Nikki McWilliams Design at Selfridges

I am very, VERY excited to say that my Biscuit Cushions will soon be available to buy in Selfridges!

As part of the celebrations surrounding the Olympics and the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, my cushions are to be featured within Selfridges' Big British Bang, launching summer 2012. You'll be able to take one of my cuddly biscuits home in an iconic yellow bag from the Oxford Street Store from March onwards!

The lovely Zoe of Ladybird Likes went along to the Press Preview this week and took these beautiful photographs. She's one talented gal!

I love the way Selfridges have styled my cushions- I do like a good afternoon tea- and this one looks brilliant!

My wee Teacake Cushion with some iced buns and a Corgi- he looks like he's having a grand ol' time in London town!

Thank you again to Zoe for the fabulous photographs (see more of her work here and more of her pics from the Big British Bang here), and to the good people at Selfridges for this amazing opportunity- I am royally chuffed! In the mean time, my full range is available to buy online.

Hope everyone has had a lovely weekend!

Hooray for Handmade!

I've posted about my process before- but after a productive day's printing this week I really wanted to share some more photos of the start of my cushions' existence- which involves printing each cushion by hand.

In other news, my Caramel Wafer cushions were featured in Emerald Street's fabulous weekend guide! If you don't already sign up for it, I suggest you do!

Video Blog: Product Development

I have ventured into the world of Video Blogging! Please excuse the glare-tastic lighting.

My London Photo Diary

I wanted to post some of the photos I took while I was in London for Top Drawer last week. Some friends were kind enough to put me up for the week- and show me some cool places in London that I would have never found otherwise. It's a long post, but bear with me- it's all good stuff! So here's my London photo diary:

1. Setting off from Dundee train station early on Friday morning. Caught a beautiful sunrise behind the Discovery.

2. Six hours later- arrive in London and make my way to my Friends' house. They have nice tiles in their hallway!

3. Go out for dinner (Franco Manca Sourdough Pizza, Yum!) and then cocktails at an amazing half art exhibition/bar called Seven at Brixton. Had a Ginger beer and Basil Mojito- it was delicious. My favourite part was the room filled with faces!

4. Set up my stand at Earl's Court and then head for tea and cake at the delicious Yumchaa near Goodge St station. They have about 50 different teas and amazing cake. Despite the choice I opt for English Breakfast tea- but is a particularly delicious variety!

5. Having fun at Top Drawer with some of my Spotted buddies from the September show. They gave us champagne on the second day!

6. My laser cut print display stand- took a bit of figuring out but it worked out in the end- I'm proud of that!

7. An amazing cardboard tube shop called, Circus, in Brixton village- it was closed when we went- but it looked pretty fantastic from the outside!

8. One evening I sampled dinner at The Breakfast Club in Hoxton. I had a ginormous burger and delicious chips, that although less breakfasty that it's establishment's name suggests was still very, very good. My favourite thing about The Breakfast Club however would have to be...

9. The Toilets at The Breakfast Club. Firstly- the entrance hall to the toilets is painted entirely black, has a glitter ball and a speaker playing music- and is most likely the "World's Smallest Disco" as it says on the door. Secondly- the interiors of the toilet cubicles are papered entirely with 80's cartoon wallpaper. My toilet was papered in a Fraggle Rock repeat- it was awesome!

10. Despite getting in from our Hoxton adventure pretty late- I decided to paint my nails all fancy for the last day of the show. Yay for Zigzags!

11. A lovely painted "Bovril" building on my way to the tube station on my last day of Top Drawer.

12. After catching the train back up north I caught a beautiful sunset while passing over the river in Newcastle- Shepherd's Delight if ever I saw it!

And that's that! I had such a great time while I was in the Big Smoke this time round- it's so good when you have a London local to help you find all of the little hidden gems! I'd recommend seeking any of these places out- they're very good finds indeed!

Spotted Plus - Fun Times in London!

Well after all of the hard work and preparation- Spotted Plus at Top Drawer Spring is over- and was jolly good fun indeed!

I arrived back in Scotland late Wednesday evening after a brilliant 5 days in the Big Smoke. It was really great to meet up with everyone I'd met at Spotted back in September and to see their new work for 2012 (see Snowdon's new hand-printed "tweet" card above- it's super cute!) It was also lovely to see the new talent which Charlotte had picked out for the main Spotted feature- with my favourite pieces being Esme Winter's beautiful patterned papers and notebooks (pictured above) and Polaroid inspired ceramics by Just Noey (also pictured above).

For more photos of the Spotted & Spotted plus features at the show, check out my Flickr!

I had a great few days at the show- met some lovely people and arrived home to a really lovely review over on the Guardian House and Home blog!

Thanks to everyone who took the time to come visit me at my- including the lovely Zoe from Ladybird Likes...!

Nice to See You...

I've been working on some brand new cushions recently- and I am pleased to say that they are now here! My screen-printed Nice Biscuit cushion and Pink Wafer cushions are available to pre-order in my Big Cartel Shop.

I'll be launching them alongside my new Bourbon Biscuit Brooch at Top Drawer London this January 15th - 17th at Earl's Court, London. I'm catching the train all the way from Dundee to London tomorrow morning, so I'll keep you all up to date with my progress via twitter over the next few days, and while I'm at the show.

Half Price Oreo Cushions & Instagram Photo A Day: week 1

If you're one of my twitter pals, you will already have seen that I am currently offering my Oreo Cushions (in a never before seen chocolate colour- they previoulsy looked like this) at Half Price. After retailing at £30.00, I'll be selling the last batch I made for only £15.00 each. And after this lot's gone- I've decided to discontinue this one for good- to concentrate on a solely British biscuit selection.

Lots have been given new homes already- and if you'd like a cuddle oreo in your life visit my shop now- there's very limited stocks- and as I said, once they're gone, they are GONE!

Last week I decided to take part in the Instagram Photo a Day in January challenge- and I'm really enjoying it so far! You can see my daily photos so far in my Flickr set, or by following me on instagram (username: nikkimcwilliams). Photography is one of my all-time loves: and I know I should really make time to take more photographs.

I try to travel light on a daily basis (hence the overwhelming ratio of instagram photos to actual camera photos (I have a Canon G11, if anyone was curious) but I'd really like to do a project that will encourage me to take more pictures. I've been inspired by The Dainty Squid to give a Photo A Week in 2011 project a go. It sounds like a big commitment, but I'll have a think about a worthy subject and let you all know. Watch this space!

A Photo A Day in January: Instagram Challenge

Happy 2012 Everyone! Hope you all enjoyed the Hogmanay celebrations and had a relaxing first day of the year. The other half and I spent the bells at my auntie's house in Glasgow drinking Amaretto/Leffe and eating wee sausage rolls. The 1st of Jan for us mostly involved a long walk, breathing in lots of fresh air, and visiting the town's McDonalds.

So- to the blog's main subject! (see the screenshot above). I spied this fun looking project via CutCopyCreate on instagram yesterday, and albeit a little late, have decided to take part! The idea is, in a nutshell- that you take a photo-a-day in January, using the themes above as a guide- and tag it with #janphotoaday.

This month i'll be preparing for and exhibiting at Top Drawer in London- so I thought it would be an interesting month to do the project.

Click here to see photo 01 "you" and photo 02 "breakfast" as well as following me on twitter or if you have an iPhone find me on instagram (I'm nikkimcwilliams) to keep up with my daily photos!

+++UPDATE+++

I've created a Flickr Set to keep all of my Photo a Day pics together. Here it is!