Even Dragons Love The Emporium!

Last night (just before The Apprentice) top dragon Theo Paphitis (of Dragons' Den, in case you are totally lost) tweeted The Emporium as one of his Small Business Sunday (#sbs) winners! This is fantastic news for us - our traffic is up and we are making loads of new contacts.


To be recommended by Theo is a real joy - we will be working very hard to live up to this honour.


See what all the fuss is about at: http://www.theemporiumoundle.com/
Tweet us to congratulate us (or just say hello) at : @emporiumoundle
Follow us on Facebook for extra special offers and treats at: http://www.facebook.com/EmporiumOundle

If you are a press person, or just a fan and would like to do an article, blog post or interview with me about The Emporium, just contact me at rebecca@theemporiumoundle.com - I'd love to hear from you.

Go Unique and Handmade!

I started my business shortly after getting massively frustrated over birthday presents - I love giving presents and always try to make them a bit different. Of course, if a friend has been kind enough to make a wishlist, that saves me a bit of trouble, but finding something special for those who don't was such a pain.

Of course, you could go for the latest thing - but then you risk duplicate presents. You can try clothes, but if you get them in the wrong size you can cause offense, mass produced smellies contain lots of irritants and colourants that can upset even the hardiest of skin types - even buying a birthday card can be dangerous as you'll find the perfect card which suits the person down to a T, but so will everyone else - the curse of the high street.

So I went online and searched for handmade gifts and to my shock found the sites that sold them either :

1: Sold 'handmade' gifts from abroad, where the only handmade part was someone sewing on a button.

2: Was a massive warehouse style craft-fair esque site where you had to wade through hundreds of listings of similar or poor-quality items just to find something.

This, I thought, isn't right - surely there needs to be a place online where you can easily find a selection of high-quality, completely handmade gifts made by UK people?

So I made one! (http://www.theemporiumoundle.com/)
We have a varied pool of items, but only one or two crafters for each - each of our items are in stock with us, tried and tested for quality and can be gift wrapped or customised. From cards to jewellery made from silver and seaglass, from handmade cold process soaps (made from UK honey and beeswax with absolutely no artificial colours, preservatives or scents) to gorgeous bags.

Everything is made in limited amounts, I can tell you the name of exactly who made each item so you are guaranteed to give something unique and wonderful - our testimonials page is a tribute to that! (http://www.theemporiumoundle.com/pages/Testimonials.html)

Pop over to our website to see for yourself! We offer wishlists, gift wrapping, custom orders and wedding favours - a fully personalised service where we strive for the very best.

If you are a local crafter and make something you think we'd love, please get in touch, too! We are always looking for unique, UK made crafts with something a bit special.

Seasons Greetings from The Emporium!

Our first year running The Emporium has been a real learning curve! Funded by the Princes Trust, with the aim of bringing hand-made crafts into more of our homes (and more unique gift ideas than the norm), we've had great fun finding new crafts and making new friends who make truly amazing gift ideas!

We want to say a really big 'Thank You' to you - our first year of customers and newsletter subscribers. Without you we wouldn't be here! As a treat, we've activated a discount code on the website "NEWSXMAS10" for 10% off all items in your next order. Simply type in NEWSXMAS10 in the voucher code box when you check out.

In addition, we are offering free shipping to all orders over £25 this Christmas - handy when you see our next new items exclusive to the Emporium!


Our handmade candles have been a huge success - LeeAnna, our candles crafter, has been working very hard to make some more exciting scents and ideas, and has really made us proud! Take a look at our life-sized centrepiece candles!

From the vanillary crust to the sweet scented fruits, these candles are truly a work of art! Each of the larger pies are 5" round by 2" deep - making them a fantastic centrepiece for your table, a truly unique gift or a really amazing piece for the home! They smell just as good as they look, too, and will burn for up to 140 hours! If you can't bring yourself to burn them, don't worry - their scent will still lightly fill any room, just like a freshly-baked pie!

These unique, handmade pie candles are exclusive to the Emporium - you won't find them anywhere else in the UK!


We only have limited numbers of the larger pies for Christmas - so be quick! We can also do custom orders for the pies, making them exactly to your design and requirements for an event or just a special gift. Go to our Custom Orders page for more details.


Why not stock up on stocking fillers at The Emporium? We have a great range of smaller gift ideas suitable for kids right up to Nan - with luxury handmade soaps made will all-natural ingredients, our very popular Sock Cupcakes and plenty of affordable pieces of handmade jewellery.

Finally - did you know we can gift-wrap all presents for you? For just £2 per item, we will wrap any gift, along with a ribbon and a hand-written tag!

We will also label the gift with a little removable tag- just in case you forget what is in there! (Just remember to take it off before you give the gift!)

Last order dates for Christmas are the 17th of December for Standard 1st Class Shipping and the 21st December for Special Delivery! Many thanks for reading our newsletter, and we hope you'll be back to our site again soon for more unique, handmade gift ideas.

Christmas Stall

This week we set up our temporary Christmas Stall alongside the Charity Christmas Cards in St Peters' Church, Oundle. This means we are out of the elements - although the church is a little chilly, so if you do pop round don't be too alarmed by the amount of jumpers I've managed to squeeze on!

We are there Thursdays and Saturdays and will have a selection of gift ideas from the website available for purchase - have a good sniff of our scented candles and lovely hand-made soaps.





We also will have items not yet on the website - real one of a kind pieces to snap up while they are still there. These include new designs by Dormouse Designs' Anja Schafer and Chain Of Daisies' Caroline Sale. Come try some on and have a chat every Thursday and Saturday up until Christmas.