Stained glass firm expands its skills
9:17am Friday 6th November 2009 in News
A COMPANY known for making and repairing stained glass windows is using its creativity to produce bespoke printing on a variety of unusual surfaces.
For the last 20 years Andrew and Corina Seddon who run Classical Glass, have built up a solid reputation for high quality stained glass for homes and historic buildings such as churches.
Now they are launching a new branch of the company called Sunshine, based at the company’s premises on St Helens Road.
They invested more than £7,000 in special printers which can transfer designs, either their own or from clients, to many objects, including mugs, T-shirts, mouse mats, bags and purses — not just glass.
Through a variety of techniques and specialised equipment the Sunshine Personalised Clothing and Photo Merchandise Company brand was set up this summer to offer full colour printed clothing and gifts.
Mr Seddon, who lives in Breightmet, said: “We could see the recession starting to bite and took the view that we could either sit and hold on, waiting for the effects to come and weather the storm, or we could see it as an opportunity to diversify.
“We looked at why our business was successful, we have a highly trained, skilled and motivated team of people, we have well developed IT and web skills, we have a flair for design but we had also some spare capacity within our premises and staff.
“So we looked for an add-on to our existing business that would be a good fit, utilising the skills we already had and would make use of our design back catalogue.
“We decided to invest in the latest digital printing technology that would allow us to produce beautiful vivid full colour images and text into clothing, T-shirts, ceramic mugs, fabric shoulder bags, purses, wallets, mouse mats and many more.
“We have already had enquiries and orders from local councils, colleges, schools, businesses, sports and dance clubs as well as many individual orders for one off birthday gifts.
“We are looking forward to Christmas with the expectation of being overwhelmed with orders for personalised presents.”
The couple have built up their stained glass business from a hobby started by Mr Seddon, who trained as an engineer.
The hobby took over and while his wife worked as a teacher he built up the business which now employs a total of six people and has a turnover of £150,000 a year.
Classical Glas now runs popular stained glass making classes at the store and Mr Seddon often works with children in schools on large stained glass making projects, completing one such project at St Williams school in Great Lever.
