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.

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)

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!

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

As a fitting end to Makedo week we decided to kick off a big Friday Fun project (Codename: Project B.O.X.E.Y, because we're all secretive like that). Which is to use some of the Makedo bits we've been talking about all week to bring our mascot (and overlord) Boxey to, proper 3D, life!

Now, this project is no small undertaking (mostly because we're only allowed Friday afternoons to mess around) so it going to take us a few weeks - we don't have any arty skills either, which is quite a hinderance. But what we do have is determination, and an overwhelming desire to not work Friday afternoons. That last fact cannot be overstated.

But, enough with all that talk, lets get up to speed with where we're at:

Well, first thing we needed was a plan. So we got scribbling away and came up withe the basic idea of what Boxey would look like in 3D:

It turned out that, whilst Katie was better at the technical stuff, Matt had all the squared paper. 

With plans in hand we hunted and gathered all the spare boxes we could find (luckily we've had a lot of deliveries recently, so we've got quite a few boxes knocking around):

Everything we could possibly need to make our very own Boxey.

We then quickly threw caution to the wind and began chopping away at our various boxes:

Very quickly.

But, as of day one, we are currently a sucess! We've built the basic body shape and found a head for the little box-man, now we've just got some of the details to do... and the arms... and the rest of the body... Ok, there's quite a bit left to do. But that's what next week is for! Here's where we're up to as of today:

Not much to look at now, but soon he will be king.

Anyway, thats thats all from us, just enough time for the usual sign-off. You can find you can find all the stuff to make your very own Boxey (or anything else, for that matter) on our website here. 

To celebrate the start of our project, we've decided to extend the length of our discount code another week! So, until the 9th of April you can get 15% off of all makedo items using the code FRIDAYFUN (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!

Friday Fun!: Cup Critters

Because it’s Friday and it’s the start of summer (well, it’s sunny outside), and nobody likes working on a Friday afternoon we here at ReRetail made a management decision to put our collective feet up and have a bit of a rest.

Whilst we’re resting, and because next week is our 'Makedo Week', what better time is there to break out one of our fantastic new Cup Critters and see what we could make?

Firstly, after some arguing and bargaining, we decided on the Cow/Chicken set, which should look like this:

Those two on the left

Here’s all the bits you get in the set:

I dunno, it doesn't look very cow-y or chicken-y.

…And after putting our degrees to good use, we ended up with these two:

Thats better!

So we decided to take our new friends for a tour around the office, but they were far too interested in eating all of our Smarties and just standing around

At this point it was getting late, so they had to call for a lift back home.

Well, I think thats just about enough from us about the newest additions to our office. If you liked these little guys as much as we did you get pick up a set here. 

If our little story wasn't incentive enough, until the end of march you can get 15% off of all Cup Critters (and all the Makedo items we have in store) using the code FRIDAYFUN (restrictions apply). 

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