- Established
- 2025
- People
- Michelle Harle and Katie Crosbie Dawson
- Based in
- Filkins, Cotswolds
- Craft
- Illustrated matchboxes
The Local’s perspective
A small canvas with a useful purpose
The Matchbox Maker turns an everyday household object into something worth leaving on display, pairing British illustration with generous scale, thoughtful materials and a playful sense of occasion.
The story
Two friends, one bright idea
Old friends Michelle Harle and Katie Crosbie Dawson launched The Matchbox Maker in October 2025 after finding themselves at a shared crossroads and wanting to create something distinctive together.
Katie brought experience from the gift industry, while Michelle contributed a background in bespoke luxury. Their starting point was an object that is normally hidden in a drawer: the humble matchbox. By treating it as a small canvas for illustration and print, they created a collection intended to sit proudly on a mantelpiece, table or shelf.
The brand’s signature boxes are designed, printed and made in Britain. Extra-long, thicker matches make them practical as well as decorative, while recyclable, plastic-free construction keeps the object considered from cover to contents. It is a young British brand with a clear idea: useful things can still carry wit, beauty and delight.
The people
Meet Michelle and Katie
Michelle Harle and Katie Crosbie Dawson are old friends who combined experience in bespoke luxury and the gift industry to launch The Matchbox Maker in 2025. Their work reimagines the matchbox as a practical piece of illustrated British design.
Inside the making
British print, practical beauty
The signature range is designed, printed and made in Britain. The boxes are plastic-free and fully recyclable, and the longer, thicker matches are intended to be both safer to use and more resistant to breakage. Bespoke production also allows the brand to work with customers and businesses on considered small runs.
Our recommendation
A robin for the mantelpiece
A generous British-made matchbox featuring Matthew Rice’s robin watercolour and approximately 125 extra-long matches—part practical object, part miniature artwork.
The Matchbox Maker finds joy in an overlooked object. The boxes are useful, beautifully scaled and confident enough to become part of a room, while the illustrated covers add the character of a small print or book jacket.
A sense of place
A little piece of British design
Filkins, Gloucestershire