Mid-century Miaows

Just in! Our latest tea towel, Cat Naps, has been designed by cheeky Bristol-based illustrators, Peskimo.

Combining Mad Men cool with feline snoozes, it makes you want to cuddle up with your flea-bag on your slightly scuzzy IKEA sofa, placing ebay bids left, right and centre...

This bright and cheery screen-printed towel will set you back £9.95, slightly more than a de-worming tablet but a hell of a lot cheaper than an original Eames rocker.

Design Competition 2013

It's January. You're bored and cold, cold and bored. What better way to warm up and keep busy than by entering our ToDryFor design competition! This year we want to see plenty of bears, picnics, cheese, booze,  mexican wrestlers, tents, logs, and obviously cute wild animals (possibly a badger if you're up for it). The rules are simple; design it yourself and draw what makes you happy.

If you want a heads up on what usually takes our fancy, why not view the gallery of previous year's entries over on our facebook page, or take a look at the 2011 and 2012 winning designs.

The lucky winner's design will become part of our existing line-up of talented artists, which includes Gemma Correll, Rob Ryan, Julia Pott and other highly acclaimed individuals, as well as receiving five free samples, on-going commission payments, and international exposure through press and worldwide stockists. Bingo!

The closing date for entries is Sunday 24th February, 2013. Best of luck! You could be drying your dishes with your own design before you know it...

Festive Felicitations!

Wow! What a year 2012 has been. We hope that ToDryFor has helped bring a bit of humour and good cheer into your kitchen over the last 12 months, and that you'll be drying up your Christmas dishes in style.

We've got plenty more good things planned for 2013, including another design competition (keep your peepers peeled at the end January), monthly subscriptions, a website re-design, and of course tons of fabulous new tea towels. We thought we'd leave you with a sneak-peek of one them and wish you all a very happy and healthy new year!

With lots of love,
Sally and Dave
xxx

It's a WRAP!

Oh wow!! O goodness! Wrap issue 6 has just been published and we are super-excited to be advertising on the back page. Illustrated by one of our favourite artists, Nicholas John Frith, the advert features a cosy bear washing his dirty dishes.

Wrap is a magazine that celebrates the very best in illustration, design and creative culture. Bursting with interviews and features on an eclectic range of creative endeavours and characters, each issue also comes with five double-sided pull-out sheets of unique wrapping paper, perfect for making your presents pop!

Check out what it's all about: www.thewrappaper.com

Hey, we're cool! No, seriously...

So would you Adam and Eve it? ToDryFor is officially cool!

We're super-excited to have been named a CoolBrand for 2012/13. CoolBrands® is an annual initiative to identify and celebrate the UK's coolest brands; the previous year's list included Instagram, Tiger Beer, and Le Creuset.

Co-ordinated by The Centre for Brand Analysis, the prestigious CoolBrands® list, now in its eleventh year, was drawn from over 10,000 independently identified brands compiled using a wide range of sources from sector reports to blogs. These brands were then assessed for coolness (based on various factors including style, innovation, and originality) and whittled down by an expert panel and members of the British public to a final figure of 571. And we're one of them... Bonkers! We're glad they never saw my bowl haircut or Dave's teenage passport photo.

Woop! Cups of tea are on us.

To see the full list for 2012/13, visit the CoolBrands website...

Donna Donna Donna

Kebab? No, Wilson!! As we've not been blogging for a little while we thought it might be fun to get back into the swing of things by looking at various artists' tea towel ranges, starting with the inimitable Donna Wilson.

Use My Tail

Acorns and Leaves

Use My Beard

Use My Beehive

Handy

We love Donna's perfect blend of humour and stylish illustration. Our personal favourite has to be her new 'Use My Tail' design; we're nuts about it. Ha! Ha ha ha ha...

All of Donna's towels are made of linen union (a linen/cotton blend) and are a mighty 48cm x 80cm (which means your dishes will be dazzlingly dry in no time)! View the full range.

2012 Design Competition Gallery

So... you've got a spare few hours, a full packet of chocolate HobNobs, and a blank canvas waiting for tea towel inspiration. What do you do? Here's what...

Ahoy Sailor by Nicole Miles

Domestic Goddess by Matt Oxborrow

If in Doubt by Helen Hancocks

Snazzy Jumper by Philip Pittam

We received so many fantastic and original designs in our 2012 Design Competition that we thought we should share some of our favourites with you.

Check out the full gallery of entries that caught our eye over on our facebook page!

ps - sorry that this has taken us a little while to put together, but better late than never, eh!?