Craft Focus - August/September 2020 (Issue 80)

9 INDUSTRY NEWS Industry news Latest news from the craft industry  SOE celebrates its first birthday in lockdown Traditional with a modern twist, Story of Elegance (SOE) is a British luxury greeting cards and stationery brand founded in 2019. The company’s founder combined her love of bright, bold colours with uplifting everyday sayings to create distinct simplicity, mixed with charisma and encouraging words. The result is a staple range that’s colourful and personal, full of positivity, humour and charisma. Rather than traditional birthday cards or anniversary cards, Story of Elegance has designed a range of greeting cards for all occasions that celebrate life: from friendship and love to thank you and congratulations. With carefully thought about wording too, each card feels like a highly personal message from you to a loved one. The brand wish is that as well as the look and feel of the products, all customers are inspired and feel special when they purchase or receive one of the products. The emphasis and importance to spread great energy into the world whilst representing this throughout the range is the brand mission and ethos. For further information about the company, visit www.storyofelegance.co.uk Pinflair’s 30 Years of Crafts Christine and Nigel Bell started Pinflair in June 1990 producing specialised polystyrene and beaded kits using pins, sequins, ribbons, braids, beads and polystyrene shapes. Firstly, selling direct to the public but it wasn’t very long before there was an interest from craft shops around the UK. After a few years, it became possible to include a margin for shops and other small craft outlets helping Pinflair become a firm favourite stocking many innovative and exclusive products. In the early days, Christine was the sole full time employee running the company with the help of part time staff but after a few years Nigel entered into the business full time to keep up with surging demand. With Nigel’s printing background and Christine’s knack for creative designing it was a winning combination (a match made in heaven!). Christine and Nigel have sourced product from many locations around the world with lots of their suppliers trading with them for more than 20 years. Christine has become a well-known face in the craft industry appearing on the create and craft channel for over 18 years and 28 years at craft and trade exhibitions in the UK and various venues around the world. Over the years as the company grew, so did its product lines to include numerous crafting goodies such as cartonnage kits, cotton fabrics, craft mediums, peel off stickers, stamps, stencils, paper crafts and a fantastic range of craft glues not forgetting the multi award winning Pinflair glue gel. For further information, visit the website: www.pinflair.co.uk