Drying dishes with Daphne Padden

ToDryFor is delighted to present a new, vintage-inspired range of tea towels featuring original 1950s/1960s tissue paper collage designs by highly-collectible artist, Daphne Padden (1927-2009). When Daphne sadly died in 2009, unused collages were discovered in her studio and with the permission of her estate have been restored by vintage poster gurus, Quad Royal, and transformed by ToDryFor into stunning, linen union tea towels.

To give you a bit more background, these fantastic designs actually began life as cut-tissue paper collages; the glue hadn't aged well so they needed a little bit of a digital clean-up before they were ready to dry dishes.

Daphne Padden’s work originally came to our attention in 2010 when her iconic series of 1950s travel posters were uncovered in a disused passageway in London Underground’s Notting Hill Gate station (see image below).

This image is an official London Underground photograph; to view more visit their amazing flickr set.

Find out more about Daphne Padden and view the full vintage-inspired tea towel range here...

High Five!

It's ToDryFor's 5th birthday on Wednesday and we're planning a little something special to celebrate. We'll be selling our top five best-selling tea towels (see below) at £5 for 5 hours and, even more exciting, the first 5 people to order get one for 5p (RRP £9.95)*!

Ooh-La La! 

by Darling Clementine

The Bearded Lady 

by One Must Dash

 Heaven
by Rob Ryan

Storm in a Teacup 

by HelloWilson

Pugs Not Drugs 

by Gemma Correll

So, let's break it down again...
5 at £5 for 5 hours and 5 get them for 5p. Give us a high five!

The above towels will be on sale for £5 between 12pm and 5pm (GMT) on Wednesday 6th March 2013. That's Mother's Day sorted.

* Only one 5p tea towel per order (we'll refund £4.95 back to the 5 quick-off-the-mark lucky customers).

2013 Design Competition Winner!

Boy o boy! We received more design competition entries this year than ever before and it was a mammoth task trying to choose a winner. Some were highly commercial whilst others were completely obscure but utterly incredible; some just simply depicted cats that we fell in love with. However, we had to make a final decision and this is it...

Le Tour was created by William Wright, a Graphic Design and Illustration student from Leicester. We love everything about these two bicycle-obsessed chaps, from the snuffly moustache to the frisson of competition between the two of them. Not to mention that, dare we say it, the design is very 'on trend' what with Bradley Wiggins's recent rise to fame and the Tour de France coming to Yorkshire in 2014.

Le Tour is now going into production and will be showcased at this year's Pulse show at London's Earls Court, available in the shops and via ToDryFor.com in May. Woop!

We'd like to say a massive thank you to everyone who entered - we appreciate that it takes a lot of time and effort to come up with a design, and we're just sorry that we can only have one winner. We'll shortly be putting together a 2013 facebook gallery of our favourite runners-up - keep your peepers peeled to see if your design made the final cut...

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