ABOUT THE TINKERPORIUM

Hi I am Lauren, owner, maker and creator behind The Tinkerporium, it's nice to meet you and welcome to my store.

I started The Tinkerporium as a Steampunk accessory shop, back in 2014, but when Covid hit in 2020 I made a few massive changes, I had already been drawing a lot and was working on some surface designs which was one of my dreams, so I just ran with it, designed my first dice bag, then the next and more. 

At my core I like to make items that help to organise and aid TTRPG game play.

So when I first started playing D&D during lock down and was presented with a character sheet that scrambled my brain, my next project was creating an easier more intuitive way to journal and along came my first character book and some notebooks. 

Since then I have been tweaking and expanding my products to make them the best they can be.

Below you can find out about my business's core values and find out a little bit more about me...

Skill card for my cleric Daisy using my cleric dnd 5 e skill card packs and a campaign journal to hold her character info

  • ORIGINAL DESIGNS

    All drawn and created especially for my products.

    MY ARTWORK

    It's really important to me that all the artwork and design I use for my products, be that surface patterns, fonts, layouts, advertising and even product patterns are original.

    Not just for legal reasons but because I wanted to build a business based on creativity and originality and that means definitely no AI and no copying.

    I create my drawings, surface designs and layouts from scratch using my imagination, some reference images and my many years of art skills, that I am definitely still working on. My surface patterns can take days to draw up with many many revisions.

    INSPIRATION

    I am inspired by fantasy books, fairy tales, films like 'The Lord of the Rings' and other amazing stories, but I don't do fan art or use these to make a collection as I feel that creating my own art and stories is important. I get my ideas for new collections sometimes completely at random and others are ideas from my kid, or a sparked idea from a character I have created for another game.

    WHAT I USE

    At the moment I use a Huion Drawing tablet and Clip Studio Paint to create my designs.

  • HAPPY CUSTOMERS

    I love to make sure my customers are really happy.

    WHY?

    It makes me happy to know that my products are useful and helping people. I wanted to create products that are durable and useful as well as pretty

    HOW

    how we create happy customers

  • GREAT MATERIALS

    Consciously sourced companies & materials.

    PRINTED FABRICS

    My printed fabrics are made and finished in Europe. The fabric is OEKO-TEX 100 certified polyester canvas, which means it has been independently tested to ensure it does not contain over 300 harmful substances. The certification covers every stage of production up until the point they are
    printed here in the UK.

    The fabric is printed using OEKO-TEX Eco Passport certified ink which means it has been independently checked to ensure it does not contain chemicals that are harmful to human health.

    The company I use to print my fabrics is a small independent company that is growing and has aims to operate a sustainable textile print on demand service with minimal impact on the environment by revolutionising the way people make and buy printed textiles.

    For my other materials I am for quality from local sources or reputable small online stores.

    PAPERS

    I aim to use where possible FSC approved, recycled or recyclable papers and card for all my products and any ordered in marketing materials.

  • ECOPORIUM

    Helping the planet as much as I can.

    MY AIM

    The environment and my footprint are very important to me, I am not a fan of disposable fashion, and I don't like throwing things away if I can help it.

    My aim is to make my products strong enough to last by choosing more durable fabrics, double stitching the hems and reinforcing the straps.

    If the product is for limited use I aim to use materials that are compostable or recyclable.

    I also aim to work with suppliers and wholesalers who are equally eco conscious and source materials that are created with as little impact as possible or use creative solutions from reusing, reducing and recycling.

    I may not always be able to do this as things like laminating books may use plastic but it also makes the book last longer, but it feels good to try and make a change.

    NO ISSUE ECO PACKAGING ALLIANCE

    We have joined Noissue's Eco Packaging Alliance to support the use of eco friendly, bio degradable and recyclable packaging to help the environment. For every order with Noissue they will plant a tree on your behalf.

    I am doing my best to send out all my orders in eco friendly packaging.

    So far all my outer packaging envelopes and boxes are recyclable, we use recycled paper and paper tape and our clear film bags are bio degradable.

ABOUT ME

A few little things about me, well I draw, play TTRPG's, I love films, gaming (board games, computer games and rpgs), anime and good fantasy stories. All of these things inspire my different fabric and graphic designs.

All the best, I hope you find what your looking for.

Lauren