Journal

We are joining forces with the super cool leather craft collective Artisans to bring you this leather purse making workshop. Come on your own or bring a friend and make yourself (or someone lucky) a little leather gift.

We are hosting a workshop with founder of By-Me, where you will learn to wrap and knot your way to a fully finished Spiral Macrame Plant Hanger. For details & tickets, read on.

We are really excited to be hosting print artist Anna Ruiz for the Brockley Open Studios, Sat 2nd & Sun 3rd July. Walk through the streets of Brockley and find local artists and makers and seize this special opportunity to buy unique works. Read on for details and a Q&A with Anna.

I know football is a little ‘off topic’ for a homewares shop but bear with me. Inspiration comes from many different sources; music, art, theatre, sport. So, we went to see Designing The Beautiful Game at the London Design Museum. And I was rewarded, it’s full of stories…

Saturday 23rd April | 2pm-4pm. We are bursting with excitement to be hosting a Spring Flower Bouquet Workshop here in the Simple Shape Studio taught by Tobby Wu of Bleak House

A celebration of the work of the Japanese-American sculptor, Isamu Noguchi and the inter-play of light and dark, shape and space, materials and texture, art, craft, sculpture, product.

Blue Monday, the so named most depressing day of the year, got me thinking. It got me thinking about ‘the blues’. But rather than focus on the darkness that the 'Winter Blues’ elicits this is my personal version of Blue Sky Thinking…

The black and white of it is that we’re resolutely refusing to fall into the ‘For Him / For Her’ approach to seasonal shopping. Instead we’ve organised the collection into colour groups. In our Monochrome Edit we have things that are black, white and a good few shades of grey.

If a natural tone is what you’re after in your homewares shopping then our Natural Selection Gift Guide including alpaca wool throws, wooden boards, copper watering cans, walnut coffee scoops and jute twine…all designed and made on these shores is a good starting place.

All of our gifts are handmade, crafted things that have ALL, without exception, been made in the UK and Ireland and that each support a designer, maker, small business or unique industry. If this is what you’re looking for, then this is the gift guide for you. Here is our Colour Injection edit.

This is going to be a winter like no other isn’t it. A winter where we will find ourselves collectively hibernating. We have gathered up some of the most lovely blankets and cushions for you to squash yourselves into until spring.

This is going to be the most British of summers for most of us. Seems like the best time to celebrate our island, make for the coast and turn a picnic into an occasion, you might as well!

The upside of being at home more is being around to pick the blackberries from the brambles that cascade over the wall by my studio from the next-door neighbours garden. This recipe for Blackberry Ice Cream is really worth the effort. Find yourself a patch of brambles and get going.

Flax seed: you can eat it and wear it! Nigella has a delicious recipe full of flax seeds. Read on for an easy, delicious and powerful start to your day.

I don’t choose to make the Simple Shape site personal very often, but as the times are exceptional I’ve decided it’s entirely right to make an exception here too. Here, a low-key lockdown success story…

Sometimes it’s important as a business to turn the magnifying mirror on yourself and make sure you like what you see. It seems like a healthy thing to do to check-in on the USP.

An unexpected exhibition visit. A must see.

Anni Albers exhibition visit