Friday 25 March 2011

Spring is in the air and it's Mother's Day soon!

Mirabelle Doris Bracelet
Spring is in the air and everyone is feeling happy. Make sure Mum does too! We're celebrating with a 10% discount on all Mother's Day purchases. Just type MOTHER at the checkout. Take a look at our Mother's Day shop. Free gift wrap and delivery on all purchases.

Mix vintage and contemporary for a stunning bathroom

One of our customers sent us a couple of pictures showing the vintage gold mirror she bought from us in her downstairs bathroom. It is so lovely to see it and we love the combination of the contemporary sink, luxury wallpaper and vintage gold mirror.


Friday 18 March 2011

Gold Interiors - Just for the Fun of it

Have just been reading about Jonathan Adler (Creative Director of Barneys New York) and his fantastic interiors style in April's Elle Decoration. Here are a few of my favourite quotes :

"Too much tastefulness is pompous and dull. Every room needs a dash of the hippy and a dollop of socialite" Just one look at the image from one of his homes above and it'll confirm the sense of fun that characterises Jonathan's style. He has so many wonderfully quirky things in his home.

"Using gold in your home is like adding jewellery to an outfit. Every space needs some glamour" Of course, we love this quote (although he also says silver will add glamour too, but we'll ignore that one). Looking at the fabulous pictures of his home, you can see how metallics have been used in virtually every room and they add a really stunning touch. I'm trying to do the same in my home, just a touch here and there makes all the difference.

"When in doubt, I always throw in an orange accessory. Orange looks as crisp and refreshing as it tastes" This resonates with me because I have a current obsession with orange accessories. I'm almost regretting the fact that we took the 60s orange kitchen out of house 15 years ago.

Wednesday 16 March 2011

Oscar calamity





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxJgb9kvK-A

This story did make me laugh! Apparently the producer of the Kings Speech gave his recently awarded Oscar statue to his 15 month old daughter to hold and she dropped it denting and damaging the head! How typical. Bless her. Watch the fateful moment on this you tube link.

How we'd love to get our hands on an Oscar...all that gold.

50th Anniversary Gifts


When we set up our BeGolden shop, we weren't necessarily thinking about the relevance of our products to the 50th anniversary - birthday or wedding - market, but we have had a number of customers come to us over the last 12 months looking for gifts for these occasions. It's not just the draw of our golden gifts, but also the desire to give something a bit different to mark a 50th anniversary. So, we've sold our gold leather bound pocket atlas as a 50th birthday gift for those who appreciate old-style reference books and don't want to struggle with digital map applications. The fact that it is a beautiful product to hold, yet in a convenient pocket size, helps to make it really popular. In the same vein, our gold leather photo albums have been best sellers - they are hand made in the UK from 100% recycled leather and photo board. Our cheeky 'Mr Gold' gold gnome is a more irreverent example of a unique 50th anniversary gift, especially for the recipient who has everything. Our Seletti gold china range has also been popular for this occasion - it's a stylish, modern take on gold china. The espresso cups and large mugs are particular 50th gift favourites. And of course, if you're buying a gift, you will also want a greetings card and ours come with gold indoor sparklers. We are constantly on the look out for new present ideas and we will be expanding this gift category over the coming months.

Monday 7 March 2011

Pop Up Shops

Sitting in a cafe in a small Oxfordshire (our local) town on Saturday morning with my middle daughter, I reflected on the lack of interesting retail shops. Yes, we have Boots & Waitrose, a somewhat tired old style small department store, a cluster of charity shops and a few independents. These are all very useful for many of our day to day shopping needs, but there is nothing new to look forward to, nothing that could fall into the 'retail therapy' category. But what we do have - something that is an inevitable result of the recession - is a number of vacant retail shops. What if, an enterprising landlord found a way of offering short term, flexible leases (say a few weeks or a month at a time) to businesses like our own BeGolden? Wouldn't it be wonderful to see a different shop every couple of weeks, selling niche, seasonal and unusual products that you don't see on the high street. We know of plenty of small businesses around this area that are run from home which wouldn't want to commit to a long term retail lease, but would maybe consider a short 'pop up' style retail shop to test out new ranges, build customer awareness and take advantage of different occasions (when I was in the States in October, I saw 2 or 3 pop up Halloween stores). Big brands such as Marmite, Mac and Clarks shoes have used the pop up shop concept as a marketing technique in recent years, but why shouldn't it work for smaller businesses?


The marmite pop up shop featured in Selfridges for brief spells in 2010 stocking over 150 different Marmite inspired products, many of which were exclusive to the shop. 
 

Tuesday 1 March 2011

The Venue for our Christmas Office Party

How cool is this?

A whole venue dedicated to gold - it's got our name written all over it, we so need to be there! It is part of our company mission to get ourselves to the Gucci Gold restaurant in Milan for a celebratory meal within the next twelve months. Just need to sell a few more things...