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The Best Stocking Fillers from Small Businesses in 2021

The next guide in my bumper Christmas gift guide for 2021 is stocking fillers! Keep everyone happy this year with these cute and affordable stocking fillers for all.


stocking fillers gifts cute items novelty presents christmas

I've put together just some of my favourite little gifts, from small businesses in 2021 which include novelty keychains, skin care pick me ups and much much more.


I would love to see what stocking fillers you have chosen for this year, you can't go wrong with something so cute and affordable can you? Don't forget to tag me and the brand over on Instagram, you can find me at @small_business_collaborative.



Jeff and the Squirrel sustainable prints and badges gifts stocking fillers

Jeff and the Squirrel

Eco friendly and sustainable greeting cards, stationery and pins that put a smile on your face!


Jeff and "Squirrel" are Stevie's furry babies! Jeff is a 6.5kg whingey floof (or just a huge bear to be fair). He loves boxes, belly rubs, drinking from the tap and laying in the sunshine. Georgia is a tiny chirpy thing who gets the zoomies four times a day. Stevie and Alex rescued her from a local charity when she was around 6 months old, after she was taken in as feral. She loves winding Jeff up, eating, playing and licking doors. She walks around with her tail bent over her back, hence the name Squirrel!


I meet Stevie during the lockdown when she just started her business on one of my Fika sessions and it's been such a joy to see her business grow. Her designs are fun and so cute and her wooden badges and biodegradable pins would make brilliant stocking fillers.


Fun Fact from Stevie: I am the face behind Jeff and the Squirrel, as well as the designer, the researcher, the content creator, the accountant, the order packer and the post office runner... okay, okay, sometimes my other half, Alex does the post office runs! Jeff and the Squirrel was born during the Coronavirus pandemic in March 2020 as my wedding photography business had essentially been shut down overnight. I'd wanted a stationery business for a couple of years leading up to it but never found the time. Honestly, sometimes I think lockdown was a blessing in disguise!


Price Range: £1- £10



Urbee bee insect gifts

Urbee

Urbee is a little urban bee with a vision to help and support the plight of bees and pollinating insects. Cherisse design and sell lovely products for people, homes & gardens with sustainability as a key target, we are committed to helping the environment.


Urbee is short for ‘Urban Bee’ and the company arose from Cherisse's love of wildlife and the natural world. Cherisse designs are based on the Scandinavian style, which focuses on simple shapes, nature and clean lines.


Most items are made in the UK, the candles are hand-poured in the UK, gift sets have eco-friendly and reusable packaging.


Bees are having a real moment and I hope it's not a trend. Businesses like Urbee is helping to raise awareness and raising funds and I'm all for it + Cherisee products are really pretty, my favourite is the mug to the right above.


Fun Fact from Cherisse: Hi, my name is Cherisse... I am from a little corner of South East London and living on the edge of an urban jungle, I appreciate the need more than ever to have natural habitats around us. Places where bees can forage and thrive. Places where they can keep doing what they are on this earth to do. Through my products, I hope to aid in their conservation by not only raising awareness but also donating 10% of all profits to 'Buglife' – a wonderful conservation charity that does incredible things for pollinating insects.


Price Range: £2.75- £36

Website: www.urbee.co.uk/

Follow: @urbee_ltd



Childstar Samantha playful sassy cat gifts

Childstar Samantha

Childstar Samantha creates playful designs to make people smile! Sassy cats and typographic designs, plus a few jungle vibes are available as art prints, stationery, homeware gifts, clothing and jewellery. Sam loves to draw people and animals and play around with colours and patterns! She also gets all hot under the collar about awesome music, sparkly words (especially foreign languages) and the magic of the sea.


Offering lots of eco-friendly gifts in non-plastic packaging, Childstar Samantha is carbon positive and plants a tree for every sale. Made in the UK, high quality, eco-friendly, non-plastic packaging.


How cute are these decks? They would brighten up any tree and can bar the ones with the Santa hat they can also be used all year round. Samantha has so many fun designs in her shop that you're sure to find some great gifts and stocking fillers.


Fun Fact from Samantha: Bonjour! My name’s Sam and I love to create playful designs that make people smile. Welcome to my world of COLOUR🌈, LOVE💖 and JOY😃 (with a side order of sassy kitty cats🐯)! Whether you are looking for art prints, home accessories or clothing, I have the perfect gift for you! Many of my designs are personalisable and can be gift wrapped, plus I’m always open to custom requests...


Price Range: £5- £50



Stitchfinity cross stick kit gifts

Stitchfinity


Stitchfinity sells fun and colourful cross stitch kits and they have something for the complete beginner up to designs for the experienced stitcher who loves something to get their teeth into.


Stitchfinity started when Alison and Annie, a couple of mates decided to go into business together creating the kind of cross-stitch kits they’d love to stitch. So they gathered their favourite materials, packaged them in something they'd love to open and designed fun, colourful, bright and modern patterns. It worked out rather well! Not least because it gives them a great excuse to get together every week. Alison and Annie hope you love stitching them as much as they love creating them.


I meet Alison and Annie at Harrogate Home and gift earlier this year and loved their energy and their kits. I made the lobster one and it's so cute! All of Alison and Annie's kits would make excellent stocking fillers to get crafty on those quiet day's between Christmas and New Years.


Fun Fact from Alison and Annie: Stitchfinity is run by Alison and Annie. Annie is the blue sky thinker who has the brilliant ideas but Alison makes sure all the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed. On the plus side, we both love wine. And laughing. Mainly at each other.


Price Range: £7- £22



Lucky Cloud Skincare eco friendly vegan friendly beauty gifts

Lucky Cloud Skincare

Lucky Cloud Skincare is a vegan-friendly & eco-conscious skincare brand. Get your confidence back and the skin you've always dreamed of!


Products are all formulated and manufactured by Lucy right here in the UK. More specifically, Edinburgh, Scotland. Everything is handmade in small batches, so there is quality control and minimal waste. From the initial spark of a new product through to development, testing and the finished item it’s all handled in Lucy's workshop.


Each ingredient is chosen for its specific properties that help, improve and feed your skin. No fillers, no one-stop-shop for all skin types and no limitations on the number per product. Each ingredient must provide outstanding benefits to your skin otherwise there’s no point.


Over the last few year's I've been enjoying discovering more natural and more consciously made skincare and Lucky Cloud definitely fits the bill. Lucy Cloud products look so pretty and would make the perfect stocking filler for anyone.


Fun Fact from Lucy: As the founder, maker and owner of Lucky Cloud I have first-hand knowledge of what it’s like to have sensitive and painful eczema-prone skin that makes you want to curl up into a ball and hide; I was sick and tired of wasting money, energy and tears on mass-produced products that not only didn’t help heal my skin but sometimes made things worse. So I created my own products!


Price Range: £6-£23



Maragold Designs luxury everyday gift accessories

Maragold Designs

Maragold Designs is a luxury everyday accessories brand based in London. Julianna design and create each and every bag and accessory by hand from a selection of carefully sourced, beautiful quality materials, using both traditional hand-stitching and machine stitching processes. ‘Quality over quantity’ is at the heart of everything she creates through an emphasis on functionality, minimal design, the reinterpretation of timeless materials, and intentionally small batch production to limit waste and promote conscious consumption.


Made primarily with Italian vegetable tanned leathers from Tuscany, which are a by-product of the food industry, and Burel wool. Together, these natural materials are wonderfully tactile, reliably durable and will stand the test of time developing even richer character as they are used.


I love gifting pieces that can last a long time and Julianna's collection of accessories would make excellent stocking fillers and the bigger pieces such as her bags would make for great main gifts to.


Fun Fact from Julianna: Burel wool comes from a small factory that went bankrupt due to the rise of synthetic materials in the 60’s and was only recently revived in the early 2000’s. The revival has helped preserve an ancestral, artisan heritage in the region and restored jobs to the remote, mountainous area. With a great respect for nature, the factory has very high sustainability standards, zero waste policy and works with local shepherds whose sheep graze in the mountains, are treated well and are sheared manually. It's story is just as rich as it is to the touch and has become a distinction of my brand.


Price Range: £8- £265



Aloë Earrings fashion earring gift limited editions

Aloë Earrings

Playful limited edition fashion earrings inspired by plants, pattern, travel and colour. Small batch designs are lovingly created by Alice and Chloe from their small studio in Liverpool. They believe there's a pair of Aloës for everyone from everyday wears to statement pairs or the perfect gift for your favourite babe.


Alice and Chloe are lovers of print, pattern, plants and colour. Globally influenced, they love to travel and it's a big inspiration in their design process. They love to experiment with materials using a mix of hand-painted polymer clay, hand-poured resin, mother of pearl, tortoiseshell and hammered brass. All the pieces are made in small-batch styles and are diverse in designs. Due to their handcrafted nature, no two pieces are ever the same.


Can you ever have too many earrings? I don't think so, and because Alice and Chloe doesn't restrict themselves to a few colours or materials you can be sure to find something that takes your fancy from their range.


Fun Fact from Alice and Chloe: Travel and fashion brought us together 10 years ago in Amsterdam whilst studying Fashion Design & Marketing. After a decade of friendship and working within the fashion industry as Designers for the highstreet we decided to have some fun and create our own indie brand making gorgeous earrings we love to wear. Aloë was born poolside on a holiday together in Madrid in 2019.


Aloë is Alice and Chloe and we love to decorate your ears.


Price Range: £10- £16



Handmade by Tinni gift handmade earrings fashion

Handmade by Tinni

Handmade by Tinni is all about sustainability and joyful colour. Founder Paulomi creates colourful, bold designs that bring joy & inspire ethical living. Each piece is made by Paulomi by hand in London.


Paulomi's design inspiration comes from the bright colours of nature, amazing places that she has travelled to over the years and most importantly from the rich heritage of India.


Earings and jewellery make for great stocking fillers and I love how vibrant and colourful Paulomi's pieces are. Even if the world is opening up I am sure we will continue spending some of our working time on Zoom and these bold pieces would brighten up any virtual call.


Fun Fact from Paulomi: £10- £40



Bloom Puzzles fun puzzling gift

Bloom Puzzles

Bloom jigsaw puzzles, which promote talented artists while giving something back, paired with lovely extras to take your puzzle time to the next level.


Bloom puzzles are made in Britain from thick, environmentally responsible board with a lovely matt finish, which avoids reflection under artificial light. The boxes are beautifully made, again in Britain, and are a pleasure to touch. The elegant sleeves showing the puzzle image (printed in Britain!) slide off to allow you to use both the lid and the base of the box for puzzle piece sorting, and will stand up by themselves for easy reference.


During the lockdown, I got really into jigsaw puzzles, in-particular over Christmas. It's such a calming activity and makes for a beautiful Christmas gift.


Fun Fact from Philippa: I have always loved a good jigsaw puzzle, losing myself in the challenge of bringing order to chaos, but have struggled to find fresh, modern yet interesting puzzle images. For me, it's all in the details and the story. My gift to myself each Christmas has been the opportunity to take time out with a jigsaw puzzle, enjoying a cup (glass?!) of something accompanied by the scent of a candle and some festive music. It occurred to me over Christmas 2019 that this lovely, relaxing combination would work just as well all year round and that's how it all started.


Price Range: £25- £50


If you'd like to see the full Christmas gift guide for 2021 please visit this link.


Did you find any extra stockkng fillers from this guide? I hope these unique and lovely gifts help you to complete your Christmas shopping (or maybe just start!?)


I would love to hear if you have supported any of the small businesses featured so don't forget to tag me over on Instagram, @small_business_collaborative.


Thank you once again to all the 260+ businesses that took the time to apply to this year's gift guides, I really appreciate you all and it was so much fun put it together and to see everything you do. And thank you to Adele who helped me put this together. If you need help with your online product listings for Etsy, Faire, NOTHS, Shopify and more, Adele can help. You can find all your details on her website.



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