particularly child-like adults too!

Something special arrived on our doorstep this week, no not another kitten, but a set of children's school bags - hand made by nuns, no less! We'll talk about these once we've sorted them all and got them up on the shop, but we can say that they are really nice, and are for a good cause (so thats doubly good!) - watch out for them in a future Spotlight!


Product News:
A quick product update this week, we just wanted to say that, due to a sudden surge in popularity, we have almost sold out of all the Medium and Small leather journals. But fear not! You haven't missed your chance! We've placed another order with Paper High so we should be back in stock very soon.

Signoff:

Now, before we sign off for the week - the moment you've been waiting for!

As you can see from the banner picture, we have these re-usable carrier bags around here. They got us thinking, wouldn't it be great if you could have one, for free? 

Of course it would, which is why we've decided that, until our supply of freebie bags run out (or the end of May, whichever comes first) every order through our webshop (sorry eBay customers! This is just for the webshoppers) will get a randomly selected bag. 

If that's not incentive enough, if you're quick enough you can use this in conjunction with any of our currently active offers! 

Here's a reminder of the currently active discount codes:

For Free Shipping, use the code FRIDAYFUN - Valid until the 4th of May.

For 15% off all Makedo items, use the code BUILDABOXEY - Valid until the 30th April.

and, as always, for 12.5% off of all our items, use the blog code to the left, and a FaceBook advert code, which is a secret. 

Thank you for reading and that's all for the Roundup for this week. We'll see you Tuesday for the Spotlight! Remember to check back tomorrow for the Kitten-y conclusion to last weeks Friday Fun. 

As always you can find our shop Here, also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Tuesday Spotlight 24-04-12: Pocket Garden Tree in a Bag

Because it was Earth Day on sunday, we thought it would be nice for us to feature one of our more earth-y products: The Pocket Garden Tree in a Bag.

The tree that's in the bag is a Silver Birch and is, for all intents and purposes, a tree that you can grow on your windowsill. The Tree in a Bag work like one of those Eco Coffee refill packs you can get, but instead of being filled with delicious coffee, it's filled with tree! You tear the top off (or cut, if you're being sensible), sow the tree-seeds, water, and wait. Before too long you'll have your very own tree! I suggest you name it George.

Once it's too big for your windowsill, you take it outside and plant it in the ground (the bag is fully compostable). Don't worry if i moved too quickly there, all the instructions are on the pack. 

All in all, this is a great gift for people who are big fans for Silver Birches, or trees in general. It also makes a great way to reduce your carbon footprint, and more trees is certainly  good thing indeed.

You can find the Tree in a Bag here. We also stock a huge range of Canova's other products, the full Pocket Garden range here and the Grow My First range for kids, here. 

Because we've gone a bit discount code mad recently, we don't have a new code for this Spotlight. But fear not! Our previous codes are still active! So you've got these three to choose from:

For Free Shipping, use the code FRIDAYFUN - Valid until the 4th of May.

For 15% off all Makedo items, use the code BUILDABOXEY - Valid until the 30th April.

and, as always, for 12.5% off of all our items, use the blog code to the left.

We also have a discount code currently active on our FaceBook adverts, so get looking!

That's all for the spotlight and we'll see you Thursday for the Roundup!

As always you can find our shop Here, also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Friday Fun!: Button Bag Kitten Baskets (Part 1)

Hello! Welcome to the (later than normal) Friday Fun! We were going to update this on Friday, but there were a series of unforeseen events that distracted us (ok, there was Chinese Takeaway, but it was really delicious). But here we are now, so it's time for our Friday Saturday Sunday Fun!

This episode we are looking at the Kitten Basket from Button Bag (that we mentioned in our Thursday Roundup a couple of weeks ago). 

Before we continue, I must mention that I (Matt) haven't sewn anything in at least 12 years, and the last time I did it ended with someone being taken to hospital (needless to say, i'm rubbish at sewing but make a fantastic Jason Bourne). Kate, on the other hand, sews all the time - and is quite the perfectionist - our differing skill levels will undoubtably become apparent as we start work. 

Here's what we got in the box:

We got the pre-cut kittens, all the thread, needles, pins we could ever need (enough for both of us to make the kittens at the same time!), some stuffing and buttons and the instructions for how to make them.  

At this point, and after some office politic-ing (there were secret hand signals and codes and the like) we came to the decision that I get the Black kitten whilst Kate got the Orange one (that took us about a quarter of an hour - you can see why the blog is late!).

Anyway, here's us at the midway point:

Kate was trying to get it perfect whilst i was just trying not to stab myself.
Much like a normal workday really.

And after some sewing and some stuffing, we had two new employees at the ReRetail office, Bumble and Marmalade (they mostly do clerical work):

Bumble is on the left.

But that's not all! Next week we'll show off what we did with the rest of the kit! Until then, check them out for yourself here.

Because we liked these little kitties so much, and to beat the impending postal price-rise, we've decided to offer Free Shipping* to all our UK customers until the 4th of May! Just use the code FRIDAYFUN during the checkout.

Also, until the 30th of April you can still get 15% off of all makedo items using the code BUILDABOXEY* and, if that's not enough, you can get 12.5% off of all our products (forever!*) using the code IMFROMTHEBLOG*.

There's also 15% off everything using our FaceBook code (you'll have to find that one!).

Hope you had a great weekend (there's still a few hours left!) and we'll see you Tuesday for the Spotlight! Oh and, also, because this post is late it actually falls on Earth Day, so be sure check them out!

As always you can find our shop Here, also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

*(restrictions apply)

Thursday Roundup 19-04-12

Hello again! Welcome back to the Thursday roundup, our weekly (ish) newsletter (ish) post about the going on in and around ReRetail Towers (...ish). Now with a fancy new format!

Week Recap: 
Well what a week this has been! Last Friday we completed our Friday Fun big project 'Project Boxey' which really put our artistic skills to the test. I'm pleased to report that Boxey is steeling into his new surroundings and seems quite happy.  We also received a very nice write-up/post about it from Makedo, which caused this to happen:

Up is good

 Which means, in basic terms, that it's more than just our mums who read this, so thank you to everyone reading this, and a special thank you to Makedo for making such a fantastic product.

Check out Makedo here or on FaceBook.

Product News:
The Elephant Dung Journals we mentioned last week are now back in stock (all sizes) in limited quantities, these items are quick sellers so get them before their gone again!


Also the Embossed/Stitched A4 Leather Journal that impressed me last week seems to have impressed you as well, as we're down to our last one!






Signoff:
Thanks, again, for reading and remember! Until the 30th of April you can still get 15% off of all makedo items using the code BUILDABOXEY (restrictions apply) and, if that's not enough, you can get 12.5% off of all our products (forever!*) using the code IMFROMTHEBLOG (restrictions apply).

A little birdy has also told me that you can get 15% off of our entire range by using some kind of discount code from some kind of FaceBook advert that we have. So if you can find it (it's like a treasure hunt) you can get yourself quite a nice saving.

Have a great weekend and we'll see you Tuesday for the Spotlight (remember to check in tomorrow for the Friday Fun!)

As always you can find our shop Here, also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Tuesday Spotlight 17-04-12: Ecoist Coca Cola Clutch

Well hello there! Did you all have a fun weekend? Luckily you're here in time four our Tuesday Spotlight. What's the Tuesday Spotlight? Well, it's a small piece of the blog where we can pick out one of our products and lavish them with attention and praise before we make them fight to the death... no wait, thats The Hunger Games. We just do the lavishing bit. With the explanations out of the way, bring in the Tribut... Product.

This week, we're going to spend a little time to take a look at one of the first products we stocked, the recycled clutch bags from Ecoist:

The Coca Cola Clutch is our most well-received clutch bag (and it's easy to see why!), it's dimension are 8x3.5x2 (in) and is handmade from Coca Cola bottle wrappers.
It's fun, distinctive, and good for the environment, all in all it's everything you could want or need from a clutch bag made from Coke wrappers.



As well as the distinctive Coca Cola pattern, we also stock clutch bags made from Coke Zero, M&M's, Twix and many more! If it's a wrapper, and can be made into a bag, it probably already has been by the lovely people at Ecoist (who have been honoured as a hero of 2012 by Sustanatopia, so congratulations are in order).

Anyway, thats all from us this Spotlight, have a good week and we'll see you Thursday for the Roundup.

Remember! Until the 30th of April you can still get 15% off of all makedo items using the code BUILDABOXEY (restrictions apply) and, if that's not enough, you can get 12.5% off of all our products (forever!*) using the code IMFROMTHEBLOG (restrictions apply). I've also heard a rumour that if you know the right places to look, you can find other discount codes of ours...

As always you can find our shop Here, also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

*ish

Friday Fun!: Project B.O.X.E.Y: The Return

Well, we've had a busy afternoon tinkering away at Project B.O.X.E.Y. So much that we've finished! A week ahead of schedule! We're quite the hard workers here at ReRetail (at... messing around). Anyway, enough of that word-noise. Here's the second update for project Boxey:

As you may well know, here's where we were at the end of the last episode:

We cut out the shape of his body from a old guitar box (which was a stroke of luck really, as it was exactly the right basic shape). After missing last weeks Friday Fun (it was a bank holiday and we were spending out time standing in the sun and visiting the beach and such) we were eager to get to work.

First thing we did was empty our Makedo Kit For Fun all over the floor:

This is how master craftsmen work. Honest.

With our workplace sorted we began the task of working out which bits to pin to which (and trying our best not to pin each other together). But we persevered and got all the pins in place and the right bits connected in the right places.

Then, after this minor victory, we got all excited and began working at an incredible pace, so much so that we completely forgot to take any more in-progress photos! Turns out we were in a special Boxey-making zone and could not be disturbed, even for photos. But anyway, when the smoke had cleared we looked down and saw our creation:

We did it! Boxey was finally in 3D! And he didn't even require special glasses or James Cameron or anything! 

Here he is again in his permanent home, our lobby, to act as both a greeter and a guard-boxey. 

We needed someone to guard our map, chairs and certificate.

All in all, we had a fun time messing around with our Makedo stuff and it just goes to show, if we can make something cool out of one of their kits, anyone can! You can find all our Makedo items here.

Because we've finished our project ahead of schedule, and because we've not had a blog-exclusive discount in at least two weeks, we've decided to offer 15% off of all of our Makedo items until the end of the month. 

So, until the 30th of April you can get 15% off of all makedo items using the code BUILDABOXEY (restrictions apply). 

As always you can find our shop Here, also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Thanks for reading and have a great weekend! Check back next week for more fun!

Thursday Roundup 12-04-12

Hello and welcome to the newest thing in blog (well, our blog), the Thursday Roundup! 'Whats a Thursday Roundup' you say? Well, it's like a newsletter but it comes up here every Thursday (like a newsletter) and features a summary of all thats been going on over the past week (like a newsletter). 

...Basically it's pretty much exactly like a newsletter, but we've decided to call it a Thursday Roundup, which makes it different (somehow). Anyway, on with the show!

Embossed & Stitched
Indra Leather Journal - A4

First up, we have our (newly restocked!) selection of fantastic journals from Paper High. The Indra leather journals are a particular favourite of mine, and the A4 (right) really caught my eye.

The journals have approximately 125 pages (less for the smaller sizes) of paper made from Recycled Cotton from the Indian garment industry. Which makes these both fairly traded and eco friendly!  They come in a variety of styles (pictured is stitched & embossed with clasp). Also avalible from Paper High is Coloured Leather, Leather, Sari and Elephant Dung. Check them out here.

Button Bag Kitten Basket

Next up we have two new additions to our store, the first is from Button Bag, which are craft kits for kids (or crafty grown-ups) which you can use to make all sorts of fluffy things, such as Kittens (left), Owls, Mice, and more. 

As you can see from the picture these items should come with a dentists warning, because of their incredible sweetness. Expect to see more of these on here in the future. Check them out here.

Choc-o Juice Carton Place Mats

And finally we have just started stocking a rage of place mats and home-wares from Doy Bags. All Doy Bag items are made from recycled juice cartons  by a women's co-operative in the Philippines. 

"Wipe-clean and eco friendy? Is it true?" You bet your bottom dollar it is. These placemats look great and come in a variety of designs. Check them out here. We also stock matching coasters, check them out here. 

Well, it's been a busy week, hopefully next week we have as much (or more) cool stuff to show off to you! Remember you can get 12.5% off of all these items (and all the items in our webstore) using the code IMFROMTHEBLOG (restrictions apply).  

As always you can find our shop Here, also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Thanks for reading and we'll see you tomorrow for some Friday Fun!