About Catkin Tree Studio
Catkin Tree Studio is based in the beautiful county of Oxfordshire, England. The studio creates homeware and gifts featuring Ruth's hand created designs, which are inspired by many different things. Read on to find out more, or click the buttons below to find out about our events and awards, or to contact us.
A Little About Us
Ruth is a designer and maker who plays with colour, pattern and detail. She has always enjoyed painting, drawing and creative activities. After completing her degrees Ruth took her original designs to craft fairs, which proved to be very popular. Having had success at these over a number of years, and with interest growing, this led Ruth to develop her ideas further,. This inspired the beginning of Catkin Tree Studio. The Studio specifically focusses on Ruth's painted designs, bringing them to life in the form of a wide range of practical homeware, gifts and stationery.
All Ruth's unique and beautiful designs are created by hand, with real paints, pens and pencils, taking many hours to make. She often uses very fine paintbrushes across much of the designs to create high levels of detail. There is no digitally created art here! With its bright colours and versatility, Ruth's preferred medium is acrylic paint on stretched canvas or canvas board (to give texture) or on paper and card (for a smoother finish).
Inspiration
Ruth was lucky enough to grow up with lots of opportunities to interact with nature, both in green and blue spaces. This shaped both her academic and creative careers. She enjoys being in the garden and draws inspiration from plants, flowers and animals, with the natural world being a common theme in many of her designs. She holds two MSc degrees, both in environmental subjects, meaning that sustainability underpins her ideas. Ruth was also fortunate enough to grow up with a cat! Currently, she has two cats whose antics provide her with plenty of additional inspiration for new designs.
Catkin Tree Studio Sustainability
Catkin Tree Studio is always looking for ways to improve the sustainability of the products that we offer. Wherever practical, we work with print suppliers who are based in the UK and produce our items only in the UK. Our products are only available in the UK - we do not ship abroad.
One supplier we use plants a tree for every order we place with them, which is great news. Our tea towels are 100% cotton, our cushions are 100% organic cotton. Our cards are wrapped in a plant-based and compostable clear packaging ("Nativa" film).
We have removed plastic packaging from our products, wrapping them in paper presentation tissue or cardboard sleeves. For the vast majority of our postal orders we have largely eliminated plastic in our shipping packaging, opting for cardboard-based options with a limited use of plastic sticky tape and plastic bubblewrap. We prefer to use paper-based packing tape or paper based padding where possible to ensure packaging is as recyclable as possible (but we need to balance this with the need to get your order to you safely, and in some cases may need to use a little bit of plastic!). We are always on the look out for better and more environmentally friendly options. Some of our shipping packaging is re-used (but not compromising quality!) or reusable, and we'd encourage you to use it again if you can.
© Copyright: All website content and designs are copyright Catkin Tree Studio (Ruth Harris) and all rights reserved. Catkin Tree Studio established 2022. Copyright infringement will be taken seriously and Catkin Tree Studio/Ruth Harris is the owner of pending, registered and/or unregistered trademarks and trade names, including the Catkin Tree Studio name and logos, and related products/designs or associated items and names.
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