Alison aims to recreate beauty of the Slieve Blooms

Although she was born almost 5,000km from the picturesque village of Kinnitty, in the foothills of the Slieve Bloom mountains, Alison Chambers has been so inspired by the natural beauty of where she now lives that she has created a range of stunning products aimed at the tourist market.

Born in Boston, she has been living in the shadow of the Slieve Bloom mountains for “over 24 years, and says she counts herself “very lucky” to be living in the midst of such natural beauty in the village of Kinnitty, where she recently set up her own business, Slieve Bloom Design.
“I trained as a horticulturist and had my own business landscaping and designing gardens for many years,” she says. “So I suppose I was always close to nature and the outdoors, and I spent most of my life being creative.”
Having opted out of the workforce to raise her family of three children, Alison Chambers says she was always “on the lookout for a new business idea” where she could work from home. “I suppose you could say it was a gradual process that led me to set up Slieve Bloom Design,” she says, adding that she has always been inspired by the landscape of the Slieve Blooms and always toyed with the idea of creating something that would reflect the beauty of the area in which she lives.
“I have literally thousands of photographs of the flora and fauna of the Slieve Blooms, and I am fascinated by things like moss and bark, so I thought it would be really nice to create good-quality souvenirs for tourists who visit this area so that they could bring home a little bit of the Slieve Blooms with them,” she explains.
With this idea in mind, Alison decided to retrain as a Graphic Designer at the Dublin School of Design and she has only recently finished her exams. In the meantime, she set up her Slieve Bloom Design company late last year and is currently working hard to get the business off the ground.
“Some of my designs are available in Memory Lane Antiques in Birr, and I would hope to be in a position to supply other shops in the near future, and all my products are also available online,” she says.
Among the many designs that Alison has created, with a Slieve Bloom-inspired theme, are a selection of bags, purses, scarves, notebooks and mugs, and she hopes that the many tourists who visit the Slieve Bloom area will “take home a little bit of the mountain with them” by purchasing some of her products.
She uses a company called RedBubble to transfer her creative artwork onto her products, and says that everything she sells is “unique and personal.”
As a fledgling company, Alison Chambers says she is exploring ways in which she can grow Slieve Bloom Design and she is also in the process of trying to “get the balance right between quality and price.” However, she admits that it is “all a learning curve” at this early stage.
“There is huge potential in the Slieve Blooms as we are getting more and more tourists in this area all the time, and there is much more emphasis on the great outdoors and getting out and connecting with nature” she says “so hopefully I will be able to tap into that market as my business becomes more established.
For now, Alison Chambers is happy to work at a slow and steady pace to grow her Slieve Bloom Design range, and is hoping to showcase her products at market stalls, in local shops around Kinnitty and Birr and perhaps over on the Laois side of the mountain range, and she will also concentrate on building her online presence.
“There's a lot to do, but I am prepared for the long haul,” she admits.