This year marks the 10th anniversary of our small business, Create Gift Love. So much has changed since we launched back in 2012, both within our business and out in the big wide world, but other things have remained a permanent fixture. Our two core materials, wood and leather, have remained a common thread in our workshop and product range since the very beginning.
At Create Gift Love we make all our personalised gifts to order, we only stock raw materials in our workshop and create everything from scratch under one roof here in Ringwood. So why wood and leather? They appear to be very different on the surface – a wood worker and a leathersmith are completely different disciplines – but in the ten years of Create Gift Love we’ve noticed some real similarities between the two. Here are three reasons we love working with both wood and leather at Create Gift Love.
1. Wood and leather are natural materials
We have strived to put the environment first in our work ever since we launched in 2012; being sustainable has always been a priority for us and so (naturally!) we have always favoured natural materials over man-made alternatives. We ensure the wood and leather we use always comes from responsible sources: our wood comes from an FSC certified supplier, which means the wood is sourced from responsibly managed forests which protect the environment and local communities, and our leather is sustainably sourced from a British tannery. We love to work with wood and leather as they are both biodegradable natural materials that leave minimal environmental impact and help us towards our goal of being a completely plastic-free business.
2. They are both traditional materials
As leather and wood are natural materials they are both intrinsically linked to traditional craftsmanship. In our work we love to look to the history of the craft, honouring traditional techniques and combining them with modern technologies to create our original designs. The leather we use at Create Gift Love is vegetable-tanned, a centuries old method which uses natural roots, bark, and leaves to prepare the leather hides. One of the British tanneries we source from actually originated in Roman times – try that for traditional!
Wood and leather also have symbolic meanings associated with tradition, for example leather is the traditional gift for celebrating a third wedding anniversary and wood is traditional for the fifth year of marriage, which means that materials are perfect for creating our personalised keepsake gifts.
3. Wood and leather have unique characteristics
Owing to their natural sources, every piece of wood and leather is completely unique with the beautiful natural wood grain and scars and texture of the leather hides telling a story of the material’s origin. The personalised elements of our gifts make each item one of a kind and the addition of the material’s unique characteristics adds another level of individuality. We love using wood and leather because it means that every Create Gift Love keepsake is as unique as the person who owns it, the team who made it and the source from which is originates.
