: The Shop Blog

The days are getting longer and we’re feeling inspired by our great new Treasures exhibition. Let us help you begin your adventure with our top 5 exhibition gifts. 

1. Fire starter

Need to get things burning? Gentlemen's Hardware makes things easier with their glorious firestarter gadget – a safe and simple tool that creates a spark to start your fire when camping or out in the wild.

2. Lost Cities board game

The research teams are outfitted and ready to embark on their adventures to find five forgotten cities. Who will lead the way to fantastic discoveries?

3. Food flask

The adventure can begin with this black flask that provides ample room to keep soups or smoothies warm or cool. With a stainless steel lid hiding a screw top lid that keeps the contents secure and prevents heat loss, making the perfect gift.

4. Archaeology Kit

Learn the basics of carefully recording and unearthing treasures of the past.

5. Prisoners of the Sun (The Adventures of Tintin)

The Adventures of Tintin continue to charm more than 80 years after they first found their way into publication. Since then an estimated 230 million copies have been sold, proving that comic books have the same power to entertain children and adults in the 21st century as they did in the early 20th.

Thank you to everyone who voted in our Christmas card completion this year and thank you to our curators, librarians and archivists across our seven Museums who delved deep into the collections to come up with new ideas.

These are the seven winners. We will be going to print very soon so keep an eye on the online shop. Or pop into any of our shops where they will be on sale along with this year’s Museum calendar and lots of other great Christmas gift ideas.

[update - voting is now closed, thanks to all who took part and look out for the winners very soon!]

Christmas Comes Early - When You're the One Designing the Cards

As summer comes to an end we are busy working on our 2015 Christmas cards and would like your help.

Amgueddfa Cymru-National Museum Wales has the most wonderful and diverse collections and we like to take inspiration from them when producing our Christmas cards.

Our curators have been scoring the collections looking for objects, paintings, photographs and specimens that shout Christmas and we have selected some images as potential cards for this year.

Help Us Choose - Vote For Your Favourite

We’d like you to help us make our final choice of six by voting for your favourite three images.

Natural History Collage 1

Natural History Collage 2

Natural Sciences Collage 3

These images have been created by the Digital Imaging Officer in our Natural Science Department. Look closely and you’ll see that these snowflakes and tree are not what they seem.

Quilt 1 (Hexagons)

Quilt 2 (Triangles)

Red and white applique quilts from the textile collections at St Fagans National History Museum. The red used is usually referred to as Turkey red!

Pine Cone Illustration

This pine cone is botanical illustration from our Natural Sciences department at National Museum Cardiff.

Welsh Woman by John Thomas

This photography of a Welsh lady comes from our photographic archive at St Fagans National History Museum, and was taken by John Thomas, an early travelling photographer.

Calennig

This photograph shows children enjoying the Welsh tradition of Calennig, a celebration of New Year. It is from the photographic archive at St Fagans National History Museum.

Robin (Taxidermy)

This beautiful piece of taxidermy of a robin is from our Natural Science collections.

Turkeys

This illustration of turkeys by Pierre Belon comes from our Library at National Museum Cardiff.

History of British Birds 1

History of British Birds 2

These two beautiful illustrations from the History of British Birds 4th edition and was suggested by our Librarians at National Museum Cardiff.

Poinsettia

This striking poinsettia image is also from our Library at National Museum Cardiff.

Star Map from the 1500s

Another suggestion from our Library, this is an illustration from a C16th star map.

Christmas Wreath

A photograph of a Christmas wreath hung on the door of St Fagans Castle.

Hand-Knitted Socks

A row of hand knitted sock from the textile collections at St Fagans National History Museum.

Which one is your favourite? Don't forget to cast your vote!

We are celebrating our new exhibition Chalkie Davies the NME Years with some great new products.

Catalogue

A 54 page catalogue containing over 40 plates of photographs from Ziggy era Bowie through to the Two Tone movement and Punk and beyond. The book’s introduction is by acclaimed journalist Jon Savage.

Postcard Box

Chalkie Davies has chosen 24 of his photographs for this box of postcards. This set of portraits include subjects as diverse as The Ramones, Dolly Parton, the Sex Pistols and Elton John and span Chalkie’s work during the late 1970s and 1980s.

Design: Barney Bubble Estate

Poster

An A1 sized exhibition poster featuring a striking image of Lemmy from Motorhead.

Magnet Sets

Two sets of themed magnets featuring David Byrne and Julian Cope and The Specials and John Lydon.

Camera Jewellery

Whether you used a Kodak Instamatic or a Polaroid Supercolour you’ll love these fun pieces of jewellery from Ladybird Likes.

We’re getting excited about attending the upcoming gift buying shows in Birmingham and London in the next couple of weeks.  It feels crazy but we’ll be doing our order for Christmas 2015 decorations while we’re there!

The Spring shows are where our suppliers launch their new product ranges and are a great way to spot trends for the season. We try to find all of the Welsh companies at the show and make sure we visit their stands and find companies that we can work with to develop exclusive products for the Museum shops.

We found a great new company at last year’s shows. Here’s a sneak preview of an exclusive range that will be in the shops in the Spring. We love the dark denim and think it works so well with the super bright print.

Keep checking the shops and online shop to see the new product ranges coming through.