Sometimes we look at pieces in our collection that we previously, perhaps even flippantly decided to stop promoting in the collection and start focusing on something new. There are several ways we can manage these pieces, the most obvious is to throw them away or perhaps even sell them to some far away discount store and move on... but these mirrors belonged to some of our first designs and the craftsmanship is outstanding.
Each piece is made by hand, cut, sanded down, much like wood is, to get smooth and polished edges, but with water applied and diamond tipped belts instead of sandpaper. The resist is applied and the hearts, stars or flowers are left open so they can be deeply sandblasted. The work was done to a depth of up to 2mm so that you can feel the symbols like braille. Then with a cotton bud each star heart or flower is carefully filled with paint to ensure the paint looks like a part of the glass, and this is what we pride ourselves on. The paint appears as if it belongs.
We were recognised with a national award with the dinky mirrors and they sold like wildfire. Then as we did every year, we brutally took products off the catalogue listing, eager to bring our new products. This was a time when the pound was strong against the dollar, and importing goods we designed was quite lucrative.
With an art college and design background and were mostly interested really in the next new thing, and as the business allowed us to do what we most enjoyed, we didn't really think about the overstocks we stopped promoting, only that they might be a casualty of the new. Now we feel quite excited that these pieces which stand the test of time can be converted into something potentially really meaningful.
These pieces with the deep filled painted hearts, stars and flowers are untouched and everlasting. The quality is outstanding and I now know that there is no way we could create the same designs with such an appealing retail price. The only issue we have occasionally, is the white card pocket that the mirrors come in sometimes become yellowed, so we now remove these.
Our designs are about communication and the most wonderful recognition we get is when someone asks us to write or interpret something that means something to them on one of our products, that will endure over time. These requests are sometimes so personal and heartfelt, that it feels really humbling to become a part of peoples stories. Sometimes we wonder how we can help on a bigger scale to fill people with a little piece of happiness that they matter, each of us matters.
We decided to use these mirrors, both larger (mini mirrors) and smaller (dinky) mirrors, to design meaningful phrases on them and make them in to pieces that represent an expression that you might wish to give to someone you love. We removed the sticky back tag on the back of each dinky mirror so we could engrave the mirror away from the back, let me tell you this process is arduous! The light then shines through the words which you can't really see well in this next image, but they do really come to life.
Mini Mirror You Make My Heart & Dinky Mirror Me Thinking About You
We also needed to protect the dinky mirrors in a way that was more appealing than the little Spaceform card pocket they came in, the mini mirrors already have a protective PVC pocket that you can see through.
Mini Mirror Falling In Love With You shows the PVC protective pocket.
Protection for the dinky mirrors was not an issue previously as we designed them to be stuck on something and remain static. Then we found our suede pockets, that had been made previously in greater numbers for some more expensive pocket mirrors we designed more recently. Both red and black suede pockets were made and they are really gorgeous, with the Spaceform logo branded on the front, so we decided to treat the dinky mirrors by finishing them off in these. 😀
Dinky Mirror Life is Not Measured By the Number of Breaths we Take shows the red suede branded pocket.
The collection is fun and uplifting and really great value for money too . We hope you enjoy it.
Dinky Mirror Token Stars Always Believe something wonderful
See the whole upcycled collection >
We hope you enjoy it.
All the best
from the Spaceform team. 😊