Everything we make starts somewhere different.
Some products begin with your idea. Some begin with a photograph. Some are designed entirely by hand. Others use software and AI as part of the process.
Whatever we're making, the important part is the same: we do the work ourselves, here in our workshop.
Choose a section below to see how your product is made.
3D models are one of the more complicated things we make, because getting a picture of something is very different from getting something that will actually print.
You tell us what you'd like to make, or provide a reference image where appropriate.
Our software uses that information to create an initial design for you to look at.
This is your chance to change things.
If the design isn't right, we can adjust it and try again. You don't pay for the model at this stage.
Once you're happy with the idea, we run the much more detailed reconstruction.
This takes considerably longer than the initial preview — typically around 45 minutes to an hour on average, though it depends on what's being made. Some designs need a few passes, with the settings changed each time, before the model is right.
This is where a lot of the real work happens.
Raw AI-generated 3D models aren't necessarily proper printable objects. They can contain holes, overlapping surfaces, paper-thin sections and other problems that aren't obvious when looking at the picture.
Our software checks the whole shape for these problems and rebuilds it into a single solid piece with no gaps, then smooths the surface and checks that parts such as ears, tails, wings and other thin details are strong enough to survive printing and handling.
We also rebuild the colours where the model requires them.
Before anything reaches the printer, we send you a final render showing what we intend to make.
As with our other products, this render is a picture on a screen: the finished figure can look slightly different once it's a physical object with real light and depth, rather than a flat image.
Nothing is printed until you approve it.
The model is printed, supports are removed, the finished piece is checked and any necessary finishing work is carried out before it is packed.
A picture plaque is your picture built up in thin layers of coloured filament, so it's a physical, slightly raised picture you can hang on a wall or stand on a shelf. There's no ink and no paint on it: every colour you see is a different plastic.
Your photograph stays your photograph. We don't use AI to redraw your subject or invent details. The software works with the picture you send.
Upload a photo or artwork, or draw one in our AI art studio using the plaque style. The page shows you a quick preview of the colours we'd print it in before you order anything.
The software scores every picture. Bold shapes, clear light and dark areas and a few main colours print best. Busy pictures with lots of soft, similar tones come out flatter. If a picture is unlikely to look good, we tell you before you pay rather than printing something we already know won't work well.
Photographs, and especially people, usually look better in black and white, because a face is made of light and dark and colour splits it into patches. You can choose that when you upload. Artwork and paintings look best in colour.
The software picks up to four filaments from the ones we have loaded that best match your picture, then works out how thick each part should be. Filament is slightly see-through, so a thin layer of one colour over another blends into a new shade, and thickness controls how light or dark it looks. Each layer is under a tenth of a millimetre thick, which gives smooth shading instead of blocky patches.
The preview on the website is a quick pass. It takes a second or two and simply snaps your picture to the nearest of four colours. When we make the real one, we run it through our full programme, which can change the filaments, the number of colour changes and how the layers are built, so the result can come out slightly different from the quick preview.
Because of that, we always send you a preview of the plaque we intend to make, and nothing is printed until you agree to it.
A preview is still only a picture on a screen. The finished plaque can look slightly different from it, because the printed layers blend in ways a screen can't show, and colours on screens never match plastic exactly. When you approve the preview, you're agreeing on that basis.
The printer builds the plaque one thin layer at a time and changes filament at the heights the software worked out. A 150mm plaque takes about seven hours.
We look it over by hand and, if you asked for it, mount it on a printed block so it stands on a shelf.
Shadow boxes are built from layers rather than simply printing a flat picture. They work best with artwork, scenery and bold graphic pictures; portraits of people lose too much detail in flat layers, so we don't make flat-layer portraits, apart from a plain silhouette. For people and pets we offer a textured relief style instead, where the subject is sculpted with real surface detail so the hair or fur, ears and face show. It's an interpretation of your photo, not a copy, so it won't look like a photograph. We've tested it and it comes out close, and you see a preview before anything is made. Like all our layered pieces, a shadow box is made to be looked at from about 1 metre away: up close you'll see the layers and how it's built.
Your design is separated into individual layers, with each layer contributing part of the final scene.
We carefully arrange the layers so that they create depth when assembled, while making sure the important details remain visible.
The result is a physical scene with real depth and shadows rather than a flat image.
Each layer is prepared, cut or printed as required, assembled and checked by hand before the finished shadow box is packed.
Sublimation is how we put full-colour pictures on mugs, coasters, T-shirts, hoodies, clocks, slates and more. It isn't a sticker and it isn't printed on top. The picture goes into the surface itself.
On our drinkware, textiles and home decor pages you add your pictures and words and drag them where you want them. You can turn a mug round, or flip between the front and back of a T-shirt, to check it. What you see is roughly what gets pressed.
We look at the picture size, the print area, where a mug's handle sits and, for a full wrap, where the picture has to meet itself at the seam, and we tell you if anything needs to change.
Your design is printed, as a mirror image, onto special transfer paper with sublimation inks.
The paper is positioned carefully on the item and pressed with controlled heat and pressure. The heat turns the ink into a gas, which soaks into the coating and becomes part of it, rather than sitting on top.
Once it has cooled we remove the transfer and check the finished item before packing it. There's no raised layer, so there's nothing to peel, crack or wash off.
The ink is see-through, so it can't print white and it needs a light surface to show up. That's why:
Stickers, decals, cards and invitations all start with your design, and all go through the same cutting machine, whichever one you're ordering.
For stickers, you tell us the size and where it's going. For cards and invitations, every one is designed from scratch for your occasion, so there's no template to pick from.
The design is split into the colours it needs, because each colour is cut as its own piece of material rather than printed as ink.
The cutting machine follows the outline precisely for every colour, whether that's a single sticker shape or every layer of a card.
The material around the design is removed by hand, a process called weeding, leaving just the shapes you want.
Stickers and decals are transferred straight onto the item, with heat and pressure where needed.
Cards and invitations are layered and assembled by hand, cut piece placed on cut piece, until the design is built up.
Every piece is checked by hand before it goes out.
Because each colour is its own piece of vinyl or card rather than ink on a background, the edges stay sharp from any distance and there's no white border unless you ask for one. It also means a design with a lot of colours or fine detail takes more cutting and weeding, which is part of what a more elaborate card or design costs more for.
Amigurumi is completely different from our digital products.
There is no AI and no automated 3D reconstruction involved.
Each piece begins with yarn and is crocheted by hand, following the pattern required for that particular design.
The individual parts are made separately, stuffed and assembled before the finished character is checked for loose ends, stitching and overall appearance.
Because they are handmade, tiny differences between individual pieces are normal.
That is part of what makes each one handmade rather than factory-produced.
Not everybody arrives with a picture. Sometimes you know what you want, but not how it should look: a stag in the woods, a birthday card for someone who loves owls, a design for a mug.
That's what the art studio is for. You tell it what you'd like, and it draws four different pictures for you to choose from.
The pictures are drawn by an open-source image model running on our own computer, here in the workshop. Nothing you type or upload is sent to an outside AI service. We keep the pictures only while you're deciding, and clear them off our machine after about a week.
Two people who type exactly the same words will get different pictures, because every run starts from a different random seed. We can't promise nobody else will ever be given something similar, though, so if a design needs to be one of a kind, tell us and we'll talk it through.
The style you pick first isn't decoration. It changes the instructions we give the model behind the scenes, and each one is written from what we've learned making that product:
If you write only a few words, we add a little plain wording so the picture has one clear subject and a simple background, rather than a scrappy sketch. We never add subjects you didn't ask for.
If you'd rather start from a photograph, you can send us one and we'll draw options based on it. Think of it as a starting point, not a copy: it keeps the general shape and colours but redraws it in the style you chose, so don't expect a likeness of a particular person or pet.
Your picture goes straight to the right page, as though you'd uploaded it yourself:
Framed prints are still quoted by hand, so for those you send us the picture and we come back with a price and a mock-up. Shadow boxes aren't taking orders yet, so for those we're taking interest rather than orders.
On every route, nothing is made until you've seen it and said yes.
AI pictures are impressive, but they aren't perfect. Look closely before you choose: animals sometimes come out with an extra leg, and hands and faces can be odd. Anything that looks wrong to you will look wrong on the finished product, so pick the one that's right rather than the one that's closest.
Each run gives four pictures, and there's a limit on how many you can ask for in a short time, so it stays quick for everyone.
We don't use the studio to draw text, because it spells badly. If you want words on something, add them on the mug designer or tell us what they should say.
Please don't ask for characters from films, games or comics. We can't make those, and the studio isn't the place to find a way round that.
The studio exists to make things with, not to give pictures away. It's free to use, and you only pay when you order something made from a picture you chose.
It also shares one machine with everything else we do. If we've closed the shop for the day, or the machine is busy with somebody else's pictures, the studio will tell you to try again in a minute or two.
Making the product is only part of the job.
Before anything leaves us, we check the finished piece for obvious defects, make sure it matches the design you approved, and remove any remaining supports, loose material or finishing marks.
It's packed by hand, using packaging suited to that product, so it arrives the way it left us.
Postage is worked out from the size and weight of what you've ordered. If you order more than one thing, they're combined into a basket and posted together in one parcel where possible, which usually works out cheaper than separate orders. Delivery is free on orders over £15.
Our dispatch estimate is worked out from our current queue on the day we quote it, since different products take different amounts of time to make. You can check the current estimate at any time.
Building so much of our own software isn't just something we do because we enjoy it.
It also changes what we can offer you.
We don't have to pay another company every time we create a design, process an image or run part of an order through someone else's system. We aren't paying for a collection of separate services to do the jobs our own software can handle.
That helps us keep our prices as low as we reasonably can.
But there is another benefit.
Because our products are created from your ideas, your photographs and your choices, we're not simply picking something from a catalogue.
Five different people could all ask us for a model of a dog.
You might want a sitting Labrador with its ears up.
Someone else might want their small terrier curled up asleep.
Another person might want a cartoon-style version of their childhood dog.
Even if all five people simply asked for "a dog", the finished designs don't have to be identical.
That's what makes this possible: the technology helps us keep the process efficient, while the work we do ourselves keeps the result personal.
There is a lot of talk about AI doing everything for you.
That's not how we use it.
We start with open-source models and software, but what you see on this website isn't an off-the-shelf AI service with our name put on the front.
We build the system ourselves.
The models are the starting point. Everything around them — and much of what happens to the models themselves — has been changed, adapted and built specifically for what we make.
The open-source community provides some incredibly powerful technology.
We use that technology as a foundation, rather than pretending we built the underlying research from nothing.
From there, we build our own systems around it to make it useful for our particular products.
A general-purpose AI might be able to generate a picture or produce a 3D object.
That doesn't mean it knows how to make something that can actually be printed, assembled, coloured or sold.
That's the part we have built.
Our software connects the different stages of the process together. Depending on what you're ordering, it can handle things such as:
These aren't separate websites that we send your information through.
They are parts of the system we have built to work together.
The website isn't a bought template with a few products added to it.
The website, design tools, pricing systems and ordering process are all built specifically for our workshop.
That means we can change how something works when we need to, rather than waiting for a third-party service to add a feature we need.
It also means we understand what happens to your information at every stage.
AI is useful for getting from an idea to a starting point.
It is not a substitute for the rest of the process.
A generated 3D model can look perfect on screen and still be completely unsuitable for printing.
A photograph can look great and still produce a poor result when converted into a limited number of physical filament colours.
A design can look right but contain details too small to survive manufacturing.
Our software is designed to catch and deal with those problems, and we still check the important stages ourselves.
The processing systems we use run on our own machines in our workshop.
Your descriptions, photographs and designs are processed here rather than being sent to an external AI company for generation.
Everything about your order — from your reference pictures to the finished design files — is filed together under your order number, so nothing gets lost or mixed up with anyone else's.
We don't sell your submissions, use them to train our systems, or share them with anyone beyond the services above.
A few outside services are involved: Cloudflare, which provides the infrastructure that allows people to reach our website; Stripe, which handles your payment so card details never touch our own systems; and Resend, which delivers our emails.
Everything else — the website itself, the design systems, the product pipelines and the software connecting them — is ours.
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