Design and wear your own organically rearedkids T-shirt!

 Carrot, pumpkin or apple? Turn your favourite fruit or veg into a character

 We know lots of children love Riverford delivery day.  Rummaging through the box full of brightly coloured fruit and veg, taking a nibble out of an apple, stealing a tomato or eating the WHOLE punnet of grapes when nobody is looking!  Some even love to help – we know one 3 year old who lugs the veg box across the kitchen floor and restocks the veg rack each week.   So, with the kids in mind, we have teamed up with quirky t-shirt designer, Binky Bristol, to invite children to design a t-shirt inspired by their favourite fruit or vegetable.

The winning t-shirt!

The winning entry will have his or her fruit or veg design printed onto an organically reared t-shirt.

25 other lucky entrants, chosen at random, will receive one of the Binky Bristol t-shirts shown in the photos.

So, grab your coloured pencils and let your imagination go organic!

Design tips from Binky Bristol

It is best to only use 2 colours, preferably bright ones, and draw think lines so the design shows up clearly on the t-shirt. Take a look at the designs in the photos before you put pencil to paper, and then let your imagination go wildly organic.  We can’t wait to see your design! 

Competition details

1.    The competition is open until the end of the half-term holiday. (02/06/13).

2.    It is open to children aged 10 years and under.

3.    The adult who enters the child’s design must live in the delivery area for Bristol Riverford, you can check on www.riverford.co.uk to see if we deliver in your street.

4.    To enter take a photo of the child’s design and then either:

-      Post the photo up on www.facebook.com/RiverfordBristol with your Riverford customer reference number

-      If you do not have a Riverford number, post the photo up on our facebook page and send us a direct message so we contact you through facebook

-      Or email the photo and your contact details to us atBris...@riverfordhomedelivery.co.uk.

5.    It would also be helpful to include:

Child’s first name

Choice and size of t-shirt if the design is chosen as a runner up.  Please choose from strawberry, broccoli or sweetcorn.  The sizes are 3-4/5-6/7-8/9-10 years old.

If you have any trouble sending us the photo using a computer, drop us a line and we will send you our postal address.

Terms and Conditions

By entering the competition, you agree to allow Riverford Organics and Binky Bristol to use the t-shirt designs from your child to be used on social media, email, in print and as a t-shirt design.  We would like to use children’s first names in any promotion but if you would prefer us not to, please let us know.

The judges are from Bristol Riverford and Binky Bristol, and their decision is final.

An amusing look at the most amazing game of hide and seek ever imagined, from the tiny ant to the big elephant…

Discover in each beautifully designed frame, how each animal hides using their natural landscapes.

This gently humorous and interactive app is also complemented by an almost poetic text, cute narration and a fantastic finale in the shape of an original theme by Poco Drom.

And awesome collaboration: Calandrajo, Marco Patiño and the Binky crew.

So what are you waiting for? Download now!

Meat is a very hot topic at the moment due to the horsemeat scandal here in the UK and it is something that we have given a lot of thought to in the Binky household.  I’m sure that we are all in the same boat, we want to give our children something nourishing and nutritional without sending the weekly food budget through the roof.  After the horsemeat scandal, it is very hard to trust supermarkets, although the good news is that butchers are reporting a surge in demand which can only be a good thing for our local shops.

We actually looked into this before the horsemeat scandal broke…  I make primarily vegan choices but the rest of the Binky Crew are committed omnivores.  I’ve always been concerned about the provenance of the meat sold in supermarkets but must admit that I’d become lazy and also worried about rising food prices.  However, this all changed when we sat down and watched ‘Vegucated’ – an American documentary about three committed meat eaters who decide to take up the challenge and try to eat solely vegan food for six weeks.  Now, I am not proletising that we all become vegan, but it is worth watching just for the scenes inside factory farms and abbatoirs.  In our case, it did not make us decide that the whole family should become vegan, instead it made us think about where the meat on our table comes from and the treatment the animals have received on their journey to our plates.  We decided that ethically reared meat was the answer.

In the new year, we decided to try Riverford Meat.  We have been loyal veggie box customers for a number of years now and decided to try their Veg & Meat box.  Now, I won’t lie to you, I did gulp a bit at the prices.  We have a strict weekly food budget and I was worried about incorporating the extra cost into it.  But we decided to give it a trial, based on the fact that we have always been impressed by the quality of the vegetables year on year.  Do you know what?  We’re so glad we did. Each week there is a set selection of meat and vegetables and the quality has been amazing.  Admittedly the quantity is a bit surprising in that there isn’t massive amounts of it, but once you get into it (so I’m reliably informed) the quality is so good that you need less meat than before on your plate.  Chocolate is my speciality so I imagine it like eating a few pieces of really good quality chocolate is just as satisfying as eating a whole boat load of dairy milk.  We have continued with the order and it is surprising that the cost hasn’t had such a massive impact  on our budget after all.  Because it is delivered to our door for free, it often means that I don’t go to the supermarket except for essentials so we save that way.  The cuts of meat also lend themselves to slow cooking and I have found great inspiration in Mexican and Latin American recipes.  The added bonus is that these types of cuisines know how to stretch a small amount of meat to feed many mouths and we get a lot of meals from one piece of meat.

So, there you have it, my tuppence worth… We would really love to hear your opinions on what is an emotive subject.

*Of course, there are other sources of ethically sourced meat available.  I have not been sponsored by Riverford for these endorsements, rather I am commenting only on my own experience.

]]> http://www.binky-bristol.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=1299 2 http://www.binky-bristol.com/blog/?p=1297 http://www.binky-bristol.com/blog/?p=1297#comments Mon, 18 Mar 2013 14:09:15 +0000 Pip http://www.binky-bristol.com/blog/?p=1297 Spring is on its way (well it is and then some Siberian weather comes along and dashes that hope for another week!) and here at Binky Bristol we are slowly coming out of hibernation.  I’m sure it’s the same for other creative businesses, we go crazy in November and December with Christmas orders and then it all goes a bit quiet in January and February.  This time is just as important to us as the mad busy times as it gives us a chance to hunker down and get creative.  It still amazes us that having a creative business allows precious little time to be creative!

We’ve been working on some exciting projects during this time, one of them being a new app.  We’ve had a fantastic time working with new collaborators as well as old friends on this one.  We can’t give too much away but we can say that we have had great fun collaborating with Poco Drom who have written and recorded an amazing song for the app.  We absolutely love their music and will be giving you the heads up on when they will be performing around Bristol, we heartily recommend that you go and see them live or listen to them here.  We will keep you posted when we release the app and we are hoping that you will love it as much as we do…

We have also made friends with Bristol based Belle and Boo.  If you haven’t seen what they do, then check it out here.  We absolutely adore what they do and have our eyes on this for our girls.  Although it has only been a short time since they approached us, they have been really great and have freely offered advice and inspiration.  Apparently they like what we do too, which is a great compliment for us!  We are working with them on some labels (they even like our labels!!) and it has really made us realise how nice it is when businesses support each other, especially in this tough economic climate.

Speaking of which, we have been doing our sums and we have had to raise our prices.  We have thought very carefully about this and do so with a heavy heart.  We were always proud that we could offer such a good price for a piece of hand printed art, but the reality is  that prices of absolutely everything are going up, including the materials we use to produce our tees in boxes (not to mention postage costs – aaaggghhh).  We have absorbed the rising costs for as long as we can and even made cutbacks on the biscuits we have here at Binky and which we proudly touted on our fair trade policy.  We downgraded from premier brand to shop brand jaffa cakes and then to nothing (actually, to tell the truth, I went off jaffa cakes myself because I went a bit mad on them in the last few weeks of my second pregnancy, moving from nice Marks and Spencer and McVities ones to nasty shop brand ones once we realised the extent of the ‘craving’.  I actually feel a bit sick when I hear the name – but STILL). Despite not being fuelled by jaffa cakes, we are committed to bringing you high quality hand printed tees and we still hope to offer sample sales and discount coupons when we can.

Well, after months of silence, you have now received a barrage of information from us to make up for it!  We haven’t had time to mention another exciting project we are working on with a prominent local business but we’ll leave that for next time.  In the meantime, we hope to keep in touch more with news about Binky and we always love to hear from you too so feel free to drop us a line…

The Binky Crew

]]> http://www.binky-bristol.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=1297 1 http://www.binky-bristol.com/blog/?p=1240 http://www.binky-bristol.com/blog/?p=1240#comments Tue, 30 Oct 2012 16:17:08 +0000 Pip http://www.binky-bristol.com/blog/?p=1240 We are so pleased, our new app ‘The Boy with the Pumpkin Costume’ has been released today!

It is a quirky story about a boy who lives his life with his pumpkin costume on all the time… and it comes in a special bilingual version, first English then Spanish. (If you are not interested in the Spanish version then just stop it after the English story which comes first!).

As part of the new collection, we worked with Simon Mosse, our favourite photographer and all-round nice guy, on a photo shoot to capture the new images and t-shirts in action.  Thanks too to Hannah, Grace, Noah, Rafi, Stanley and Ruby for being such brilliant models… as well as our own two girls too!

Now, we dread to use the word this early on… but we’ll have to… They do make fantastic gifts so if you want to get your Christmas Presents all sorted and wrapped in advance then our t-shirts in the gorgeous hand printed boxes are the ideal christmas gift.  Of course, you can still get the old favourites from our previous collections, such as the Cupcake T-shirt and the Camper Van t-shirt (although we do have a revamped version too).  Why not check out our new designs on our website and let us know what you think…?

]]> http://www.binky-bristol.com/blog/?feed=rss2&p=1214 0 http://www.binky-bristol.com/blog/?p=1200 http://www.binky-bristol.com/blog/?p=1200#comments Tue, 26 Jun 2012 12:52:36 +0000 Pip http://www.binky-bristol.com/blog/?p=1200 The Binky Bargain Bonanza was a real success, we hope you grabbed yourself some great tees!  (We still have a few cupcake vests left – 0 to 3 mths – if you fancy picking up a bargain gift for a new baby… just contact us for more info..) We had a rather busy time rushing round Bristol to hand deliver Binkys to their new owners or racing off the post office to get them sent off to new homes.  Special thanks have to go to i-escape for being such amazing supporters – thanks guys!

Although it was quite sad saying goodbye to the samples and first editions that held so many memories for us, it was fab to see them go to lovely new homes and the upside was that we now have more space, both literally and creatively, for something new.  We are working hard on new designs for the summer, going back to our quirky roots and working with Calandrajo on images that are slightly surrealistic but cute at the same time.  They are the perfect designs if you want the littlies in your life to wear something that little bit different and are definitely not chain store bought.

We are planning to launch our new Summer 2012 range at the Magpies and I Vintage Fair, at the M-Shed in Bristol on Sunday 22 July.  We’re really pleased to be involved in this event, as you know, we don’t do many fairs at the moment because of having a baby and a toddler to look after. We are teaming up once again with Laura of Harts Bakery which means that we will provide a one stop shop for gorgeous homebaked goodies and quirky t-shirts.  The fair promises to be amazing, taking place at the same time as the Harbour Festival and offering a wide range of vintage treasures and crafty wares.  We look forward to seeing you there if you want to come and have a sneak preview of our new range of kid’s tees and try some of Harts Bakery’s delicious nuggets of home baked heavenly goodness. Check out Magpies and I Facebook page for more details.  We will also keep you updated too…as will @HartsBakery if you are a Twitterite.

If you can’t make it on 22 July to see us and the new t-shirts in person, don’t panic(!) We are organising another photo shoot with Simon Mosse, our favourite photographer and web designer so we will be uploading the new range to the website and shop sometime after the show.  Wish us luck!  The last photoshoot was totally mad, just picture kids rampaging round the park with Simon following in hot pursuit trying to capture them on film!  Check out our video if you want to have a peek… But the photos are amazing, so it’s obviously an approach that works!!

So, lots of exciting things going on in Binky Town at the moment… come along and join us for the ride!

When we work on our designs, we produce a lot of prototypes and samples as we experiment with what works best.  These t-shirts and vests are in perfect condition, they are just in formats, colours or sizes that don’t form part of our final collection. So, we have decided to offer these items at the bargain price of £5 each! You could pick up a one of a kind, unique t-shirt or vest for a bargain price.  This is the perfect time to pick up some great gifts or even some treats for yourself…

All you have to do is e-mail us the size of t-shirt or vest that you would be interested in.  We will then e-mail you back with what we have in that size.  Many of the designs are on our website so you could check them out and then make your choice.  You could even add a gift box for an additional 50p each.  If you are based in Bristol then we won’t charge for postage (even better bargain!) as we always try to hand deliver your goodies.

We also have a limited range of slight seconds, this is where the print hasn’t come out as perfectly as we would have liked (we are committed perfectionists – the bane of our lives sometimes!!) , although it is still a great design and the same top quality 100% cotton tee.  We are offering these at £3 each.

So, what are you waiting for?!  E-mail, Facebook or Tweet us now and grab yourself a bargain before these limited stocks run out…

Why don’t you take a look for yourself?  And if you haven’t already, download the app for free and let us know what YOU think!

Did we hear that right?! The dinosaur was found in a garden in a suburb of Bristol?  Apparently so, but the surprising thing from all of this is that the dinosaur has refused any publicity.  ‘We made contact with the dinosaur yesterday,’ recounts Pip, ‘but one of the conditions he has imposed is that he wants no photos and no interviews.’ When you think about it carefully, it isn’t that surprising really as the dinosaur has lived without TV, Facebook or Twitter so doesn’t really see the need for all this.  However, he has entrusted his new friends, The Binky Crew, to let the world know a little about him.

Here are some facts about the previously unknown BINKYSAURUS:

FACT: He is an extremely cute little dino, with a cheeky grin and skinny legs. He also has a unfortunate combination of tiny arms and a big tummy that needs to be filled  on a regular basis. Life has been hard for The Binkysaurus, but he has now discovered the joy of gummy bears, a quick and easy way to obtain the calories he needs.

SIZE: Absolutely tiny, which is why he has been undiscovered until now. His tummy, as mentioned before, does make up a considerable amount of his size.

ORIGINS: Discovered in a suburban garden in Bristol, UK.

We’re proud to be able to bring you this groundbreaking news, and although the Binkysaurus has refused to pose for photos, we can reveal that he has, instead, approved the release of an official T-shirt with his image on it. This T-shirt can only be obtained through the Binky Bristol website, but after having a sneak preview ourselves, we can categorically say that it is a true likeness of the Binkysaurus. If you want to get your hands on a true piece of genuine dinosaur history in the making then you should head over to Binky Bristol now and make your order – you won’t regret it!

In the meantime, we will say goodbye to the Binkysaurus and The Binky Crew and leave you wondering how on earth Pip and Luis will keep up with the demands of the Binkysaurus for his new found passion for filling his sizeable tummy with gummy bears…