It used to infuriate me when I saw adverts for Christmas puddings and shop decorations any before November, it honestly does get earlier every year. But since being at Handpicked, I’ve realised that the people behind the scenes talk about Christmas for months and months beforehand; we’ve been feeling festive since April. I enjoy it, it means that Christmas has a huge build up and the MOST exciting part is happening today.

Every member of our team knows our Christmas catalogue cover to cover, we know every single product back to front and inside out, we know which page its on, how much it costs, what its description says and where it comes from, and today the catalogue gets sent out to all our customers! Ah! Whilst you flick through, we sit on the edge of our seats peering at the phone and we worry endlessly that we’ve chosen silly things that no one will like or that we missed a massive typo on the front cover.

At Handpicked, we really do care a lot about pleasing our customers. We enjoy the process of gift buying and we realise that people come to us to find inspiring ideas all in one place. So hopefully our catalogue will be well received, we won’t have too many disasters and fingers crossed for a white Christmas. But do bear with us, life would be so dull without the unexpected surprises, at least this year, it’s not a Royal Mail strike.

If you have bought from us before, you will receive a catalogue this week. If you haven’t bought anything or your catalogue hasn’t turned up, you can request one here. Or browse online.

Cheap, well-fitting jeans in fun colours cater for the younger market (I think I have three different pairs!) whilst there are simply cut shirts and jackets for the work wardrobe.

Uniqlo’s most recent collaboration with Jil Sander (+J) hits the nail on the head hard when it comes to brand definition. Her collection is made up of clean lines, useful, if somewhat androgenous pieces that are made well and will last a long time.

Here are some of our favourite pieces. We’re due a shopping trip…

The collection will be available in store from the 14th October.

Click here to see the full collection. All images courtesy of Uniqlo.

The trend is not surprising. Does it not define society’s state of mind at the moment? Short sharp bursts of exclusivity that get you top fashion points for five minutes before they go out of style coincide with our short-attention span culture of the moment. It’s a brilliant way to test out just a singular idea and gauge the response, not as much care has to be taken as the whole concept is so temporary.

The Royal Hospital is giving the normal folk the chance to test out there business ideas. If you’ve got an idea that you’ve been sitting on and don’t quite have the balls or financial accessibility, now’s the time. The Royal Hospital and Shaftsbury PLC have pooled their resources and are offering the chance to open you very own temporary pop-up shop in Covent Garden. The shop can be used for anything you want and all you have to do is write a 750 word pitch proposing why you deserve the spot and what you would do with it. Best be quick though; entries have to be in by tomorrow. Send entries to competition@thehospitalclub.com.

We are unbelievably excited that all our lovely customers will be receiving their new Handpicked Collection catalogue over the next few days. We’ve been beavering away for months to source out our new favourite things. The aim of this catalogue is to inspire people to spend more time outdoors with our stunning range of picnic essentials and, new to Handpicked, a whole range of party ideas to help you entertain in style.

All the new products are available on our website at the moment but if you’d rather see the catalogue and all the travel tips, recipes and expert advice that goes with it, click here to request a free copy. It’s full of our new favourite gift ideas, not that we haven’t placed an order for ourselves already.

I’m most excited about our new picnic range. Make sure you’re sorted for any event this summer, be it Wimbledon or Secret Garden Party Festival – we’ve got the kit:

Picnic Blanket/Cushion £13.95Outdoor Tumblers £1.95 each

Wicker Picnic Hamper £59.95

Flower Dotted Metallic Tea Lights £7.95 each

We’ve also expanded our already bulging waistband of outdoor games with some traditional and affordable additions:

Traditional Rounders £17.95Wooden Cricket Set £5.95

Stunt Master Kite £19.95

Plus some beautiful new home accessories:

Curio Cabinet £24.95New range of Zinc Flower Pot, Jugs and Tea Light Holder from £2.95 to £13.95

Nautical Knot Doorstop £29.95

We’ve got hoards of suggestions for the weary traveller. Try an Abahna Mini Bag filled with little bottles of 100ml foam, 100ml lotion and 90g soap, perfect for hand luggage liquid limits.

A Travel Wrap or clever Five Way Poncho make airport halls much cosier if you’ve been stranded.

In our new catalogue (due to land on doormats at the beginning of May) we’ve dedicated a whole three pages to our new Travel Section including lots of essential new products that we’ve already decided we can’t live without. We’ve also asked our Creative Director Amanda, to share her bestest Travel Tips. She’s definitely the person to ask – she has been writing and reviewing all aspects of travel in lots of exciting far flung places for publications such as Red, Brides and House & Garden.

The House…

And the the lake…

Amanda in one of our lovely Deckchairs waiting to shoot our new Silhouettes…

Shooting one of the lifestyle shots – you’ll have to wait for the new catalogue to see which one it is! Click here to request a copy of our current catalogue.

Dan, our Photographer and Amanda checking composition. All the shots take a lot of time to construct. We spent two full days shooting, each day with over 12 hours working. This particular shot took around 3 hours to put together.

We were forever hunting down extension leads for Dan’s equipment so it could reach down to the lake…

We’re all so excited to see all the new products and shots in the new catalogue!