We like to make stuff; so this blog is mainly about the things we make (see what we did there?)
Ed is often found renovating our house and making furniture as well as his ‘proper job’ in Construction. Claire has worked as a freelance Food Photographer, and she is also in charge of cooking and gardening.
We have a son called George and we live in the Amber Valley, Derbyshire, UK. This article in Saveur tells you a bit more about us.
We really like to hear your comments so please leave us a message, especially if you have tried a recipe; let us know how it went.
If you have a question for us mail me at clairejmsutton@gmail.com but please check our press page first for our rules of engagement because, as a rule, we don’t do ads, competitions and sponsorships.
If you’d like to see a video of how we took the portrait above click here.
FirstLightWorks was our design and laser business but we no longer laser cut. Our products are now manufactured and distributed by Lost Art Press in the US. They are available through Classic Hand Tools in the UK.
Things we make 
kavey
August 8, 2009
Hello
Came across your blog in Times Food article. Would like to follow via RSS feed. Do you offer this? Many thanks
thingswemake
August 9, 2009
Hi everyone. After the request above we have now added an RSS feed over to the right. Feel free to subscribe away! Many thanks for all your nice comments.
justine_potter
August 17, 2009
mmmmmmm Beans! when’s the invite? lunch with rain and salty air please!
thingswemake
August 18, 2009
Hi Justine. You are welcome to lunch any time! We just can’t provide salty air. It smells of sweet hay round here at the moment, will that do? Thanks for your hospitality, we hope Eden had a good birthday. Some snaps from Wales here: http://bit.ly/iDemT
Ria
September 18, 2009
Hello Ed n Claire,
It’s my first time here.You guys have a lovely blog! 🙂 Keep up the good job!
xx
Ria
justine_potter
September 30, 2009
just got a multiplatform drama commission with bbc. Some photos needed as some on line and on mobile. Thought of a photographer who might just be interested? Not sure it’s much on the budget side – but happy to put the work your way. Your photos are fab. how are you with live subjects…….. or as it’s about disappearances and mystery – maybe not so live ones?
justine potter
September 30, 2009
wordpress site looks fab- need some tips!
Kaarina
October 23, 2009
First time here from fennel and fern- love your garden! We are pretty much obsessed with great vegetable gardens over here. Wondering what it is on the top of the deck you are building- is that more veggie beds? So very cool.
thingswemake
October 24, 2009
Hi Kaarina. Yes they are 4 raised beds that we have just put in so that I can have some sort of crop rotation and to stop me compacting the soil by stomping all over it in my steel toe cap wellies! Looking forward to planting them up. Thanks for your comment.
Alison
November 2, 2009
Hi Claire. Can you please contact me via email (below) as I can’t find your contact details. I’d like to get in touch regarding possible interview opportunities. Many thanks and apologies for this means of contact!
Jude
May 17, 2010
Hello,
I am an Assistant Producer at ITV Productions and we are currently searching for potential contestants for Britain’s Best Dish. In case you haven’t seen the show before Britain’s Best Dish is an annual competition hosted by ITV for amateur cooks. In it we look for Britain’s best starter, main course and dessert. The winner of the competition receives the accolade of Britain’s Best Dish and takes home a £10,000 cash prize. We’re starting another series in the coming weeks and will be holding our regional auditions in Nottingham on 29th May. As you are clearly a keen foodie you are just the sort of person we are looking for so if you are at all interested in taking part or know anyone who may be interested and haven’t already featured in the Best Dish studio finals, please email ASAP with your name, contact number, and where you’re from to bestdish@itv.com or directly to me at jude.eccles@itv.com and we’ll be in touch soon.
Thanks,
Jude
thingswemake
May 17, 2010
Hi Jude, I am mailing you now.
moortolife
July 2, 2010
Gosh what an inspiring website.
shelagh Richards
August 12, 2010
We’ve got a border terrier called Ernie as well! He is 2 in September.!!
thingswemake
August 13, 2010
Found his piccy on your website! He looks a bit like our Ern too. Your lodge looks lovely.
lifeandtimesofed
August 18, 2010
Hi Claire
Great day today. Ed is very very tired……… and so is his owner !
Hope Ernie is feeling much better.
thingswemake
August 18, 2010
We had a great day too. Ernie is fine, he has had his tea. I think he just exhausted himself! Off to have a look at your new blog now….!
Jules Millar
September 2, 2010
We are also a Border Terrier owner but ours is called Wilf (We have friends with one called Ernie and another Bertie!). We adore Wilf but he can sometimes bring shame on our family name as he likes to terrorise other people’s domestic pets!
On a foodie note – I don’t know whether you are interested, but I would like to send you a delivery of TOTAL Greek Yoghurt, all variants, so that you can experiment with it and perhaps blog about your findings? Perhaps you can come back to me if interested with a best two hour time slot (can be day or eve as we use a supermarket delivery) , your address & phone (for delivery form) and best date? The great thing about TOTAL is it can be used in cooking and the 2% and 10% versions won’t split when heated.
Sally
September 9, 2010
Hi Claire,
FFTO group Sally here. If you can spare a moment I would like your advice. I’m a writer first and foremost not a photographer but would like to improve the latter (I don’t fool myself that I’ll ever have the eye, the patience or the skill to take beautiful pics like yours) and am researching which DSLR camera to buy. Have you any recommendations or tips? Really appreciate if you can reply via the comments or e-mail me. P.S. Rosie and Hazel, my Borders, can’t wait for the cooler weather to come here in Dubai. Cheers
thingswemake
September 9, 2010
Hi Sally – I will mail you!
kirsty
December 13, 2010
We are currently in the initial stages of production for BBC’s ‘The Great British Bake-Off’ series 2 and would really appreciate your help on the series. It would be great if we could advertise on your blog inviting any keen amateur bakers to get in touch with us.
Many thanks for your time and your help.
Best wishes,
Kirsty
Baking@loveproductions.co.uk
http://www.loveproductions.co.uk
thingswemake
January 3, 2011
Hello – what would you want me to do?
valuediversity
December 24, 2010
Excellent site … after seeing this I now know what theme to use for my new blog.
Current blogs include http://www.foxgully.wordpress.com which I may rebuild with this theme as well.
Thank you for the inspiration.
Mike Fox
Neil Hilton
January 3, 2011
Hi Claire and Ed–
My girlfriend and I have been looking at (and drooling over) your blog, as she’s always keen to learn interesting new recipes. We also love the design/theme and were inspired to use it for our travel blog that we are currently in the process of setting up. One question, though–how did you get your multicolor, nonstandard font “things {we} make” header on all the pages? I’ve been trying for over an hour, and I’m still stuck with plain white Times New Roman. Thanks!
Neil
thingswemake
January 3, 2011
Hi Neil. Thanks for your lovely comment! Glad you like it.
I don’t know anything about CSS but I found some helpful people on the forums to help me find the right code. In essence what I did was to save the logo (that I had printed) and saved it in Photoshop as a png (to preserve the transparent background) Then I saved it to the blog media library as a jpg.
Then, bear in mind you need to have a CSS upgrade in place to do this, copied the following into the CSS Stylesheet Editor:
.blog-title {
height:100px;
width:610px;
text-indent:-999em;
background:#ffffff url(‘http://this will be the title of your logo in the media library.jpg’) no-repeat center top;
margin-bottom:20px;
}
.blog-title a {
display:block;
height:100px;
width:610px;
}
I had to change the height and width and margin a dozen times to get the right fit, and obviously the title of the logo media file is the one for my blog and the #fffff is to make it black. To get the logo to work as a hyperlink back to the home page a friend of mine added the display block bit to this too I think.
I hope this helps, I can’t remember if I had to do anything else other than get rid of the sub-heading.
Good Luck!
Claire & Ed
thislittlebirdie
January 10, 2011
Love all the pics on your blog…they’re just beautiful!
thingswemake
January 10, 2011
Thank you thislittlebirdie!
erikamarks
January 12, 2011
What a great place you have here–You had me at food and woodworking. I used to work for Fine Woodworking magazine, and my husband and I build furniture when we can, so I always enjoy seeing such talent–the pieces are beautiful, as are the photographs.
Best wishes!
dasturmas
January 29, 2011
I’m using a wordpress theme like yours. I wonder how you managed to put a picture in the header? can you help me?? my e-mail: laragi2@yahoo.com.br
Tim Whitemore
February 6, 2011
I found your blog via a twitter link & I love what {you} do! I’ll be visiting regularly.
Tim
thingswemake
February 6, 2011
How very kind. Thank you Tim.
Fábio S. Ribeiro
February 17, 2011
Hi! Sorry to bother you, but can you tell me how did you customized the header of this blog using this theme (Inuit Types)?
I’m asking because I want to use this theme at my blog, but I also want to put a picture at the header, and I couldn’t find a way to customize it…
thingswemake
February 17, 2011
Hi, I have had a few people asking about this so I wrote a post about it: http://wp.me/pxmpF-R7. I hope it helps! Let me know. Claire
California Restaurants
March 29, 2011
Wow, this was very interesting to read. Have you ever considered submitting articles to magazines?
Rufus' Food and Spirit Guide
April 4, 2011
Hey there. Love reading the blog. Would you mind if I mention it in a post on versatile bloggers?
thingswemake.co.uk
April 4, 2011
Of course! I will mail you in case you don’t spot this comment.
Rufus' Food and Spirit Guide
April 4, 2011
Cool. It’ll go up sometime this week.
Rachel Parnell
May 3, 2011
Hi Claire,
Love the website, just spent a good hour browsing! Would be good to catch up, it has been soooooo long.
Karla
June 5, 2011
What a lovely site you have! And I love the recipes. Scrumptious!
I have a strange question for you… I’m creating a WordPress blog with Inuit Types theme, just like yours. I was wondering how you managed to keep your customized image header (Things We Make) in ALL your pages. I customized my own title, but the image only shows up on the Front Page. Your help would be much appreciated!
Thanks,
Karla
thingswemake.co.uk
June 5, 2011
Hi Karla, thanks for the comment. I don’t think I did anything special to make it stay on each page, all I did is the process that you can read in this post and that’s how it came out: https://thingswemake.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/wordpress-customisation/ I hope that helps!
Claire
George Kobayashi
June 5, 2011
Hi Ed, I saw the plane that you made and I am impressed. Did you make the cap iron and the cap screw? I am trying to find a knurled knob like yours for a plane that I want to make.
Keep up the good work, Thank you
Ed
June 11, 2011
Hi George,
I made the lever cap and the cap screw for the plane, both using my ancient metalworking lathe. Some years ago I tried to find knurled thumbscrews for some marking gauges I was making and drew a blank, which is what led me to buy a lathe and make my own. Have a go, it’s not that difficult.
Ed.
Karla
June 7, 2011
Thank you Claire!!
Chadwick Playle
June 23, 2011
I just added this website to my feed reader, great stuff. Can not get enough!
Silvia Escruela Martos
July 8, 2011
Hi! Sorry to bother you, I’m Silvia from Recip.ly, a company who has created a web tool for online recipe bloggers and publishers to use on their food sites. Our tool allows people visiting websites to purchase all the ingredients required for a recipe on your site with a single click. Can you email me at silvia@recip.ly to explain you how it works.
Many thanks,
Silvia
thingswemake.co.uk
July 8, 2011
Hi Silvia – thanks for your comment, but this is not something I am able to look at just at the moment.
Robert Worthy
August 17, 2011
Your blog is great!
We are interested in advertising on your website.
Please could you email the different options available and their associated costs.
Alternatively in exchange for a link we would be willing to post a blog or link on our website: gardenfurniturecentre.co.uk
I look forward to hearing from you.
thingswemake.co.uk
August 21, 2011
Thank you for your comment and your interest, but out blog in solely for pleasure and we don’t take adverts.
bajamerson
March 28, 2012
i’ve nominated your blog for the versatile blogger award, if you wish to take this award check my post for the “rules”:
http://wheretheindigosare.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/my-first-blog-nomination/
congrats!
Mayank
April 27, 2012
Subscribing to your awesome blog. Thanks
SarahJ
April 30, 2012
Hi there! I’ve been following your blog for a while and I really love your creativity. Your posts and pictures always make me smile and inspire me to get up and make something creative. I’ve decided to nominate you for the Versatile Blogger Award. http://curiouscuisiniere.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/versatile_blogger_award/
Donna Evans
May 3, 2012
Hi,
I found your blog about the Raspberry Ice squares, but could not find the recipe. Can you tell me how to access the recipe from your website as I would like to make it for my daughters wedding.
thingswemake.co.uk
May 4, 2012
Hi Donna
I chose not to include the recipe as it is copywright of Dan Lepard. There is a link to his book in the post. It’s definitely worth getting. It’s a fabulous book.
lemonylove
May 18, 2012
Hello,
What a lovely blog! Weirdly, my husband is also called Ed and is furniture designer and I have a baking blog ( http://www.lemonylovesbaking.com ). Ive just added you to my blogroll!
Look forward to popping by regularly! Lemony x
Emily Cooks Vegan
May 25, 2012
I’ve nominated you for the One Lovely Blog award, congratulations 🙂
Emily x
http://emilycooksvegan.com/2012/05/25/one-lovely-blog-award/