HANDMADE IN TORONTO

Thursday 2 May 2013

Cufflink project: Check.

This blog post is a long time coming.  But better late than never, right!?  Maybe I just had to wait for the sun to come out before I could post again! Does that make me a fair weather writer? I guess it does, literally :)

But life has been moving swiftly along.  And "project beginnings" (an older blog post) have led successfully to project endings and, even better, to a project that seems to have sprouted legs kept on running.

In January I posted on my blog some Canadiana drawings that I was working on for an exciting upcoming project. Well the drawings became fabric, the fabric was set into many many cufflinks, and now those cufflinks rest on the french cuffed shirts of the waiters an Canoe restaurant here in Toronto. I'm so so pleased!

From beginning to end, making these cufflinks took almost 9 months.  There were a couple of drafts of the drawings, 2 fabric prints (the first one came back from the printer kind of dull), custom cufflinks to design, fabricate and polish.  Finally time to actually make the cufflinks...
The Fabric:  It came back from the printer really bright!

         
             
Cutting and stamping cards to be inserted into boxes.



Almost Done!


Ready to deliver....
Delivering the cufflinks was actually one of the most fun parts of this whole adventure.  Amelia came with me.  I tried to pack in the delivery after an afternoon playdate...bringing us To Wellington and Bay (the financial district of Toronto) at exactly 5PM - not a supersmart mom move.  We successfully navigated our way through the rat race, up the 46 floors to the restaurant atop the TD centre, where we were given a tour and Amelia was able to gaze at the city from way up in the sky.  We were both in awe of the view from Canoe!   Now if only we could have sat down and shared a Shirley Temple, but it was business after all :)

The best part is that these cufflinks are now a part of the Marmalade line! I brought a bunch of pairs to the One of  Kind Show in March, and the men seemed to really like them.  This was really rewarding:  Its a new market for me, that brings new and different customers.  

www.marmaladedesigns.ca

That's all on the cufflink front.  Thanks for reading, and more to come (as long as the sun keeps shining)!