There's a small workshop in Abergavenny where a laser cutter hums away turning sheets of sustainably sourced wood into miniature garden sheds, retro scooter ornaments, pallet coasters, and mechanical models. Each piece starts as a flat sheet and ends up as something you'd want to keep on your desk or give to someone you care about. That's the idea behind Curious Rabbit, and it's been that way since 2019.
How it started
Curious Rabbit was founded with a straightforward ambition: to make things that are genuinely fun and novel, but also actually useful. The garden shed kit is a good example of that thinking. It looks like a decorative piece, and it is, but it's also a storage piece. The roof opens, there's space inside for pens or small bits and pieces, and it sits on a desk looking like it belongs there. It's the kind of object that makes people smile when they spot it, and then reach for it every day.
The brand is also, at its heart, a creative outlet. Curious Rabbit is independently owned and run, and the making side of it matters as much as the selling side. Exploring new designs, testing what the laser cutter can do, and turning an idea into a finished flatpack kit -- that's where the real energy comes from.
What laser cutting actually means
Laser cutting gets mentioned a lot in product descriptions, but it's worth explaining what it actually means in practice.
A laser cutter uses a focused beam of light to cut or engrave precise shapes into wood with a level of detail that wouldn't be possible by hand. The cuts are clean, the tolerances are tight, and the same design can be reproduced consistently every time. For flatpack kits especially, that precision matters. The pieces need to fit together snugly, which only works if every cut is exactly right.
All of Curious Rabbit's products are laser-cut in Wales. That means the making happens here, not overseas. It means shorter supply chains, better quality control, and the ability to tweak and improve designs without waiting months for a new batch to arrive from a factory on the other side of the world.
Why independent matters
Curious Rabbit isn't backed by investors or run by a team of people in an office. It's an independent Welsh brand, which means every order genuinely matters, every review gets read, and every product decision gets made by someone who actually cares how it lands.
That independence shows up in the reviews. Curious Rabbit sits at 4.9 stars across more than 190 reviews, not because of a slick customer service operation, but because the products are made carefully and people are happy with what arrives. When someone leaves a review saying their grandson loved building the model kit, or that the garden shed is the most-commented-on thing on their desk, that means something.
The range today
Since 2019, the Curious Rabbit range has grown considerably. What started as a small collection has expanded into a wide variety of laser-cut wooden pieces spanning several distinct collections.
The Garden collection includes the garden shed, wheelbarrow planter, trug picnic basket, bee puzzle, and seedboxes. The Railway collection covers a signal box, train wagon, GWR bench, and roadside lamp. The Architecture collection includes a Georgian house and Victorian terraced house. The Vintage collection features a Brownie Camera, Milk Crate, School Locker, and retro scooter ornament. The Icons collection covers the Penfold Pillar Post Box, Telephone Box Lamp, and skip waste container. There's also a Beach collection with a beach hut and bathing hut, a Pets collection including a dog treat box, and a Wales collection featuring a Welsh Dragon puzzle.
The common thread across all of it is the same as it was at the start. Things that are worth making, worth giving, and worth keeping.
All of it is available at curiousrabbit.com, and if you're looking for a gift that was genuinely made in Wales by people who care about what they're making, that's a reasonable place to start.
Curious Rabbit makes laser-cut wooden flatpack kits and gifts, designed and made in Wales.
