Our New Home..

My Godchild Alice covering the shelving unit in Vintage Papers!

We tried to add a touch of Bonzie Romance into the Contemporary Space...

The Henrietta St Side of the Facade with a lady checking out our Window Display. :)

Note the lovely Gallweys Handmade Irish Chocolate Café next door! (And yes, we can confirm that the chocolate is yum!)

The Retail Space at the Front of the Facade, the workshops/studio spaces are behind this area. :)

Gals,

It's been a tricky task to actually come up with the content for this post as it's so very personal to us both. A blog post couldn't quite capture how excited we are about the news that we are about to move into a brand new studio, which will we open soon for the very first time to the public. We are joining the Kite Design Collective in the new Viking Quarters in Waterford City which houses 5 different Craft/Design entities including their workshop spaces and a retail frontage. The Collective has an incredible array of talent and Irish products to share, Irish Handmade Glass, Sean Egan Art Glass, Anne McDonnell Print, Stradbally Jewellery and ourselves, Bonzie Designs. :)

The new Viking Quarter in Waterford includes attractions such as Reginalds Tower, Waterford Crystal, The Theatre Royal, The Museum, Greyfriars Art Gallery and not forgetting the gorgeous wee Gallweys Irish Handmade Chocolate Cafe right next door!!! The whole are is being reinvigorated as a Tourism Attraction and we are absolutely blessed to be a part of the new plans for the City.

It's always been a dream of ours to have a public space to share with our customers and after a long time plugging away the opportunity as arisen. We are going to keep you all updated on the developments but for now, it's a blog entry of gratitude. Thanks to those who supported us and our dream to date, to all of our clients for keeping us in silk and lace, to the Waterford City Enterprise Board for supporting the new venture and Waterford City Council for having the vision to redevelop our lovely City for the coming years. We hope that some of our International customers will stop by our studios the next time they are in Ireland it would be incredible to meet you in person!!!

New Store Address

Bonzie Designs

Kite Design Studio

11 Henrietta St

Viking Quarter

Waterford City

Ireland

Shop opening very soon!

more pics on the way as the venture comes to completion. :)

Waterford Design Week 2010

It's officially Waterford Design Week Everyone! In a nutshell a week to showcase what our local designers have to offer as part of National Irish Design Week. 1st - 7th November.

www.designweekwaterford.com

( Many thanks to the Waterford City Enterprise Board and Waterford City Council for their support as well as the city library for housing the event)

Product Design Consultant Marcus Notley addressing the crowd at the official exhibit launch this evening at the Waterford City Library.

www.marcusnotley.com

( Just in the left corner of the picture our buddy, local film-maker John Loftus capturing the event on camera)

Watching a film presentation on designing the future! It was quite profound actually.

Our exhibit entry (top right hand corner)

Look who our neighbour was!!! None other than Shane O'Neill of Aspect Photography(www.aspectphotography.net) who regularly collaborates with us and who is responsible for some of the more stunning and provocative images in our portfolio. Shane also rocked out a bonzie photograph for his exhibit entry and just by pure chance and karma we ended up on the same exhibit board together! :)

Main Image: Photographer-Shane O'Neill

Model- My sis!

Top Right Image: Agatha Stoinska

Stylist: Roxanne Parker

Bottom Right Image: One of our faves to date! ( so much so it's on our business cards!)

picture of Heather Crank, a real life bride on her wedding day in the US who wore bonzie on her wedding day and kindly thought to send us her pictures afterwards to share her special day with us. Little did Heather realize that she would be so well received and is now featured on print all over the world!! :)

You know what I love about these kind of showcases.... I love how it brings all of the local talent under one roof, I love how you get a glimpse into the strength of individual designers in your own area with the possibility of collaborating, networking and joining resources. The board above with bonzie designs and Shane O'Neill photography is a perfect example of how two local entities collaborated together to enhance each others business. Showcases such as this one facilitate more of that kind of networking and support system for local designers and individuals trying to carve out their own foothold in the local community.

Guys...on another note. Ger and I have some very exciting news coming soon. We are really looking forward to sharing it with you all in the very near future. The project is currently in motion and gathering speed and we should be in a position to share the launch and details pretty soon!! xxx

Good News!

Left: Ger, Yvonne (me), Regina Mangan, Ciarán Cullen (Waterford City Enterprise Board)

News and Star Newspaper Report on the Awards Conference

Ger and I having received our piece of Crystal ( notice the awestruck expressions! )

Gals,
We are really thrilled to share our recent news with you. Bonzie Designs won it's very first business accolade by scooping up an Award at the South East Female Excellence in Business Awards for the Excellence in Craft/Manufacturing 2010. ( quite a mouthful isn't it!)

It was a lovely day and great to actually get out of the studio for the day and mingle with women in business from all over the South East of Ireland. The conference also hosted motivational speakers including Sean Gallagher ( of RTE Dragon's Den fame) who gave a really warm and genuine talk to a 160 strong gathering. The hugely popular Veronica Canning delivered a side splitting performance whilst all the while inspiring and motivating with her words. Veronica runs a gorgeous motivational company called SHOEISMS ( you had me at hello Veronica, once we saw the shoes on the book cover we were hypnotised)

One of the best parts of the day was the opportunity to network with other like minded women and swap and share experiences, challenges and solutions. It was worth taking a day away from the sewing machines to recharge the mind and feed on the positivity of the event. A warm feeling that would have been worth capturing in a bottle!

A heartfelt Thank You to all of our family and friends who offered their well wishes after the event, it felt great to have so much support! A special Thank You also goes out to the Enterprise Boards for hosting such a fantastic event.

www.bonziedesigns.com