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A visit to family in Edinburgh was all it took for Newry couple Trudy and Gerry Crawley to start up their own business, making locally reclaimed slates into highly desirable items including Table Place Mats and Candle Holders.
And so Etalslate was born on the 17th of November 2013, juggling the business with looking after their two children aged three and one in their home at 14 Cochrane Road in Newry. They haven’t looked back since.
This week they have launched their new Hearts Range just in time for Valentines Day. A perfect special unique gift for your loved one. The range includes Heart Candle Holders, Heart Tea Stand and Heart Memo boards or if you have a special request they will try to fulfil it. All they ask is that you get your orders in early.
While in Edinburgh they had spotted really expensive slate products for sale in a boutique style shop and it got them thinking there was no reason they couldn’t locally make similar items at a more reasonable cost.
On arriving home they went to a salvage yard to find slate for their first products and more recently they’ve sourced slate from the Canal Street area of Newry.
Gerry’s father worked on building sites for many years and was a great help in pointing him in the right direction, with tips for cutting slates and outlining the equipment needed. In the beginning there were a lot of breakages, the brittle nature of slate proving difficult to master but as their experience grew the number of breakages reduced dramatically.
Their first product was a Cheeseboard for Trudy’s brother’s partner in Edinburgh and from that, word got out and the Snowball effect began with many people requesting specific products.
At present the range includes Candle Runners for 3 or 5 Tealights, A Square Cake Stand, A Vintage Tea for Two Cake Stand, Coasters, Placemats, Cheeseboards including a Bespoke Wave shaped Cheeseboard and Dip Boards.
Talking about the initial few weeks Gerry comments “A few people got in touch with us via our Facebook page and asked us to do a couple of local fairs. We did some of them and the response was just incredible”
Before Christmas they had stalls at Fairs at Orana, Newry Banqueting Centre, the Canal Court Hotel and Barr Parish Church. The amount of sales from the Barr night alone really surprised them and they found themselves sold out really quickly.
As Trudy says “Needless to say before Christmas we were absolutely shattered and up till all hours at night trying to get all these pieces ready” Meanwhile Gerry spent his time confined to a shed cutting piece after piece to fulfil orders.
All products start with selecting the optimum slate and then hand cutting it to a particular size and shape. After that it’s thoroughly washed and dried and coated with a food safe oil finish and all attachments added before packaging.
With the obvious level of interest after a few weeks it was “Hold on, we’re really going to have to take this seriously. I think in the space of five or six weeks we had 128 pieces sold!” Gerry said.
Trudy adds “We got in touch with Invest NI and Go For It and they have helped us with Business Plans with the view of getting funding for business premises. We’re quite positive about all of that and our contact in Invest NI was very very keen on the idea and he could see good forward projections for the business. He was very delighted which in turn made us very delighted.”
Already local Restaurant The Sugar Supper Club in Newry’s Sugar Island has their products in use, serving steaks on the slate so to speak and Gerry and Trudy are very happy seeing their products in use at a local quality venue.
Etalslate can be contacted via their Facebook Page at www.facebook.com/etalslate or ring Gerry at 078 5199 5683
