The Linen Works: Folk Stripe and Fish trays in stock online

The Linen Works is a mail order company that sells top quality homewares online and via a paper catalogue. A lot of the products are, as you would expect, made from linen but there are also non textile homewares with an emphasis on natural materials. When selecting the items owner Marina Guirey always looks for "an aesthetic based on simplicity and functionality." They have bought the Alabasta Blue Fish 49cm tray since they were launched and now the 38cm red Folk Stripe tray has joined it. If you request a catalogue you can get 10% off your first order.

The Linen Works webshop

It's always satisfying to see the products in print and I am delighted they have chosen the best selling Blue Fish tray for their ads in December's Elle Decoration and Homes and Gardens magazines:

Hus and Hem: Alabasta Folk Stripe trays now in store and online

At long last the new Folk Stripe collection of trays have started to hit the shops.

Hus and Hem ('House and Home' in Swedish) is a gem of a shop in the heart of Ledbury that specialises in all things Scandinavian for the home. Candles, lighting, textiles, blankets and kitchenware as well as the Ary birch trays are all displayed beautifully here. The owners like to go to Denmark and Sweden three times a year to discover new products and as a result many are uncommon in the UK. Louise Little, one of the owners, told me recently that Spirograph was her favourite toy as a child so she's a bit smitten with the latest Alabasta trays. They have the 49cm, 38cm and 11cm mini trays/coasters online and in store from today. Thanks Hus and Hem!

Hus and Hem

Monochrome trays - get them while you can

38cm Flower tray. Photo: Asta Barrington

The new Folk Stripe trays may be getting all the glory at the moment but I thought I would draw attention to their quieter monochromatic cousins today as they are about to become extinct. The Flower trays and the Black Fish trays will only be available until stocks run out. Because there's a limit to how many designs a manufacturer will produce the Flowers have sadly had to move aside but may hopefully come back one day in a more colourful reincarnation. The bestselling Blue Fish is evidently more popular than the black version so that is discontinuing too. It's a ruthless world.

Design My World is a UK based online shop stocking interesting contemporary home products, founded in 2006 by Dean Hart and Venka De Rooij. At the moment they've got the Flower trays in the bestselling 38cm size (shown above) and a useful one-cup-and-a-piece-of-cake 27x20cm size, as well as the Fish trays and sandwich boards in black. 

If you like the graphic monochrome look of these trays don't hesitate to order them before they sell out... 

49cm Black Fish tray. Photo: Asta Barrington



Mollie Makes magazine Issue 7

Mollie Makes is a new craft and lifestyle magazine that launched in the UK in May for 'people who love the crafty life'. It's got all sorts of interviews with designers, colourful features and inspiring things to make and I think it taps very well in to the increasing current trend for crafting and all things hand made.

Here's a sampler of the magazine to show its style.

Issue 7 happens to feature a pair of rather nice Alabasta trays on the shopping page:



close up



Thanks, Mollie Makes!

Alabasta is starting to spread across the blogosphere

The design of a new product or collection can take months so it is great when it starts to sell and get press. The new trays are getting a lot of attention and keeping Ary Trays extremely busy with production. Some very prestigious shops have made orders which I will post about as soon as they get the stock in. Meanwhile the influential Design Sponge blog featured the trays recently so is helping to spread the word:



Much as I like the purple tray shown on the Design Sponge blog, it hasn't made it to the final collection. That colour will be cropping up on other products soon though, as it's a key colour in 2012 interior trend predictions.

Other prominent blogs to mention Alabasta trays have so far been Elle Deco South Africa, interior stylist Victoria Metcalf's Style NV, Ideal Home's Home Shopping Spy and Retro to Go. These last two featured trays from the Top Drawer January 2011 launch before the blog was started. Many thanks to all those brilliant bloggers who have featured the products.