Fridge magnets, stickers and Holiday Decorations, all inspired by my love of biology! Ready-to-ship items will make perfect stocking fillers or Secret Santa presents for your curious friends, colleagues and family members!
Hi, I'm Kathryn, and welcome to my exCELLent Holiday Shop!
Here you'll find fridge magnets, stickers and a new Holiday Decoration, all inspired by my love of biology - in and out of the medical science lab! My items will make perfect stocking fillers or Secret Santa presents for your curious friends, colleagues and family members!
Art and Science are one in the same for me. I made paintings inspired by microscopy images in biology textbooks in my first year of Art School. Four of these Cell Paintings are featured on rectangle magnets here - I call these the original Art School paintings.
The experience of making these, yet not understanding them, led me on a quest to study Molecular Cell Biology, and later work as a Scientist. My Art developed with my new understanding of cells, and life.
I was now thinking about cells as tiny cities with highways, or as houses with compartments tailored to different functions – like in a home the bedroom is for sleeping in, the kitchen for preparing food, and so on. Compartmentalisation combines different types of images: here are compartments from a settlement of the Dogon people, who live in the central plateau region of Mali, next to plans of villages in Chad and Cameroon. At the bottom is a drawing of a circuit board, with its connected elements and flows of information.
A big part of my scientific life has been working in kidney research, and this Summer I made four new Cell Paintings as part of my BackerKit project, Drawn to Cells? Curious Magnets.
Each painting is inspired by an image of a kidney that might be used by a doctor to diagnose disease, with the addition of a feature that tells more about the kidney.
Kidney Slice + Water Treatment Plant: this painting features the large circular sedimentation tanks seen in water treatment plants; the kidney removes unwanted waste from the body.
Kidney Slice + Cafetiere Plunger: the kidney performs at high pressure to push the blood and molecules dissolved in it through the tubules.
Kidney Slice + Liverpool Docks: like the docks of a major city, the kidney transports cargo from the body.
The Holiday Decoration is NEW, made especially for this exCELLent Holiday Shop!
It's based on a microscope image of a ball of cells sometimes called a mini-organ or more usually, an organoid! You might not be surprised to learn it's a kidney organoid!
The individual cells in an organoid can be made to become different cell types, just like in the human body. As these mature and the cells start talking to one another, they create a community more and more like the real organ. Organoids can be used in research or even for testing new medicines!
Here, I have imagined an organoid as a self-contained structure, an oil rig with all its working people parts at sea. And I'm having it made into a 9.5 cm (3.75") wooden Holiday Decoration - made from responsibly sourced wood from FSC or PEFC certified woodlands - with a 4 mm (0.16") hole and ribbon loop so you can hang it on your tree!
There are seven stickers altogether, three big 7.7 cm (3") stickers and four small 5 cm (2") stickers. The smaller ones are featured as incentives but are also available to buy in the Add-on section. All are vinyl, containing PVC (polyvinyl chloride). Although they're not classified as an 'environmentally friendly' product, they're built to last so you won't want to throw them away!
The Spheroid Cells Sticker features a little aggregation of cells taken from a drawing made in black biro. Spheroids are increasingly being used in labs to test new medicines. Since they are 3D, they're thought to be more like the internal environment of the human body than the flat models used before.
Next, if you order from my exCELLent Holiday Shop within the first 48 hours, you'll receive a free Mycoplasma Bacteria Sticker! I painted a Mycoplasma cell in a mash-up with a map of the village I grew up in as a child to make this sticker!
'Mycoplasma' is a dirty word in cell culture labs because it can live in cultures for years, often undetected unless you're looking for it! Mycoplasma are on our skin and in the air - but what I think is really cool is that some have the smallest genome of any living organism! And in fact Scientists have engineered one strain to be even smaller - called the Minimal Cell - with the idea they can add back genes they choose to make tiny biological machines! Incredible!
Thirdly, returning backers from my previous campaign, Drawn to Cells? Curious Magnets, will receive a free Pomegranate Sticker! This sticker features a painting I made at Art School, around the same time as my original Cell Paintings, when I was exploring similar shapes all around me.
I have cross-collab bonuses too! You'll get a random one of these 5 cm stickers if you back my exCELLent Holiday Shop PLUS the Holiday Shop of my cross-collab buddy Jess aka Loadofolbobbins! Click on her image below for homewares, jewellery, pins and more. Inspired by nature, books and coosplaying pigeons!
But wait - there's more! Jess and I have teamed up with Annie Shao Art, so if you back ALL THREE of our projects, you'll get another sticker from each of us - that's 6 stickers in total, absolutely free*! Click on Annie's image below for her range of bird stickers and giclée prints.
And since Jess and Annie are both sporting a heavy bird theme, I felt inspired to make my own bird sticker! I'd been thinking about making an illustration of a Hooded Pitohui for a while. This poisonous bird carries a neurotoxin in its skin and feathers - so I've drawn it in a jungle of nerve cells!
All items are made in and will ship from the UK. I have around 25 of each item currently available to ship, and my aim to do this within the first week after the Holiday Market closes on December 1st.
Shipping is charged at the end of the campaign via backer survey. You will have to pay for shipping in order to receive your rewards as the shipping is not included in your pledge amount before the campaign ends. I will begin shipping as soon as I start to receive completed surveys.
UK backers: Rewards will be sent out via Royal Mail 48hr Tracked post (approx. 2-3 working days). Estimated UK shipping price will be £ 3.50.
International backers (non-UK): Rewards will be sent out via Royal Mail International Standard by default (without tracking), which is estimated to take 6-7 days. Estimated international shipping price £ 6.00-12.00. International backers are responsible for all import and custom duties that may be incurred in their country. This shipping estimate is based on my experience from shipping rewards in October 2025 for my recent campaign, Drawn to Cells? Curious Magnets, and includes the new 'Trump Tariff' for US backers. This was charged at 10% of the cost of the order plus 10% of the shipping cost.
I have set available items as 'unlimited' and will keep an eye on numbers of items being ordered during the Holiday Market. Cards will be charged by BackerKit within 24 hours of the market ending. All of the artwork for my items is stored with the manufacturers and I will therefore be able to place top-up orders to receive items within a few days (at most a week).
I am confident I will be able to ship all orders in December, and whether they arrive in time for Christmas will depend of course on how quickly surveys are completed and returned by backers, and the time taken for international shipping (estimated 6-7 days).
Please note, I am unable to ship to backers in the European Union or Northern Ireland due to the GPSR regulations.
