When we first started The 3D Room, it was with the intention of producing techie related gadgets that you just couldn’t buy elsewhere.
That was back in 2019 and while we had a bunch of ideas, the designs weren’t really ready. Then purely by chance, we were asked to look at producing fondant embossing stamps by Sara-Beth, one of the local bakers, who also happened to work part time in our local pub.
Having taken a look at the gap-filled, poorly printed stamps she had being buying from Etsy, it was pretty obvious we could do a better job so, we started out producing some by request, soley for her to use in her own baking.
Then, something called ‘Covid’ happened and the World shut down. Bakers who were used to producing big and beautiful cakes for large weddings, birthdays, Christenings and all manner of occasions were having to re-think their businesses. We had already started to put some of the stamp designs on this site and were getting a gentle trickle of orders but, Sara-Beth shared some of her bakes using our stamps on a few Facebook groups and, for want of a better phrase, everything went mad!
We were inundated with orders. To the point where we were getting up in the middle of the night to remove and start new prints just to keep up! The majority of those orders were from Pro bakers who had started producing cupcakes to supplement their missing ‘big cake’ income but it was pretty obvious that lots and lots of home-bakers were doing exactly the same while being locked down at home.
For around 18 months, we produced a many new designs and some quite innovative products.
Order levels were consistent and things were going well but, at the beginning of 2022 there was a marked downturn. We quite understood this. Lock-downs had ceased and the bakers who had adjusted to making cupcakes more fitting to the ‘rule of six’ were able to get back to producing the big and beautiful bakes they were used to. For us, the downturn was massive. Printers that would have been running at least 12 hours a day were sitting idle and no amount of social media posts seem to change the fact that people had just ‘moved on’ or at least back to what they were doing pre-covid.
Fortunately, we had already started to design and produce home automation tablet wall mounts and sales of these were increasing exponentially as word started to spread within the Home Automation community. So, as of mid 2022, the point came where we started to concentrate on our original plan for The 3D Room.
The printers we needed to produce these mounts are larger (or require larger print nozzles) than the ones we used for fondant stamps so we could no longer justify the space those smaller printers consumed. In addition the stock we had built up for over 200 stamp designs took up a surprising amount of space that we could better utilise.
Eventually, we came to the regrettable decision to cease production of stamps and cutters as of November 2022 and, after offering a discount on remaining stock, have now ceased selling those items.
A heart-felt ‘thank you’ to all of the lovely people who purchased our baking related products and thank you for being part of The 3D Room journey.
With love from John and Sal.
