Snapdragon's garden

A puzzle for you

Next Thursday a photographer and stylist from a national magazine are coming to photograph the house.

It will be the first time that the house, rather than the garden, has been photographed and it has made me realise how many things we put off finishing.

2 years ago I bought these zinc stencils for Euan - a rather typical example of my present giving as I had fallen in love with them and couldn't justify just buying them for ME.

Since the big space has been finished we have been intending to put them up on a wall above the dresser but haven't been able to decide what to spell out

for there isn't a full alphabet

and I am very bad at anagrams and crosswords

So I thought I would throw it open to you -

We have B C E H I J K L M N P Q R S U V W X Y Z AND &

As you can see I am quite happy to use the & as an A and to upend the P to make a d  Needs must.  But we only have one of each and I want to use the stencils as the lettering rather than stencil the wall.

What words do you think we should make?

A packet of Alphabet postcards to the one we use!

 

And we are home

Last night - after an amazing 3 days at the Top Drawer Trade show, and an equally amazing meal at Moro (my annual Top Drawer treat) - Euan and I loaded the wheelie cases onto the Caledonian Sleeper and trundled our way home.

During the show I had been able to email orders to Valerie and I have now come home to an enormous pile of prepped notebooks, cushions and particularly egg cosies all courtesy of Isobel.

Our new postcards went down particularly well - so much so that it looks like I will be having to think of reprinting certain designs.

This patchwork caravan was particularly admired . . .

What was wonderful was that there was a real buzz about the show - when you read the papers it can all seem doom and gloom for retail, but talking to independent shops that stock Snapdragon things they had almost all had a good 2011 and were optimistic about the coming year. I think that people care more now where they shop and that is helping independent retailers.

I didn't take my camera to the show - I had enough problems fitting all the samples into our wheelie cases - but there were lots of wonderful things to see and a great many people from twitter, facebook and blogs that came to say Hi.

 

And we are off . . . .

Well nearly.

Tonight I get the sleeper down to London for the Top Drawer Trade Show at Earls Court.  I have packed all my product ranges into a wheelie case and tomorrow morning I shall unpack it all and stick it to the walls of my stand (G49 if you are visiting).

Though the actual sample making and packing up has been a horrible rush this year - 4 days between the schools going back and leaving for the show! - we began thinking about how we wanted to do things for this show back in June.

I was very keen to divide our products into 3 ranges - all very recognisable as "Snapdragon" but strong in their own right. 

So we have become much more focussed, and with the help of some new packaging, now have 3 very different looks - our meadow range which is monochrome, really works of art, completely unique; our "party girl" which is pink and purple, sugar and spice and full of cakes, hearts, flowers and all things girly; and finally our classic range which is where we started, mainly clear blues and greens with rainbow brights in campervans, animals, caravans and all things that make life joyful.

Laying it all out on the table this morning while packing it into my tight squeeze of a suitcase I knew we have done the right thing.  I am so proud of how it has come together for it has been a real team effort both here in the workshop (Isobel was in this morning to finish sewing samples) and in our wider network of Kate the graphic designer and Nick the printer, both of whom have pulled the stops out for some ridiculous deadlines.

Hopefully all the visitors to Top Drawer will be just as keen . . .

Back in the saddle . . .

Today the schools went back and we all came back to work.

I have been doing the odd bit of work over the holidays - some retail orders, some organising and proofing printing, that kind of thing but there hasn't been much of a flow and it is brilliant to have a full workshop again.  I have missed the team.

However we are having to hit the ground running - on Friday I head down to London to set up for the Top Drawer Trade Show at Earl's Court.

It's the only Trade show we do now and its a chance to show off our new designs, meet up with stockists, and tell the story of what we do face to face.

Every year the same thing happens - sometime in October I begin to think of what needs to be done for the show, I maybe do some sketching, I make up a couple of prototypes . . . and then the Christmas rush starts and all our energy is taken up with just keeping up.

and suddenly I am spat out the other end of festivities and have to finalise designs, work out the year's pricing and sort out packaging/order forms and getting everything down to London all within a week.

In a week that is already buzzing with post Christmas orders . . . .

Thank goodness I only have to make 1 of each design.

The photographs here are of some new postcard designs which we are launching at the show, but which should be up on the website by the end of the week.

 

A slip

One of the things I love most about our home is a small bluebell wood running down to a burn at the bottom of the field.

It is where we spent 90% of our time when we came to view the house. It is the most idyllic place I know.

This morning Euan and I went to check what damage the week's gales had done - we expected fallen trees, but this is what we found

a landslip has taken 70% of the wood away,

fences and trees are now piled up higgledy piggledy in the burn which has risen from a trickle to a 3 feet deep torrent.

Never have I been more glad that the house is at the top of the hill.

It will regenerate, even a couple of days after the devastation you can see bluebell bulbs poking through the mounds of mud, perhaps it is an opportunity to plant rather than leave it to alder, we shall see.

We shall wait and see.