Following on from the last post, I just wanted to give you a quick update on our progress with the casting kit idea.
Teresa, the lady who was making a sample frame up for us has been in touch, she was very honest in the fact that she would not be able to produce a frame for us at the cost we would like and be able to make any profit herself.

As always, we like to try and support our local businesses first, our stationary and boxes come from Puckles Supplies in Canterbury and our soft toys and teddies are from Keel Toys in Ashford.
So it seems we may have to look further afield for a frame at the right cost as in the current climate customers just don’t want to pay the high prices that local manufacture costs. China may be a possibility.

Casting kits are one of our best selling gifts, they make a great idea for a gift especially when you don’t know the sex of the baby. There are many different types of kits available to buy, ranging in quality and price.

We have stocked Baby Art kits for the last couple of years, but the distribution deal has moved from Gro-Group to Dorel UK and Dorel UK have made it hard to obtain stock of their products (Poor sales team). Great move Dorel buy a company for 4.1 million Euros and then make it hard for retailers to obtain stock.  So, we need to find a replacement…Quickly!

Les has been searching the web for a suitable kit, we want a simple, easy to use kit that is air drying rather than one you need to bake. The price is also important, we need a kit that is good value for money so we can offer them to our customers at a reasonable price.

We found a temporary replacement from Cast In Time, this is a good quality kit and the frame is of a much better quality than Baby Art’s frame. The only problem with this kit is the weight, which is something we have to take into account. A couple of other kits we found were from Sculpey, this is a kit that needs to be baked, Creative Casting and Memory Hands also offer great casting kits.

It seems that most of the companies offering kits here in the UK are putting them together themselves, sourcing the frames, clay and boxes seperatley to create their own kit. So this got us thinking, why don’t we put together a casting kit of our own! It would solve the problem of running out or problems with quality.

So, we have approached a local framer and given her an idea of what we need, she is going to put together a frame for us to have a look at. We have ordered various different types of clay from Craft Mill and will test them out on the children to see which gives the best results and Les is looking into having the correct size boxes made up.

Watch this space, it shouldnt be too long before we have the finished product online, produced by Abc Baby Gifts.

 This is the new ‘Home Baby Imprint Kit’ from Cast In Time.

  And above is the old classic Baby Art kit, we’ve sold 1000′s of these over the years.