About Us
Having spent 10 years together in London, and after adding two little ones to our tribe, we felt the time was right to relocate and create something new for our family. So in pursuit of our dream to open up our own stationery shop we swapped South London for the south coast in August 2020, in the middle of a global pandemic!
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| Abel |
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I love all things stationery. (I was going to call it that but the name was taken. Grrrrrrr. Kidding.) From pens, pencils, MT tape, notebooks, inks and sharpeners to the products we keep stationery in like pencil trays and cases. But not ordinary stationery, no, no, no, the very best stationery from around the world. So I started to source this amazing stationery to show people that there is more to stationery than the Bic pens and Pukka pads that those who shall not be named were selling. It was a risk to sell stationery that people didn’t know, that was much pricier than what you could get and also in a bookshop, but credit to the people at Foyles, they trusted me and thank God it worked out. Phew! Through those years at Foyles, my passion and knowledge of stationery grew and I met some amazing people including manufacturers, suppliers and people who ran their own stationery stores. Seeing their stores, the products they stocked and how they displayed them, I was envious. The dream of having my own store now had it’s focus - Stationery. So I started to dream of how it would look, what products I would have, what events we would hold and so much more. I loved those dreams but they stayed a dream because I was afraid that it would fail and I couldn’t have that happen now I had a family that relied on my half of the income. So it got shelved until 2020. So 2020. What a year hey. The pandemic hit. All was up in the air. My role at Foyles was drawing to a close and jobs within the industry were scarce, if non existent. So I did what any sane person would do in a pandemic and that had a small wad of cash - I opened a stationery store. Obviously it’s not that clear cut. I had to convince my other half to go along with this mad idea, which she knew about and thankfully said yes, on the first take. We had always planned to leave London with the kids so we started looking closer around the South East of England where she is from. (I’m from South Africa and no one likes stationery there so that was an easy one to tick off the list!) After many searches for a home for the family and premises for the store we settled on Eastbourne, where my other half is from, and the rest, as they say, is history. |
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| Nicki |
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But my love of stationery started young and was nurtured through the contents of a large, knitted sock. Every Christmas there was three essentials that were ALWAYS in my stocking: chocolate coins, a satsuma and stationery. Pens, pencils, colours, notepads, rubbers and sharpeners all crammed into that colourful festive tradition. |