Sometimes in late autumn it can take little while for that festive feeling to arrive, especially with grey clouds above and mildly mulched leaves beneath your feet, but this year feels a little different, weather-wise at least. Not only have we had a couple of frosts by mid-November, we’ve had two days of snow covering the fallen leaves. Winter is not just in the air, it has already arrived.
It’s not just the weather that is fuelling our festive feelings, this season we have introduced the new Brambly Hedge Festive Colouring Book! For many years we have had requests for a colouring book, so we are delighted to be able to provide one for you all.
While the title includes the word ‘festive’, this book takes you on a journey through the changing seasons, from the late summer blackberry harvest, through autumnal adventures in the High Hills, returning to the fireside for hot buttered toast, right through to the snow, ice, feasts, and festivities of Midwinter.
Inside you will find forty eight pages of illustrations and collages upon which to add your artistic flair. The Festive Colouring Book uses a combination of illustrations from Autumn Story, Winter Story, The High Hills, and The Secret Staircase. Whether it’s stringing up crabapples by the fire, the cross section of the Toadflax Hornbeam Tree in the snow, or the Midwinter celebrations around the hearth… we’re sure some of your favourite illustrations will be featured.
We would love to see some of your artistic skills and interpretations, so please do feel free to tag us on Instagram with your Festive Colouring Book creations.
Elsewhere in the publishing world, we have been overwhelmed with the reaction to our new French editions. Throughout 2024 new Les Souris Du Buisson Aux Mûres stories have arrived each season, with Winter Story having just been published. We are pleased to say that the second four Adventures in Brambly Hedge books will now be arriving in France in 2025 along with some new stationery products (which are looking wonderful!).
Back to the festive season though…we have our full range of Christmas card boxes to order from our festive shop, along with a new money wallet card, featuring a scene from The Secret Staircase Midwinter celebrations.
Last December our new Winter Story collage 1000 piece puzzle sold out before the festivities had even began. We’ve had another delivery for this winter, so hopefully we can make it to Christmas this year! In addition two new puzzles, this time 500 piece, are on the way in early 2025, so keep an eye out for those on our page.
If you’re looking for stocking fillers this year we have bookmarks, a writing set, a pencil case, and notebooks available, as well as our hand written gift wrap service if you are short on wrapping time.
Looking ahead to 2025, we have many new items available to help you organise your year. Our first Brambly Hedge Diaries have arrived! These (much requested) organisers will keep you in the right place at the right time, and might just give you a break from you phone screen. At the time of writing, our stock of the yellow A5 diary has completely sold out, but you might still be able to find one from Waterstones. The Brambly Hedge Pocket Diary is still available to order from our website, so we advise you head in that direction fairly swiftly if you want to get your paws on one!
The 2025 Brambly Hedge Calendar is always a good option to keep your wall seasonal throughout the year. We hand pick the twelve featured illustrations each year, swapping, adding, and removing artwork to keep each calendar unique. Again, we tend to run out of stock on these quickly.
What’s in our diary for 2025? Well.. quite a lot actually.
Whilst It’s been great fun bringing Festive Colouring Book together, choosing the illustrations, and creating festive patterns… we did feel it was a shame that some of your favourite illustrations from Spring and Summer could not be featured. However, we are very pleased to announce that the Brambly Hedge Nature Colouring Book will be arriving in spring 2025! More on that in our next update.
Epping Forest has long played an important part in the history of Brambly Hedge, it was where Jill grew up, where many of the trees that inspired Brambly Hedge are located, and now it will be home to a new Brambly Hedge Figurine Trail. The Epping Forest Trail will open in spring 2025, more details to follow in the New Year.
Many of you will have seen that we launched a new Brambly Hedge Trail this year at Abbotsbury Swannery on the Dorset Coast. Thank you to everyone who visited the Trail, we have had some wonderful feedback both from those who attended the Trail and the wonderful team at the Swannery. We are very pleased to announce that in 2025 there will be a new Brambly Hedge Trail at Abbotsbury Swannery, opening in the spring.
There will be many more Brambly Hedge products launching in the coming months, including tea towels and tote bags!
As another year draws to a close, we hope you all get some time to relax and reset… you have strict instructions from us to exert you inner ‘Mr & Mrs Apple by the fireside’ scene from Winter Story!
We hope you have a joyous festive season.
Pete Barklem
Early December 2024
England