Housewarming gift ideas

Handmade Housewarming Gift Ideas

The perfect housewarming gifts balance practicality and aesthetics, items that can be used daily or add ambience to the look and feel of a room.

A good housewarming gift is something for the home rather than the occasion — a piece that gets used regularly or finds a permanent spot on a shelf or mantelpiece, something that adds warmth or character to a room they're still making their own. If they're moving in from scratch, practical and good-looking in equal measure. If they're arriving with a full removals lorry, something with a bit of ambience or a story behind it tends to land better than something purely decorative.

Everything here is made from reclaimed or foraged materials — wood that already had a life before it came into the workshop. The tealight holder started as a forked hazel branch, coppiced at Tyley Bottom in Gloucestershire. The wall art is built from slices of mixed native species — oak, hazel, ash, birch — cut from reclaimed logs and assembled into a mosaic on a backboard made from a 30-year-old gate. The candle holder is reclaimed cutlery and an old fence post. None of it is mass produced and none of it will turn up in anyone else's front room.

Wood Slice Heart with Fairy Lights & Pyrography

Wood Slice Heart with Fairy Lights & Pyrography

£51.95

This is a charming heart shaped wood slice mosaic with fairy lights interwoven between the slices and has a hand burned wood slice featuring a little gonk. It is the perfect housewarming gift for lovers of rustic and natural decor with a touch of whimsy. Mounted on a back board of reclaimed wood that started life as a wooden pallet some 40 years ago and then became a garden gate for 30 years, there’s oodles of character in the wood.

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Vintage Fork & Spoon Candle Holder

Vintage Fork & Spoon Candle Holder

CH-005

£29.95

These candle holders always go down well and they make the perfect gift for a housewarming. The kind of thing that prompts a question about where it came from. The base is part of an old fence post from my own garden and the candleholders are made from vintage cutlery — a matching fork and spoon bent by hand and fixed flush into the wood with reclaimed nails and copper wire. It holds a standard taper candle and when lit, the cutlery catches the soft light from the candle.

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Rustic Wood Slice Wall Art

Rustic Wood Slice Wall Art

£51.95

This tree design wood slice mosaic is made from mixed native species — oak, hazel, ash, birch, hawthorn — sliced from logs and sticks found close to home and laid out on a backboard made from the same gate as item two in this list. Fairy lights run through the piece and it has sturdy picture wire and hardware on the back for wall mounting. A great housewarming gift for lovers of nature and rustic decor, it works best in a room with natural materials or warm tones — exposed beams, stone, or bare plaster. At £51.95 it's a substantial handmade housewarming gift for someone who likes things with a bit of history and rustic charm.

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Rustic Forked Hazel Tealight Holder with Fairy Lights

Rustic Forked Hazel Tealight Holder with Fairy Lights

£85.95

This is a proper centrepiece for a natural or rustic interior, and the kind of handmade housewarming gift that can be used daily and really adds to the ambience of a room. It is certainly a conversation piece. The log is a forked hazel branch that was coppiced at Tyley Bottom in Gloucestershire and features seven tealight hollows cut into the wood with fairy lights set into each one and the resin has gold and silver leaf flecks running through it. The light given off from this piece and the way it plays on the form of the log is gorgeous, especially as a centrepiece on a dining or coffee table. You can also hang it on the wall and just use the fairy lights

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FAQs

Something that suits a room rather than an occasion — a hand made piece that can be put on the wall or coffee table, something that can enhance a space, or create ambience, and will last for years. Handmade pieces in natural materials tend to work across different interiors because they don't follow a trend - nature is timeless.

The pieces here work best in homes that lean towards natural materials, rustic or Scandinavian interiors, or anything with exposed wood or stone. They're less at home in a very minimal or industrial space.

Most of my wood comes from 100 Acer Wood Conservation Project at Tyley Bottom in Gloucestershire, just a mile or so from the Bough & Burrow studio - hazel and willow wood comes from coppicing and wood from other species is windfall or the by-product of woodland management. I also get given quite a lot of wood by a handful of locals. The wood slice pieces come from mixed native species logs — oak, hazel, ash, birch, willow — sourced locally. The wood slice mosaics were built from our old 30 year old garden gate that was made from pallets circa 1995. Nothing is bought from a timber merchant and most of the wood hasn’t travelled more than 2 miles from source to studio.

Yes — every piece is made by hand with minimal power tools (a drill and a chop saw) in my garden workshop in Wotton-under-Edge in the Cotswolds. No two pieces are identical. I do buy in fairy lights and hanging hardware for pieces that are meant to be hung on a wall.

Yes - get in touch once you’ve placed your order and let me know your requirements for a message.