Yesterday 11 lucky Beaverbrooks Employees got a chance to visit Fable Trading HQ (UK distributors of Trollbeads, they also distribute Buddha to Buddha in the UK.)
I was one of the chosen few and it was an absolutely brilliant day!
Fable moved into their new offices about a month ago and it still has that lovely new smell! Trollbeads have been growing in popularity in the UK since they launched and so they needed a bigger space to fill with lovely beads!
First we got to meet a few of the team Ruth Boxall had been busy organising everything for the trip, Richard Morfoot the owner of Fable Trading was there to welcome us too! Along with Amanda and Amanda - Our Visual Merchandiser and Fable's Marketing Manager. Michelle and Jon were looking after us too.
After our tour Amanda gave us a history to how Trollbeads came to the UK. (Please note my version is abridged)
Sarah Moorfoot was a stay at home mum and as a family they used to have foreign exchange students staying with them. Once a Danish student was telling a story to the children using something on her wrist to tell the story. Suddenly they were scrambling around on the floor and the student was getting really upset about her 'Thumbilina'. Sarah went over to help and that's when she started to take notice of the Trollbeads the student was wearing. Sarah wanted to own her very own bracelet but found they couldn't be bought in the UK and that's when she started the process of being the UK distributor.
I really love that Sarah's neighbour Michelle came aboard to help with the business plan and that the company started from the spare bedroom, that they have hired friends and family. It's a real story of going out on a limb and building a company on passion and determination. Now there are 20(ish) people that work at Fable and they are now the exclusive distributors of Buddha to Buddha another Danish company selling Handmade Sterling Silver Jewellery.
We then got to look at all the lovely world tour. Look at this amazing way they were presented to us:
Then the fun really began! Karen does a weekly design session but this week she decided to let us have a go at designing a Fantasy Necklace. Mine was based on my recent trip to my sisters wedding in Finland.
I had Goldstone, Chocolate stripe and Golden Cave to represent the Earth, Silver Trace - Green, Turquoise in Troll Tree to represent all the forests (and because I think its ace!). On top of that was Blue Diamond and Blue Goldstone. The bottom had a Shadow Flower (Cause I love it) with a Lotus Flower between it and the pearl so that more of the pearl would be showing.
Congratulations need to go to Annabell from Norwich who won a lovely Chess Academy Lock!
After an amazing lunch Richard came back in to announce the grand winner of the competition and I was amazed when I came second and got to choose some amazing beads! We had trays and trays to choose from it was really over whelming.
Eventually I decided to make the most of this once in a lifetime opportunity and decided to get a Kit of Uniques, Kit of Universal Uniques and 2 Malawi Universal Uniques. I have wanted to have a world tour bracelet since they originally launched the tour so decided to choose a really good Star Spangled Bead and used the rest of my allocation on the Garden Gnome. Here they are in their glory.
I would just like to say another massive thank you to everyone at Fable for making it a brilliant day, it was really exciting to see where it all happens.
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