SMART TEAS - ceramic dinnerware
Illustration by Marina Kharkover
THERE COMES A TIME when all those melamine plates, dishes and cups seem just a little too baby-ish. And risk of breakage aside, you decide to upgrade to real life pottery on the dinner table.
Actually, we think the breakage risk is minimal - unless you have tile flooring - because the weight of real glass or ceramic usually means better anchoring to the table than lightweight plastic. The trickier challenge is finding crockery you like as much as the melamine, because there seems to be one pretty huge gap in the market for child-sized china plates.
Often the best option is to plump for adult-line side plates - we like Alessi’s Bettina side-plate by Future Systems, Muji’s Hakuji porcelain, and Habitat’s side plates by Concetta Gallo. Otherwise, these are our current favourite child-friendly crocks designed specifically for little ones.
Click on each gallery image for full caption details…. Read the rest of this article
Posted 17 June 2009 in Eating / Drinking
FOCUS: Trays of Art
GIVE MOST ADULTS a blank white A4 piece of paper and ask them to design a tray, right there and then, and they’d be petrified. Not so children, points out Ella Doran, the print product specialist, who pioneered the photographic print on table / homewares trend just over a decade ago.
“Adults do tend to get very inhibited. I can do too, but working with kids tends to free you up. They don’t have any of our hang-ups. They really like to take their time over things, and I’m always surprised at what comes out - the pattern making or the genius little quotes and designs,” she says. Ella, a mother of two boys, should know. She’s been holding occasional tray design ‘events’ for the last two years after collaborating with the Tate galleries on a couple of children’s books - and she finds that although she does hold adult classes too (one was in the middle of Selfridges department store, which, she says, was “a mad anthropological exercise.”), it’s the kids who really relish the chance to put their art work on a real-life product for the home - one that they get to take home with them.
Okay, so the process isn’t quite so instant. The finished water-based drawings are sent off to Ella’s experimental Belgian producers, where they sandwich each picture between melamine sheets, squash it and heat it until the melamine bonds, chop off the rough edges, and hey presto, finished tray (currently just £12). Once done it’s sent back to the UK for collection or posted directly to your address. Read the rest of this article
Posted 27 November 2008 in Eating / Drinking
TOP FIVE (ACTUALLY SIX): High Chairs
THE HIGH CHAIR seems to have become a vehicle for manufacturers and retailers to charge hundreds of pounds for what is usually a joyless and necessary purchase. (Where’s the fun in buying something that will end up daubed in dried food deposits?) The following are neither joyless, nor completely outrageously priced high chairs that seem to offer solutions to the hard-to-clean, unattractive, non-décor enhancing feeding chairs littering high street stores and homes. In fact our top marks go to Lula Sapphire’s K2 by Kuster - for its foldability, its detachable tray (not everyone has a dining table or wants to feed in the dining room), and mostly its price-point. Click on the pictures below to enlarge.
Best for Classicists and older kids: Stokke’s Tripp Trapp. Okay, so it’s a little ubiquitous now, but that’s because the Tripp Trapp goes with most decors, and lasts until your child, is ooh, an adult, if they’re so inclined. The down sides are having to buy separate accessories, which bumps up the price, and a lack of tray, which generally means more fallout on clothing and floors unless you have a table handy. Lovely new colours. From £115 - £165, Stokke, www.stokke.com; 0800 051 7036 (UK).
Posted 21 October 2008 in Eating / Drinking, Furniture
EAT ME: David Mellor Design
“MY FATHER had in mind that children should start off with good design from a young age.” So says Corin Mellor - creative director of David Mellor Design, the Peak District-based tabletop design company begun by his father in the 1950s - of the cult children’s cutlery set designed in 1977. It’s still a best seller.
The design was based on one of Mellor’s first cutlery ranges, the Java - which featured an injection-moulded resin handle with stainless steel head fixed together with a single rivet. With the help of Mellor’s younger sister Clare, whom David used as a model, the Java was resized for smaller hands (the set is recommended for use between the ages of 2 and 10), ergonomically-shaped for easy grip, and re-coloured in a Modernist palette for easy identification.
Posted 1 September 2008 in Eating / Drinking, Products
TEST RUN - Elodie Details Sippy Cup
Test item: Elodie Details Beaker. Available in four prints: Camouflage, Lucky Cloves, Petit Royal and Crosseyed Jolly.
Cost: £7.50 from www.nordickids.co.uk. For international retailers, see www.elodiedetails.com.
“No, you have to turn it. You can’t pull it.” The Little One keeps trying to pull the lid off his new Elodie Details Beaker. He loves the cute small size, the stylish camo print, and I know it’s a keeper looks-wise. But he wants inside access.
“No, you can’t pull it. You have to screw it. Screw it! Look, round and round. S-c-r-e-w it.”
The Little One says “Round and round”. “Yes, round and round”, I say thinking he’s got it. He tries to pull the lid off again. “No, honey, you can’t pull it. Screw it.”
I give up. Helping The Little One screw the cap off, he grabs it in both hands and all the juice spills onto the floor. The idea of a sippy cup is of course to prevent spills. Not something The Little One is too concerned about. “Oh no, wet!” he exclaims. “Socks wet. Tidy up.”
I clean the floor. The Little One drinks the remaining drips of juice out of the cup.
Posted 1 September 2008 in Eating / Drinking, Products
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