Hello! We’re very proud to be included in not one, but two Christmas Gift Guides on Folksy! Find our Retroviral Mugs in the Gifts for Geeks section, as well as the Best Gifts Under £10 section.
A big thank you to the Folksy team for selecting our products!
Hello! Helena Maratheftis, the founder and designer behind Thefty, has been profiled over on Nomad Design’s ‘Women Mean business’ Blog!
Read the interview for an insight into the design process (and inspiration) that goes into our products.
Thanks for featuring Thefty, Nomad!
Hello! We’ve just restocked the Thefty online shop in time for some Christmas shopping! We’ve got the full range of Retroviral Mugs available, as well as Christmas Cards and art prints. Happy shopping!
Hello! Exciting news alert! As you might have spotted on Facebook and Instagram, Thefty has a new stockist! You can now shop the Retroviral Collection at the super super cool Drink Shop & Do in King’s Cross.
Drink Shop & Do is part cafe, part bar, part shop and part event space (hence the ‘do’ in the name). I’m guessing that many of you Londoners have already been to DSD, but if you haven’t, you now have the perfect excuse! There are always plenty of creative and offbeat events going on, and the products in the shop are just as eclectic as the events list. We’re so excited to be involved.
Head to DSD and have a look…go for the Retroviral Mugs and stay for the cake!
Hello! I’ve been posting on this blog since 2009 (Argh! Six years!) and although I do NOT plan to stop, I’d like to change things up a bit.
Until now, all my creative news has been posted here, whether it be Thefty news, or my personal freelance work. The time has come to separate the two streams. My personal illustration and photography work will now move over to www.HelenaMaratheftis.com, my shiny new portfolio website and blog. You can follow me there on Bloglovin’ if you like, and I hope you come and say hello!
All Thefty-related news will remain right here, so don’t run away!
That’s all from me now, but I’ll be back soon with come exciting news…stay tuned!
Hello! This is a weekly(ish) feature where I share my photos with you. I carry my camera everywhere, and I constantly take pictures of things that excite me. Prepare to see lots of colours and patterns through my lens.
Spring is the season where my camera gets the most action. It’s as though my creative brain comes out of hibernation as soon as the days start getting longer (hallelujah!). Last week I went to my favourite plant nursery and perved on all the beautiful plants. Along with everyone on Instagram and their dog, I do like a succulent or two…but I’m also partial to sherbet-orange petals and rainbow coloured leaves (the last two came home with me, and posed with me for a selfie). #YAYPLANTS
Hello! If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll know that I’ve had a very colourful few weeks! Spring is coming and it’s a total relief to see the days getting longer. Flowers are appearing, as is the sun and the blue sky. Hell-freaking-yes. All this colour and light has put me in a the mood for drawing and decorating, so I’ve been filling up my sketchbook with doodles and filling up my house with patterns and flowers. And, of course, I’ve been packing Retroviral mug orders…which never gets old! Here are a few recent Instagram snaps.
My lovely mug manufacturers Buttercup China attended Spring Fair, the enormous annual gifts and homewares trade show in Birmingham. I was thrilled that Buttercup selected my Retroviral mugs to display on their stand. I dropped by Spring Fair yesterday to say hello to the team, and to ogle the display: Buttercup’s stand is always stunning, what with their giant wall of bone China dinner plates catching your eye from a mile away!
(If my mugs seem a bit different here, you’re right – the display items are samples and the items in my shop look much better!)
Happy new year! It has purely been mugs! mugs! mugs! around here lately, but I’m still drawing and painting as ever. To kick off 2015, I’ve got a super colourful painting to show you. This piece was commissioned by the team at Off the Fence, a TV Production company which celebrated their 20th anniversary in 2014. As part of the anniversary celebrations, I created this A1 piece for the company’s founder, and it is now hanging in the company’s head office in Amsterdam.
Here are some close-ups:
This painting is an assemblage of everything that Off the Fence is, as well as things that OTF’s founder, Ellen Windemuth, loves. After a meeting with the London team, we came up with a long list of things to include, from images of Ellen’s beloved children and pets, to OTF’s worldwide office locations…as well as a rather tongue-in-cheek quote from a colleague which you can see on the blue banner. Off the Fence produces a huge range of non-fiction television, and I incorporated many of its flagship productions into the painting (look closely on the TV screens and you can see some popular titles!).
The bright colours I’ve used are not random: the branding of OTF productions is colour coded according to subject matter, and I thought it was fitting to use their characteristic colour palette in my painting. I hope it’s obvious that I had a lot of funw orking on it, because I did!
Congratulations to Off the Fence for their 20th Anniversary! It was fantastic to be a part of the celebrations.
