Bob Oswald and Badges4You.co.uk

I first started trading in 1994 when I was made redundant after many years in the travel industry and quality management. But while waiting for "real" work I indulged one of my hobbies and restored some old toys bought from a jumble sale. Friends and relatives offered good money for my work, so I started taking bits and pieces to craft fairs, charity events, school sales and so on. After a year or two, I found that the demand for certain items was outstripping the supply, and that's when I started designing and making my own range of boxed board games, toys and wooden badges.

The business was originally called "Oswald the Toymaker", then it became Wooden-Games.Com when the domain name became available, because the games were the most popular products at that time. Badges were originally sold on the Wooden Games website, but sales soon increased to a level where a single page was not really enough to display the range of badges available. In 2003 the site was called Wooden-Badges.co.uk and was dedicated to badges made of plywood or MDF board. When I started making badges from acrylic Perspex™offcuts from a plastics factory I changed the name again to Badges4You.co.uk.

The business bumbled along for a couple of years without any significant increase in work until I redesigned the website early in 2005 and introduced the Badge Gallery. I was very fortunate that Yahoo UK featured the site as an example of good web design. This resulted in a very high placement in the Yahoo directory and search engine. Since then badge-making has become one of my main occupations. The badges are proving particularly popular with hospital, health care and nursery staff.

Badges4You UK is basically a retirement hobby business run from home and financed from private resources. I design and maintain the website on my own, I find my own materials and supplies, I create the artwork from scratch by sketching and computer graphics, I make all the badge blanks in my own workshop, and I do all my own painting and finishing work in a spare bedroom converted into a mini-studio.

I couldn't face the prospect of reaching retirement age, switching off my brain and vegetating in front of the TV in my autumn years, so making badges and running this website (along with a couple of others) is how I spend my time. I enjoy the creativity, beavering away in the workshop, the art, the contact with customers, and of course the bit of extra pocket money!

I hope you enjoy your visit and look forward to serving you if you find something you like.