Wouldn't if be nice...

If when you were in one of the many shops along the stunning Welsh coastline, that when you bought something to take home with you, you were indeed taking a small part of your trip with you. We aren't talking about a mug with a Welsh dragon, some paraphernalia with a Welsh name like ‘St David's’ or ‘Tenby’ written on it or even one of the hundreds of postcards with the same pictures on time after time; instead you were taking something with you, designed, printed and created in Wales.

Many people care about where things are made; it is as important to them as it is to us. Recently, when buying cheese locally, we noticed on one particular batch an image of the Welsh dragon, traditional Welsh colours and even the name ‘Dragon cheese’ but we also noticed that it was made in Berkshire!

Of course the importing of goods and services play a huge role in our economy but wouldn’t it be nice to see "made with Welsh passion"? That moment you see something made in a small village on the coast you passed through, or prints from a local artist people heard about in a passing conversation? Our small enterprise is the passion of two people living in the Pembrokeshire area for many years so we feel we are genuinely coming from the viewpoint of a tourist. In fact, this is when the challenge started for us when chatting one day after the ‘cheese’ incident!

So we hit the Pembrokeshire coast to see what people’s opinions were on the subject of locally sourced produce and merchandise. These are the most common things we heard. "We couldn't find anything"
"It's too expensive"
"Can't order it online / they don't have a website"
"No such thing"

You know what we found when we looked for it? A plethora of talented artists, foragers, craft makers, printers and manufacturers, right on our doorstep. Take a look at our first collaboration with local artist and how we took a simple idea to create "The Fells Collection" which turned into having an exhibition not long after.

And that's our dream, to support and encourage local talent; those who try, those who want to create and not be bogged down by the business side and most importantly show those who often make the mammoth effort to travel to the Welsh coast, the best of what the Welsh coast has to offer.

So now we are on a journey sourcing independently crafted items, working hard with the local communities and business to promote the WelshCoast. We use a small family run printing company just a few miles down the road from our office.

Artwork frames are sourced by recommendations in the community helping us find a plethora of talented people who don’t always appear on the first page of Google.

It’s this spirit of collaboration, passion and dedication from our carefully chosen partners we work with that allows us to show off the full potential of huge amount of unsung talent around the Welsh Coast.

If you're an artist, crafter, maker, printer we genuinely would love to hear from you.