Spotted Bikini are thrilled to announce the names of the six winners of our Teapigs competition. They are:

Stefanie Quinn from Whitefield, Manchester, Kathryn Moody from Brackley, Helen Tulett from Southsea and Sara Benkoula, Rachel Jones and Helen Jefffries, all from London. These six lucky ladies will receive their boxes of Spiced Winter Red Tea very soon! Thanks so much for entering everybody. We wish you could all have won! We’re planning more competitions so please keep following us on Twitter, reading our blog and watching this space!

If you’re still in competition-entering mode, then you have until November 19th to win two beautiful Whitstable mugs by Spotted Bikini All you need to do is hotfoot it along to the Teapigs website and answer this question: In which English coastal town do Spotted Bikini create their (cheeky) seaside images?

…are these totally scrumptious Whitstable mugs…

…now finished and posing proudly here on the balcony of the Spotted Bikini beach hut. Please excuse the paint splatterings, Gee got a bit over-excited. Anyhoo, you don’t want to know about paint splattering and excitable artistic temperaments, do you? Nooo! You want to know how you yourself can be supping tea, coffee, brandy or that new Baileys with Coffee from one of these delightful bone china mugs. Well, if you’re on Twitter, then sign up to follow @teapigs as they’ll shortly be running a competition to win a set or two. Visit www.teapigs.co.uk to find out more about them. And if you’re already a fan of teapigs, then why not enter our competition here to win a box of their Spiced Winter Red Tea. But if you’re not a Twitterette then email us with the code BLOG at spottedbikini@yahoo.co.uk and tell us how many mugs you’d like and we’ll do you a cheeky discount of £1.50 off per mug – taking the price from £8.50 to £7. Plus our first 50 customers will get free postage and packaging (unless you order 100, then we’ll have to have a chat about boundries). AND, AND, AND, just when you thought we couldn’t get any more generous – each mug comes with a FREE Teapigs Tea Temple. Mugs will be ready on November 19th. Christmas really has come early…

And not just any old prize but a box of super delish Teapigs Tea Temples (15 of the blighters) in Spiced Winter Red Tea flavour no less – perfect for supping in the current rather nippy temperatures and gorgeous for Christmas!

The lovely people at Teapigs have teamed up with us Spotted Bikinisters to win this magical tea which they say (and we believe them) has captured the best bits of winter. “Mulled wine and mistletoe. Winter coats and rosy cheeks. Log fires, happy cats and old movies on the telly. Tea and warming spices. A blend of orange peel, cinnamon and cloves on a red tea base, perfect on a crisp frosty day or with brandy at bedtime…”

Crumbs, sounds good and from where we’re sitting, this tea smells pretty darn good too.

So what do you have to do? Simply answer this question: “How many types of black tea do Teapigs sell?” and send your answer with your full name and address to spottedbikini@yahoo.co.uk by 5pm on Friday November 13th. We recommend you visit www.teapigs.co.uk because you might find the answer there (helpful aren’t we?!), but also because soon you can then enter their competition to win a set of our all new, all singing and all dancing Whitstable mugs in which to drink your flingin’ flangin’ tea! Have a nose here…

The six lucky winners will be chosen from bits of paper chucked into my red beret with blue anchor (which I bought from this lady Zara Carpenter known as Chatham Girl) in the week beginning Monday, November 16th and will receive their tea shortly after that. Thanks Teapigs, thank you for reading and thanks for entering!

…now that we have your attention, please visit HERE to view our smashing Whitstable Christmas cards. Email us at spottedbikini@yahoo.co.uk to order yours – POSTAGE FREE throughout November! Oooh, we’re good to you Ducky!

Well, two samples anyway. So we’ve put the kettle on and filled the teapot here in the mildly soggy beach hut and are regarding our babies with lumps in our throats and tears of pride in our eyes! General consensus…just a few adjustments to make – Gee and I are both lunaticly (if that’s a word) perfectionist and then we’ll print ‘em and they’ll be on sale – each one with a free Teapig Tea Temple. Does life get any better? Probably not, especially as it’s raining too hard to leave the hut so we’ll have to sit here all day, drinking tea and eating Paul’s Patisserie pistachio macaroons. Do let us know what you think of the mugs – and email us at spottedbikini@yahoo.co.uk to place an order or two…well, you’d need both wouldn’t you? (And they’d make lovely Christmas presents)

And as well as the free Teapigs we’re offering free postage and packaging to our first 50 customers – so what are you waiting for?

Thanks Paul! www.paul-uk.com

P.S. That jaunty spotty scarf that the mugs are artfully nestling on I, Marnie, bought at a jumble sale in Whitstable last Saturday – what a joy!

…mug! Yep, that’s right, Spotted Bikini has been speaking with the lovely people at www.teapigs.co.uk who make the most marvellous teas! And in a limited run, we’re going to be giving away their tea with each of our new gorgeous Whitstable mugs.

We’ll let you know as soon as the mugs are available and whether you buy them here on our website or at Copperfields in Whitstable, you’ll receive a sumptuous Teapigs Tea Temple! What a TeapigSpottedBikinitastic treat!

…doesn’t it! You can buy this card by emailing us at spottedbikini@yahoo.co.uk, in Copperfields of Whitstable (check out their snazzy new website), in Taking The Plunge (who have also revamped their chutchy website) and Wheelers which hasn’t updated their website but we don’t care because the beauty of Wheelers is that it always remains delightfully the same. Not that they’re not innovative down there – as their menu can testify. In fact the beautiful card you see before you was created after Delia at Wheelers gave us the idea – thanks Delia!

This is a sneaky peek at what our gorgeous Whitstable mugs are going to look like. This is a print out of the artwork (as it was, it’s changed a bit more now) stuck to the mug with sticky tape! But we’re sure you get the idea… So, this mug has four truly Whitstable beach huts on it. Each one is in a different season with such beautiful artwork by Gee that it makes me, Marnie, all misty-eyed just looking at it.

Our second mug, yet to come, features the famous Whitstable breakwaters or groynes. The sky above them – as you turn the mug – goes from sunrise to a bright summer’s day, to the divine Whitstable sunset and into night. Fabulous seagulls – including Pru, complete with necklace, also appear on the mug.

Fred, the Spotted Bikini dog appears on both mugs because we love his jaunty character! Hopefully the mugs will be ready in about two weeks or so and available here on the website and in Copperfields of Whitstable. But we’ll let you know of course!

The day is gloomy but we couldn’t be perkier here in the mildly wind-savaged Spotted Bikini beach hut. Because we’re branching out! Yes, Spotted Bikini mugs and magnets will soon be available in the lovely Copperfields of Whitstable – hurrah! Been talking to the lovely Dawn there today, getting it all sorted. The mugs and magnets will be on sale here too and we’ll let you know as soon as they’re ready. They will make gorgeous Christmas pressies!

And on the subject of Christmas, Copperfields will also be stocking our Christmas cards within a week or so too. They are stocking two designs which are exclusive to them. The first in an image of Whitstable’s iconic St Alphege church complete with Christmas tree, robin and snow. The second is this beach hut card…

But of course we haven’t stopped there. We have two other Christmas cards going on sale on our website and in the scrumptious town of Whitstable very soon. The first is Wheelers Oyster Bar looking too cosy for words, dusted in snow with Christmas lights twinkling in the window. The second is Pru the Seagull being propositioned by a mistletoe wielding but rather dapper gentleman seagull in a green bobble hat. Lucky Pru!  Come back soon…

Well, not quite, more drizzle than snow. But I’ve just walked back from Gee’s house and the weather’s really changing. Hence, our Christmas cards will be in shops within a fortnight. Check out this cheeky little number…and remember you can order them from our website too. Email us at spottedbikini@yahoo.co.uk