Craft

Case Study - SheepyThings (Hertfordshire, UK )

SheepyThings are a small handmade craft company specialising in unique sheep related gifts, they also happen to be our longest standing craft customer with historical orders dating back 30 years! The company’s success was down to its owner Alison White, who’s passion for crafts was noticed by BBC television’s Blue Peter, after exhibiting her work at the Barbican Centre, London in 1984.

After Alison’s exhibition in London, she was invited to appear on the Blue Peter program along with some of her works, one of which was a sheep mobile, made from pipe cleaners and fleece. At the time Alison sourced her pipe cleaners from tobacconists and then died them black, but after the appearance on Blue Peter, viewers wrote in explaining to her that they had found coloured pipe cleaners in craft gift packs. After finding out that pipe cleaners were available in other colours, Alison went to the library and looked up ‘Pipe Cleaner Manufacturers’ in a directory, which is how she came across Hewitt & Booth and we have been trading with her ever since.

www.sheepythings.com

SheepyThings have tried other makes of pipe cleaners over the 30 years Hewitt & Booth have been trading with them but they have always returned, with a high preference for quality as well as friendly and efficient customer service. Now SheepyThings have a large variety of products that are sold all over the world, including Japan, Australia and the USA, but mainly here in the UK, in particular the Lake District and the Yorkshire Dales.

Case Study - Contemporary Crafts (El Torrent, Spain)

The word “craft” can sometimes be deceiving, in that many people associate the word with hobbies and leisure pastimes.  However, one company based in the small countryside town of Mieres, in the Pre-Pyrenees between Barcelona and France has developed a thriving business from crafted products and are using our pipe cleaners to create unique lighting pieces, primarily designed for the restaurant and hospitality trade.

www.eltorrent.com

We are constantly amazed by the versatility of our pipe cleaners, when they are combined with a creative mind to mould them into something truly amazing. El Torrent use our red, black and coral chenille “bump” pipecleaners, which we supply in 15 metre coils rather than short length stems so they can cut them to the lengths they need.  They then combine them together with chrome, black graphite and Swarovski crystal, to make unique lighting art, sold in over 47 countries. The flexi-stems are the perfect choice of material, as they can be moulded into any shape and cut to any size, whilst still having long-lasting stability qualities.

Case Study - Shoebutton Bears (Cheshire, UK) & Occasions Bears (Bedfordshire, UK)

One popular use for our pipe cleaners is to craft miniature bears, in fact, three of our regular customers buy from us specifically to make and sell these lovely hand-crafted pieces. One of these customers is Shoebutton Bears, a bespoke maker of hand crafted pipe cleaner bears and animals, mainly trading through craft fairs and independent craft retailers.

We have worked closely with Shoebutton Bears for many years to develop a product that has the right flexibility and thickness to create one off, realistic miniature bears. We supply them with 6mm and 4mm diameter chenille stems in “teddy bear” colours e.g. chocolate, sahara-beige, nutmeg and various greys.  As a specialist hand-crafting company, they do not require large scale production quantities, and we are able to make these short bespoke runs possible.

We have also worked with Occasions Bears, who also make miniature bears and animals out of our pipe cleaners. Occasions Bears found our company through searching the web, after being dissatisfied with the quality and size of pipe cleaners they had previously bought elsewhere online. As we manufacture such a variety of colours, lengths and thicknesses, we were able to supply them with the colours and styles they require, which are 9mm stems in white, light beige, dark beige, and light grey.