Late Night Gaming at Museum of Scotland

Friday the 13th unlucky for some! But not for all the lucky guys and gals with tickets to the Museum Lates ‘Games Master’ Evening at the National Museum of Scotland.

The evening was a celebration of all things gaming! traditional games (hungry hippos anyone?)  right through to the contemporary games of today.

With up to 100 playable games on the night, and lots of gaming themed activities, face painting, dress up and lets not forget our very own Retro Gaming Badge Workshop.

Our workshop was inspired by the work of Jeweller Lucie Ellen. Lucie sent us lots of inspiration for badges on the night. Juicy watermelons inspired by her very own watermelon necklace, cute pixelated strawberries amongst many others.

We have lots of Lucie’s funky plywood and vinyl jewellery behind our red doors and in our online shop.

The vinyl for our workshop was very kindly supplied by  Vinyl Warehouse. We had lots of shiny primary coloured vinyl, perfect for making your fun retro creations.

As soon as the doors were opened at 7pm a flood of gaming enthusiasts descended on our workshop as people queued to design and make their very own vinyl badges.

From the scene above to the one below in around 30 mins!! We had lots of eager beavers keen to make their very own badges. It was a whirlwind!

 

Getting inspired!

 Some of our lovely workshop participants showing off their badges in style!

There was lots of great face painting on show. We particularly liked this pac-man!

 The Little Nintendo Mushroom was a popular choice on the evening.

Look at the concentration!

The workshop was an overwhelming success! We unfortunately ran out of badges before the end. We’re sorry if you missed out on making your badge. Those of you who didn’t get one, still got stuck in to the workshop making vinyl stickers for their bikes, fridges and anywhere else that they could think of.

We had a small collection of Lucie’s work on display on the night. This lovely lady was rather smitten with Lucie Ellen’s Gold Dipped Necklace.

Our night was complete when none other than Super Mario himself stopped by our Red Door! We were a little star struck to say the least!

We hope you all had a great time at the workshop. The Games Master Exhibition is on until the 20th April 2015. Get along for some gaming fun.

Late Night Gaming at Museum of Scotland

ya’ absolute belter

What ever Valentine’s day has brought you this year, we hope you’ve said something nice to someone you care about!

These chaps from The Grey Earl’s new “Stars Are Braw” collection have a few pointers if your running low on compiments, only 7 hours to go!And if you’ve had enough of this love stuff, why not take after our favourite little black cat and have a night in, with telly, rugby or Starwars???Meow!  Hope you have a purrrfect evening in store!  Happy V Day

ya’ absolute belter

#FridayFavourites - The Colour of Love

Red is the colour of our very gallery and is the theme for this weeks #FridayFavourites.

What do you see when you see Red? Love, Anger, Danger? It’s funny that one colour can evoke quite opposite feelings!

Of course Love is  in the air as you all descend on the gallery to buy cards and gifts for that special . All decked out in the colour of Love – Red!

Today’s #FridayFavourites features just a snippet of the art work and accessories we have in our favourite colour!

Bacon Rolls by Tommy Perman – this was part of Tommy’s exhibition Leith in Red and Black that he exhibited with us. More Red and Black prints available here.

Red Pierre by Graham Carter – Part of his Red, Yellow & Blue Trilogy. All available in our online shop. Carter fans should snap up this lovely menagerie of busy characters before they are gone as they are a limited edition of 20.

The Snug Spectator Hat by Stitch Mi Lane – New Red Colour way launched at the end of 2014. Keep your head toasty cheering at the sidelines!

Esmie Notebooks – New silk screen Journals. Handmade in the UK. A beautiful range of different colours and prints available.

Hello Treacle Linocut Print by Woah There Pickle – 3 colour linocut of one of the worlds most loved chat up line. Based on the beautiful Lyles treacle tin.

Kraftcycle Mug by Nick Alston – Just arrived through our red doors and straight into our #fridayfavourites. Comes perfectly presented in its own printed box too!

Red Feather Girl Pouch by Please To Meet – The perfect pouch from, make up, toiletries to  purse. It’s a jack of all trades and cute it is too!

Red Fox Handkerchiefs by Chase & Wonder – The perfect foxy red accessory. Also available in black for the more demure!

Hope you’ve enjoyed this weeks #fridayfavourites and we Have a loved up weekend wooing your sweethearts!

#FridayFavourites - The Colour of Love

You're Braw = LOVE!

“You’re Braw” is Scots for “I love you” as you can tell from our braw Valentine’s window!  We have put all of our crazy little LOVE THINGS in one place online, to help you find the right “Toucan” of affection for your “Perfect Pair“.

If you are looking for a romantic print, we reccomend having a look at Pleased To Meet, David Fleck or Freya Cummings, if you are looking for something a little more edgey, or even a little rude, how about Rich Fairhead, Laura Gee, or Barry D Bulsara?

Another top tip from The Red Door team, is to create your own unique perfect pair of gits, Niki Fulton’s “Pear” mugs shown in the grid above are the perfect example, why not have a wonder through our homewares and jewellery pages to see if you can find your own perfect match for your Valentine or Galentine?

Our Pop Out greetings cards are going down a storm already, we have a huge range to choose from and each DIY sculpture of say a Plane, Monkey or Rose comes with a matching, traditional greetings card and are just a dream to post.Lastly, we are delighted to have Twiggd’s collection of fun, love themed brooches and earrings in for Valentine’s, have a peep here to learn a little more about Tara and her processes.  We hope you all have a fab Feb 14th when it comes!

You're Braw = LOVE!

New Artist - Twiggd

New Year and lots of new artists arriving at the gallery. Today we have the pleasure of sharing with you local talent Twiggd.

Tara of Twiggd is the maker of the new colourful wooden illustrated jewellery now behind our Red Doors.

It’s always interesting to find out the background on our artists so here’s a little bit about Tara,

Tara studied fashion and textile design for 5 years at Duncan of Jordanstone in Dundee before learning traditional cabinetmaking and wood working at the Chippendale School of Furniture. Whilst studing she started making and selling jewellery online. Turning out to be a great success, it became her main focus. Tara quickly realised she loved working with wood but hated measuring things so much so that furniture making was not for her! Although the knowledge of proper woodworking techniques has been invaluable as she uses a lot of solid woods in designs, her favourites being Oak and Walnut.

Tara now works full time making beautiful laser etched and hand painted jewellery. She has amazing attention to detail and a steady hand, painting the sometimes intricate designs on her jewellery.

The name Twiggd was born whilst she was studying. A ‘woody’ name seemed appropriate for her brand but she also wanted something that would work across a range of different disciplines from illustration, jewellery design, interiors, all the different things she thought she might do. So she stuck on Twiggd loving  that it had two meanings. Not just the wood nature of what she was making but also that ‘to twig’ means ‘to get it’.

We are sure you will all ‘get her’ illustrative jewellery. It’s flying out our red doors as we speak.

Tara takes inspiration from her favourite books and TV shows, Nature, The Scottish landscape, people and funny words when making her jewellery. We’re sure her beautiful black cats Dante and Magnus, are the inspiration behind her cute cat heart earrings.These will be appearing online next week. If you just can wait that long then contact us at the gallery and we can be sure to sort you out.

We’re all big cat fans here so are all hoping that someone special might buy us these little guys for the impending Valentines Day. Tara has also very kindly made us some giant Cat Hearts for our Valentines inspired window this month. Be sure to stop by and check them out.

 

We hope you’ll all agree, Twiggd is a welcomed addition to the Red Door!

Welcome Aboard Tara!

 

 

 

New Artist - Twiggd

Reload: Tom Pigeon Snow

Here’s a photo diary of Tom Pigeon’s snow storm exhibition instalation in our windows, a perfect perch for their jewellery, prints, notebooks and more amid a flurry of a hand illustrateed snow!

The “Anything” window featured the beautiful “Brass” collection.  Tom Pigeon had lovingly painted each and every box to show case their collection from.The “Everything” window, was home to the “Copper “collection and the cinema type alphabet range.The first of Tom Pigeons metal/formica collection and still one of the favourites with staff and customers alike are the Copper and Mint Tri Earrings and Copper Bar Necklace. We love the mix of copper and mint in this collection.

The Fraction collection took it to the next level with bold hexagonal and triangle brooches and earrings with brass and copper triangle accents. The brooches look great on their own or as a cluster together.

Another new range under Tom Pigeon is their Grid Collection, with styles for both men and women. Necklaces, Earrings, Cufflinks and Tie Pins. Made from Solid Copper, Silver and Brass.  Here’s a little insight in to the collection from the creators.

‘The Grid collection is a graphic jewellery collection inspired by the Italian radical design group Superstudio, our love of graph paper and a little bit of Studio 54 glamour’.

As with all great projects, we were disappointed to have to take down the window, but we are sue you agree that the “Tom Pigeon Snowstorm” still looks great with our January Window Exhibits – David Fleck’s “Celestial Cities”:

A huge thanks to Tom Pigeon and STV Edinburgh for asking for this re-load!

Reload: Tom Pigeon Snow

Eeeeek A Mouse!

“Ode To A Mouse” by Rabbie Burns, Illustrated by Red Door prints.

Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim'rous beastie,
O, what panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!

I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion

Has broken Nature’s social union,

An’ justifies that ill opinion,

Which makes thee startle,

At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,

An’ fellow-mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;

What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!

A daimen-icker in a thrave ‘S a sma’ request:

I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,

An’ never miss’t!

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!

It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!

An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,

O’ foggage green!

An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin,

Baith snell an’ keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ wast,

An’ weary Winter comin fast,

An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,

Thou thought to dwell,

Till crash! the cruel coulter past

Out thro’ thy cell.

 

That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble,

Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!

Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,

But house or hald.

To thole the Winter’s sleety dribble,

An’ cranreuch cauld!

But Mousie, thou are no thy-lane,

In proving foresight may be vain:

The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men,

Gang aft agley,

An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,

For promis’d joy!

Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!

The present only toucheth thee:

But Och! I backward cast my e’e,

On prospects drear!

An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,

I guess an’ fear!

 

Eeeeek A Mouse!

Vadar Goes Postal

You pop culture vultures will love Barry D Bulsara Collection, back in stock and with new works too !

The non-postal post man (a-hem – above print is titled “Vadar goes Postal”) has delivered us a few extras of these prints as we have a sneeky feeling there will be a few Valentine’s gifts in this collection!  Prices from £25, yes they are hand pulled screen prints and start at A3 size.

Vadar Goes Postal

Handwritten Fonts

 

A wee hint of natural script in a print can bring it too life, have peep at our handwritten font faves!  Hanna Melin takes on International Code Flags with her great, natural approach to typography, a lot of her works combine image and typography, have a peep here for her wider collection. Alison Hardcastle’s paper cut fonts combine screen printing with hand writing to great effect and are key to her trademark style!  Always keeping things positive, Alison’s affirmations are friendly and real, thanks to the hand written font

It’s too early for gin, so we can keep chatting… Rich Fairhead’s handwriting appears across many of his prints too and conveys his sense of humour beautifully.

Have a look at our collection of hand written font works here, perhaps it will inspire your own perfectly penned notes?

Handwritten Fonts