Only 5 Days left to take advantage of our amazing £5000 guitar prize draw offer!

Don’t miss out…

On April the 6th Bailey Guitars will be 16 years old – The 15th Anniversary Year has spun by and we are only 15 days away from one lucky person winning the amazing Prize Draw … so that means only 5 days left to be in with a chance if you haven’t yet got your tickets (or you would like more!)

The Draw is only open to our customers (1 ticket for every £9.99 you spend) – But don’t forget – if you already own a Bailey you are also entitled to a ticket…just get in touch (or add a note to your purchase if you are buying something)

Every day this week we will be highlighting one aspect of our work – Electric, Acoustic, Custom and Courses –  and each day there will be a special anniversary deal to watch out for…some of them SERIOUSLY BIG.

To kick off the countdown – ALL this week we are offering 20% off…

…all Bailey Hoodies, Fleeces and Polo shirts (using the code  ”  15LastWeek20percent  ” which will appear in the checkout) and

Two for One!

Buy ANY 15th anniversary logo VEST, CAP, T shirt , Women’s-fitted T, kids sizes T and we will send you another of those items FREE! (tell us what you want and what size in the special instructions at checkout)

For these last 5 days we will be posting and mailing every day with a Special offer

–  and every purchase will receive draw tickets. If you have any Q’s please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

It may be the first of April…but this is no joke…and neither is the Draw – someone SOON will be the happy winner of a brand new Bailey…

You got to be in it to win it !

Only 8 days left of our 15th Anniversary Year…and to win a Bailey Guitar

The first lambs of the year were born this week, and it is an amazing reminder that the circle of life goes on and on  – this is the tenth spring we’ve seen here and very soon Bailey Guitars 16th birthday will be upon us

Earth Hour is TONIGHT at 8:30pm millions of people across the world will turn off their lights for one hour as a global act of unity – if everyone has a go it is hoped that whole areas will go temporarily dark, but it’s more than that…its a global campaign to highlight  some of the fantastic projects happening across the world.

Here’s what happened last year   Earth Hour 2013-lights go out around the world

We’ll be asking Steve from Inverness to make sure the lights on his custom Archtop –  The Spaceship – are turned off and we’ll be doing the same with our low energy LED’s and covering the solar light and watching the live updates on our laptop under a blanket (!) It’s pretty dark here most of the time anyway, but as we know well here at Baileys…every little helps

We put a lot of time and effort into making our guitars as planet friendly as possible – it makes sense on so many levels…  and campaigns/events like Earth Hour are part of a much wider movement of individuals and organisations working to reduce waste, and make life fairer and healthier for all humans. In itself, reducing electricity consumption, or using reclaimed /FSC/ fair trade materials simply saves resources, but the shared & united action of all of us does much much more – highlighting to governments and large companies that we aren’t all just about getting our stuff cheap or at the expense of someone else

Making concious choices is really what Earth Hour is about  – and letting those who make the big decisions on our behalf know that our opinions matters, and that we do actually care.

We think this is partly how we have managed to survive these last 15 years as small builders – we are not really a business..more a part of the global community  – here and abroad. Our “customers” are people who have made a conscious choice – it’s become a community of its own.

Thanks to you all for your support with everything we’ve done  so far..

So get your lights out, put the clocks forward and bring on the summer.. Bailey Guitars will be sweet 16 in just over a week…

We love trees and forests!

Hug a Tree

…as without them, so much about our lives would be different. Just have a quick look around you now… how much can you see that is made from wood, card or paper ?

In the West we have a voracious appetite for wood, and the more exotic and beautiful the better… it has become a highly valuable commodity … traded and profited from over and over…and usually at the expense of the community that lives and works the land that where it grows.

We love wood

Here at Baileys, the woodier the better … but we know that some wood comes at a price that is too high to pay.

Unfortunately, many of the most highly prized guitar woods are on endangered , and trade prohibited lists...and rightly so. The problem is that the majority of guitarists want a guitar that looks, feels and plays like a guitar.. and so many of the green substitutes just aren’t the same

Wood is Good

It’s a conundrum – if we as a community don’t find ways to solve this problem…there will eventually be none left… Ebony, for example is already getting harder to get hold of … and that isn’t just bad for the world of guitars is it ?

Wood and trees are an amazing natural resources as they are truly sustainable and renewable – as long as greed and short term gain are not the main aims

Alternatives?

Like many guitar makers, we are experimenting with alternatives, and trying to make sure we buy and use responsibly- native timber, other companies “waste” ie offcuts, individual wood hoarders stashes (you know who you are ! ) old wood, reclaimed wood, etc etc etc… but our customers want the best, and often a specific look or quality to their instrument. (and the majority don’t choose us because of our green activities)

Fairly Traded Timber!

When we started in 1998, you could buy Fairly Traded tea, coffee, sugar, clothes, household items etc… even our nearest town is a Fair Trade town… but trying to buy fairly traded wood was impossible – we contacted Traidcraft, FoE, and Greenpeace, as we imagined there must be a community somewhere in the world we could make a direct link with – a small UK builder and our community, working fairly with another group who sustainably produce the wood we need. It seemed impossible…

But on this day of Forests and the Tree, when better to announce that  for the last few months we have been working with an organisation called Sound and Fair  set up precisely to do what we needed, and we are delighted to tell you that our first deliveries of wood have arrived from a community in Tanzania –  African blackwood for fretboards, pod mahogany, paduak and panga panga for bodies and necks…ALL sustainably managed and approved.. and the first fairly traded FSC acoustic will be finished soon.

Sound and Fair deserves a blog of its own.. more to come about that and the new guitar…

Happy forest and tree day from us all here!

Care about our planet ??

If you would like a guitar made using fairly traded, FSC, or reclaimed wood please contact us with your requirements – our guitars are all made with renewable energy…and are some of the greenest guitars in the universe

 “Is a tree as a rocking horse an ambition fulfilled, and is the sawdust jealous ?” Godley and Creme

Thursday March 20th is the International day of Happiness…for guitar lovers!

Here at Bailey Guitars our mission is making our players happy – we even have a word for it – “BaileyFace”

Why not celebrate by joining our growing global family of happy Bailey players…see below for the voucher code to get your

Happy Bonus- 20% off all guitars for 1 day only!

My favourite chisel

There is a triple bonus for all you die hard Bailey Blog readers as we giving you a head start, a great discount and all purchases will be eligible for the £5000 guitar prize draw. (and we’ll throw in a free Bailey T)

This discount applies to guitars and ukes that are currently in-stock.

There are only 17 days left of our 15th Anniversary year – we are going to be counting down the days firstly to our 16th Birthday, and then the live on-line Draw on the 15th April @ 15:15 – and so you’ll be hearing a bit more than usual from us over these coming days… a dip into the the Bailey Archives; spotlights on our custom, electric and acoustic guitars, and more one off offers and deals – including some only available to Bailey subscribers.

Go on – make yourself or a good friend happy…use voucher code IAMHAPPY1 at the checkout.

“Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.”

– Leon J. Suenes

“If at first you don’t succeed, think how many people you’ve made happy.”
– H. Duane Black

“Happiness is a warm chisel.”
– Mark Bailey

“The way I see it, you should live everyday like its your birthday.”
– Paris Hilton

[offer starts 22:00 GMT on  National Chicken Day Thurs 19th March, and finishes 23:59 Int Happiness Day 20 March 2014 – contact us if you have any Q’s. Normal terms and conditions apply]