You may have noticed some new phone cases and iPad cases appear on the toggle homepage recently. These include items made from British wool, recycled wool and upcycled materials – which brings us to our next bit of news. We’ve been greening up our handmade gadget case production!

Eco friendly padding

We have replaced the synthetic padding in our phone cases with soft, chemical and bleach free bamboo padding.

Finding a synthetic replacement was a big deal for us because padding is what gives your phone its protection. We wanted to make sure that whilst it was eco friendly, it was also up to the job of cushioning your electronic companion without being too bulky. There’s nothing worse than an odd looking pocket bulge!

We’re still trying to find a suitable, more cushioned alternative for the laptop and iPad cases, but we’ll let you know when we’ve found something.

Buttons

We have started purchasing buttons made in Britain.

Did you know that 60% of the world’s button are made in China? After being manufactured those buttons then have to be freighted around the world to their final destinations, which seems crazy to us.

When you buy a button fastened gadget case from us the button will be either:

• Manufactured in Britain
• Handmade in Britain
• Vintage

Replacing all our buttons with British made alternatives will take time but we’ve made a really good start. Does anyone have suggestions as to where we could buy British made wooden toggles for our toggle phone cases? Also, if you are UK based and make handmade buttons, get in touch, we’d love to see what you make.

New eco friendly category

We’ve now added an eco friendly product category to the site, so that it’s easier to find these products.

Product packaging

We don’t use cellophane, card boxes or fancy wrapping. Each case is shipped with the minimum packaging: card tag and simple wrapping in upcycled or recycled materials for protection during transit. Your order is then popped in a tatty bag and mailed. Please re-use your tatty bags if you can.

Happy browsing, we’d love to know what you think of our new products! x

The post ‘Greening up’ gadget case production appeared first on toggle.

Wash and iron, iron, iron.

It sounds obvious, but it’s important.

Cleanliness: wash the fabrics so they look and smell great.

Shrinkage: any shrinkage from washing happens before you cut your fabric and make your final product.

Neatness: if you iron your fabric before you cut it, your cutting will be neater. For example, if you cut a square out of fabric and then iron it, fabric creases can add extra width and uneven edges. And then you’ll sew those uneven edges and end up with a wonky product.

Usable fabric

One of the first things you’ll need to know is how much usable fabric you can get from your garment. A pair of trousers may look big but there may only be certain parts that are the right size for your project.

When I use a pair of trousers, the first thing I do is unpick the major seam up each leg and crotch to create two big flaps of material. From doing this I’ll know if I have enough material to make the outer body of the iPad case. I know I generally can’t use the top front or top back areas, so I need a fairly large pair of trousers to give me enough leg material.

Distinguishing features

Part of the fun of upcycling is that you’re creating something new out of something old. When choosing garments for upcycling, look for fun or quirky features like pockets, lining details and interesting buttons.

‘Structurally sound’ material

Customers buying upcycled products generally expect to see some aesthetic wear to materials, it’s part of the charm of upcycling afterall. However, you want to make sure you are not upcycling something that will fall apart easily and affect the longevity of the final product.

You can try fixing holes or weak areas of fabric with patches, layering and applique.

Look for quality

I personally don’t see any point in upcycling poorly made clothing if you want something to last. Quality in = quality out.

Keep your eyes peeled

Buy something when you see it. I guarantee that if you wait until you need something specific you won’t be able to find it. Obviously, if you are unable to fit food in your kitchen cupboards due to fabric hoarding then you really need to get making :)

Save your scraps

Save your leftover fabric scraps for other projects. You never know when you might need a strip of material for a pocket, bow or patch.

Have fun

Mix and match fabric combinations, create unusual colour combinations, dye your fabric, add embellishments and patches!

The post Tips for upcycling clothing appeared first on toggle.

Upcycled Carhartt jeans iPad case

A tough denim iPad case with a big pocket for storing personal accessories.

Upcycled shorts iPad case

We love the oversized pocket on the front of this case.

Upcycled trousers iPad case

A simple, pinstripe iPad case with a back pocket, just like your trousers.

One-offs

All of these products are one-off items, making them truly unique. They’d make perfect Father’s Day gifts for gadget loving Dads! Why not have a quick look?

The post New upcycled iPad cases! appeared first on toggle.

After breakfast, the division were eager to get to London. Sadly, at this point, the robots from Division C didn’t realise they wouldn’t be coming back. Since human hands have replaced robots, there is no need to keep them – as workers or spare parts. This ‘day trip’ was actually a covert re-homing initiative by toggle.

Despite having an IQ of 3459, Archie failed to understand the need to “stand behind the yellow line”. He was keen to get aboard the ‘Mothership’.

Once aboard the train, spirits were high!

All they could manage at this point was “Does not compute”…

Springs needed a major system reset upon arriving at Waterloo, which was the ideal time for our first drop. We told the others he’d gone for ice-cream.

We saw a few sights:

Eric was dropped at a London Cycle Hire docking station after expressing an interest in the docking terminal.

And here is ‘Mom’ doing the deed.

Data was the last robot to be dropped. We left him at the Curzon cinema, Soho.

Drop list

• Springs @ Royal Festival Hall, Southbank
• Eric @ Embankment Tube
• Ernie @ Mercer Street
• Archie @ Apple Store, Covent Garden
• Bolts @ Covent Garden
• Data @ Curzon Cinema, Soho

Each robot was dropped with a discount code for the toggle shop. Did you find a robot? Drop us a comment below.

We will be announcing the next toggle robot drop soon, stay tuned!

The post toggle robot drop – London 2012 appeared first on toggle.

Over the weekend, I had a request to upcycle a pair of Dickies trousers into a laptop case for a 13″ Retina Macbook.

The trousers were a 13 year old pair of black Dickies which still looked as good as new. The owner had grown up wearing them and felt they were too good to throw away. Normally when people ask me to upcycle their clothes, unpicking the seams is relatively quick and easy as the item is not ‘built to last’. A small nick with the stitch unpicker and can rip the whole way up a leg or sleeve.

But not these trousers, they were The Terminator of the garment world. The seams were really well sewn. I’ve only ever  struggled to unpick one other garment before, and that was a pair of Howies jeans.

I turned one of back pockets into a mega pocket for the front of the case; which can be used for pens and other important items.

Dickes have also featured this case on their Facebook fan page!

If you have a pair of Dickies, or another item of clothing you’d like to upcycled into a gadget case, drop us an email.

The post Upcycling Dickies Into a Laptop Case appeared first on toggle.

In a small market town in Surrey, England a young female crafter had discovered something wonderful. Her hands. Our hands are amazing, delicate tools that deserve more than tactile-less touch screens and unergonomic computer interfaces. She set to work creating cases that would protect her precious machines. These new cases contained something extra: soul, passion, blood and a splash of life.

A new toggle was born.

What happened to old toggle?

From today toggle is a very different company. We no longer provide graphic and web design services. Instead we make one of a kind cases for the latest technology and gadgets. Its a dramatic shift but it felt like time to do something different.

At the end of 2011 we got sick. We go sick of sitting at our desks all day. We got sick of providing an undervalued service. We got sick of creating other peoples dreams.

We have been running this company for five years and never really felt like we were heading in the right direction. Design companies are “10-a-penny” and because of this most are uninspired and competing on cost rather than craftsmanship. We don’t want to get caught up in all that – we love making and want to make the best things we can.

The toggle shop has been running for around three years of the five and has been steadily picking up pace. We thought it was time to give it the attention it deserved. We hope you enjoy the new toggle.

p.s. The site is very new so please let us know if you spot anything wonky.

The post Goodbye toggle. Hello toggle. appeared first on toggle.

We started selling our handmade gadget cases a couple of years ago. We try and fit in our own projects around client work and the shop was one of them. At the start we had a simple setup: WordPress with the eshop plugin. As we out grew eshop, we began to develop our e-commerce strategy and thinking about the bigger picture.

This is by no means an exhausted list, it’s a summary of the services we’ve tried and our experiences of them.

Amazon (Pro Merchant Account)

Amazon approached us nearly a year ago now and said that they’d like us to sell our handmade phone and laptop cases on their site. We were really excited about this and promptly accepted! However, our experience selling our handmade products on Amazon was a mixed one.

Pros

• You have the potential to reach millions of people!
• Our handmade products were very different to the current gadget cases listed on Amazon. They are mainly made from silicone or neoprene and are *cough* a bit dull.
• Your contract with Amazon is renewed monthly, making it easy to leave at any time.
• Amazon are on hand to help answer any questions you have about listing products, and they are very prompt.

Cons

• Products are required to have a unique barcode (EAN) number. We looked at various sites when trying to decide where to buy our barcodes from, but whether these barcodes were being ‘legally’ sold was a bit of grey area. In the ended we decided to do it properly and register with GS1 (who Amazon also recommended). £204 got us 100,000 barcodes in our number bank (for one year). However, once you’ve purchased your barcodes, you need to renew these every year otherwise they will expire.
• There are vast amounts of gadget cases listed on Amazon and many are cheaply made.
• Sales and feedback reflect your listing position on Amazon so as a new seller it was quite difficult to stand out from other sellers and items.
• You have to pay a fee +VAT (£28.75) each month regardless of how much you sell.
• They require you to have a minimum of 30 products in order to launch your shop.
• It took us quite a while to list our products. They’ve created a very powerful system but it’s a bit of a beast to use.

We decided to close our Amazon seller account a few months ago due to disappointing sales. Their suggestion to this was to buy plastic screen protectors and list them alongside our products, which wasn’t really going to fix the problem.

This experience taught us a valuable lesson: know your target market! Amazon is all about stacking products high and selling them for the best price possible. toggle are the opposite, we create limited run products created with love and sell them to people who appreciate the time and effort that goes into handmade products.

Folksy

“Folksy is a place to buy handmade things, and for makers to sell their work and find supplies. Based in the UK, Folksy aims to reclaim craft and showcase talented makers and their work.”

Pros

• A very supportive and friendly community of crafters. Many sellers regularly showcase other sellers’ Folksy products in ‘Folksy Friday‘ blog posts.
• Low commission rate of 5% per sale.
• Low listing fee of 0.20 GBP per item.
• Folksy is smaller than sites like Etsy, so it’s easier to stand out.
• We’ve had quite a few customer orders for laptop and phone cases from Folksy customers.
• They are trying hard to promote the site with things like the ‘Folksy Festive Sampler‘.
• They’ve made quite a few updates to the system which is making it easier and quicker to list products.
• You can add stock levels to each product.

Cons

• It can be a bit of a ghost town at times – but I think this is in part down to how much you promote your Folksy shop.
• It costs 20p to list an item. Although this is a very low cost, it soon adds up if you are listing lots of items. If your items do not sell you’ve made a loss straight away.
• Listing products is not difficult, but there are ways this could be improved.
• The site design doesn’t look as ‘polished’ as some of the other third party sites.

Etsy

“Our mission is to enable people to make a living making things, and to reconnect makers with buyers.Our vision is to build a new economy and present a better choice:Buy, Sell, and Live Handmade”.

Pros

• Etsy is always innovating with new site features.
• It has a vey active community: teams, virtual labs, forum and events.
• The website looks great and makes it easy for buyers to get sucked into a world of beautiful handmade goods for hours (guilty!).
• Etsy is branching out across Europe.
• A low commission rate of 3.5% per sale.
• Low listing fee of 20c.
• You can embed your Etsy listings onto your website as widgets.
• Listing products is very easy, especially with features such as shipping profiles.
• You can add stock levels to each product.

Cons

• Etsy is becoming a very big community of crafters (which is excellent), but due to the volume of listings it’s easy to get pushed deep into the site very quickly.
• Payment is not integrated into the checkout process – which means the buyer is not required to proceed through PayPal in order to complete their transaction. This has resulted in us having a couple of orders that were never paid for.
• It costs 20c to list an item. Although this isn’t much, it soon adds up if you are listing lots of items, and if your items do not sell you’ve made a loss straight away.

Notonthehighstreet.com (NOTHS)

“Everything you see or buy on notonthehighstreet.com comes direct from the small, creative British business that designs, makes or sources it. We simply bring these unique businesses together under one roof making it easy for you to browse and shop.”

Pros

• NOTHS are very active when it comes to promoting the website both online and offline.
• They have a fantastic product listing system, which they are always improving.
• They conduct seller surveys which are considered when improving areas of the site.
• Very good seller support for issues and technical queries.
• They provide sellers with style guidelines for the site. This results in listings looking professional and coherent.
• As a buyer, it’s very easy to find and browse products.
• Payment is integrated into the system, so buyers have to pay for goods for the order to be complete.

Cons

• Selling on NOTHS is by application only.
• If your application is successful, you have to pay a joining fee. This is a large initial investment, but it does give you ‘membership’ for life.
• NOTHS take quite a high commission of each sale +VAT.
• Advertising costs for the catalogue and gift guides are high. Unfortunately they do not provide many low cost advertising opportunities at this time.
• You cannot link to your own website on any material sent to the customer with their order. We have had to re-design our shop tags since selling with them because we used to include a link to the the toggle website.

toggle website

The toggle website is powered by WordPress. We use the Shopp plugin as the base to run our shop and manage our orders.

Pros

• It allows customers to buy our products directly from us rather than a third party site.
• We have full control over the shopping experience we provide our customers.
• No commission or listing costs.
• We have been able to fully brand and customise our shop.
• We are directly building our brand.
• The shop looks professional.
• We were able to plan for shop growth from the beginning.

Cons

• Creating our shop has been a larger cost in the short term (but will save us money in the long run).
• Bug fixing and updates are a big responsibility. When selling through sites like Folksy and NOTHS, this is done automatically for you.
• Large time investment.
• The checkout is controlled by PayPal which takes a cut of each shop sale.

Conclusion

Custom solutions

Custom solutions offer you great flexibility and can sit directly on your domain. They take longer to set up but in the long term you are building something unique to you and your products.

Third party sites & handmade marketplaces.

Selling on third party sites is a fantastic way of spreading the word about your company and it’s products. Selling on these types of sites can be a compromise (site design, layouts etc), but it offers you a great deal of exposure. Although we have our own online shop, we continue to sell on third party sites for this reason.

For us, the best solution has been to use a combination of our own site and third party sites.

Tips for selling your handmade products online

• Are there already a lot of people selling what you make on a particular marketplace? If so, think about your USP (unique selling point) and use this to decide whether it will be the most beneficial place for you to sell or not.
• The more sites you sell on, the longer listing products will take. This might sound very obvious but it’s something I didn’t appreciate when setting up shops in the beginning. Different sites will have different guidelines for listings – some have none at all. Look for ways to standardise your listings and photos.
• Take the best photos you can. Generally, products that get featured on other blogs and websites are those with good photography.
• Know your target audience and where they are likely to be shopping.
• If you’re thinking about creating your own online shop but don’t know where to start, try services like Folksy. From using their systems you’ll be able to decide what you do and don’t like.

We’d be very interested to hear about your experiences with any of these services or others you’ve tried. Feel free to leave us a comment! If there’s anything you’d like to ask us, get in touch.

The post Selling your handmade goods online appeared first on toggle.

Our last stationery products were made from photos we’d taken using our vintage cameras. We sold the last of these cards and postcards over Christmas and decided this range would be discontinued as we wanted to experiment with illustration instead.

A month or so ago we created some new shop tags:

We loved creating this hand drawn type and wanted to use the technique to create some illustrations. Our leather bird laptop cases have been selling really well so we’ve combined the motif from these cases with our new type design.

The wing area of the bird can be personalised with either a name, a short message such as ‘happy birthday’ or it can be left blank.

You can check out the card in our shop or contact us if you are interested in stocking this card in your own shop.

The post Hand drawn bird greetings card appeared first on toggle.

This project explored the use of story telling within our society and culture as a means of helping consumers to understand the background behind the products they were buying. So, as makers of handmade gadget cases, we were ideal candidates for the brief!

The outcome of the project was a piece of editorial design describing the maker, their products and the philosophy of their business.

We went to see our groups work on Friday – and were so pleased with what they made, we decided we would showcase the projects on our blog…

Emily Wright

Emily Wright Design »

Mark Walter

Mark Walter on Behance »

Katie Heward

Katie Heward on Behance »

Dan Annett

Dan Annett on Behance »

Ash Jordan

ashjordandesign.co.uk »

Manjing Yu

Manjing Yu on Behance »

The post Artists & makers project with the UCA appeared first on toggle.

We get a parcel in the post and the packaging goes into a box for reuse. We save the lot – bags, foam beans, tissue paper and bubble wrap. You can imagine how it starts to look around here at Christmas! You’re probably wondering why on earth we’re telling you this – well it’s because we have been thinking about how we package our shop products for shipping.

When we created the shop, we wanted to make sure that were responsible with the amount and type of waste we created. We use alot of upcycled materials and keep all our offcuts and scraps for other projects.

We also try and use as little packaging as possible for our actual products. Each case has a small handmade card tag attached with string and is wrapped in paper for protection – at the moment we are upcycling old maps from the 70′s. However, the one thing we’ve found ourselves continually needing to buy is jiffy bags. They aren’t the most environmentally friendly choice of packaging because plastic is glued to the paper, making them harder to separate for recycling. But

1. They protect goods in transit – the bubble wrap layer makes them resistant to water and protects the case from cuts and scrapes.
2. They can be reused. Reuse is always preferable to recycling.

When you buy something online, most of the time it arrives in a brand new jiffy bag, box or bag. People have come to expect it. You associate new goods with new packaging. But this got us thinking – why are we buying all these jiffy bags when we have a whole heap of used bags here already?

So we have decided that going forward, our products will be sent to our customers in used packaging (where possible). Although this may not look as nice, it will greatly reduce the amount of jiffy bags we need to buy, creating less waste when the product reaches it’s buyer. If everyone reused a jiffy bag at least once, think how much packaging waste we could all save!

We have created a label for our reused packaging to let people know why they are receiving their order in a less than perfect bag. And we hope that this will encourage reuse of packaging from toggle shop products,

“I know I know! I may be a bit tatty, but before I retire I’ve got plans to see the world! Preloved packaging, from toggle.”

You can see some of the photos from it’s creation here:

The label has been hand cut from lino and took a whopping 4 hours to cut out.

So, if you receive an order packaged in a ‘tatty bag’, please re-use it where you can.

The post Tatty old bag appeared first on toggle.