This week has been very exciting as the December issue of Red magazine was published.
And there we are
The photos are absolutely beautiful; they show up the airstream, my wreaths and the embroidered pieces really well in a gorgeous golden light.
The feature is about how we shall be opening up the airstream caravan as a temporary Christmas shop on Fridays 10-30 - 3.30; 27th November; 4th, 11th, 18th december.
Bring wellies!
The main topic of conversation between small on-line businesses at the moment is what to do about the postal strike.
Recommendations about couriers - good and bad - are whizzing round the internet along with a great deal of despondency and panic.
I can completely understand the worry - my retail web sales had begun to build with organised people buying their Christmas presents - since the strikes on-line retail sales are down by 3/4.
It worries me though how quick we are to go from "lets save our local post offices" to " lets find an alternative to posties".
It isn't actually the performance of the postal service that I am worried about - it is customer confidence. Believe me - if you order your Christmas presents from a small craft business now you will get them by Christmas even if the maker has to deliver by hand. Thats just the kind of people who run small businesses - they care about the customer.
For the meantime - if it makes customers any more confident - the Snapdragon policy is that all retail orders over £40 will be sent via our lovely couriers and any small orders will be held off until a day after active strike. (Tuesday in this case). If this isn't good enough get in touch add we can add a bit of postage costs onto the order and send by courier.
But please do keep ordering from mail order businesses - I shall be highlighting some of my favourites here when I get time.
Now - back to the sewing machine - camper-van bottle openers this morning I think!
At the Scottish Trade Fair this weekend I was on a stand next to my friend Polly - this turned out to be lovely as trade shows, even very good trade shows, have their lulls and it is super to have someone to chat to.
We were talking about how, at the beginning of the year, we had both independently written down in notebooks what we wanted to achieve for our businesses this year. We were both amazed at how we had far surpassed our ambitions - seemingly without effort. (though I have my suspicions that we both tend towards workoholicism)
Now that I have finished the trade show part of the year and can focus on filling orders, making things, dancing round the workroom to the radio - well it seems pretty amazing that, from a standing start in January, there are now over 150 stockists of Snapdragon products. That and, thanks to contacts made at Trade Fairs, a couple of very exciting projects on the way. Projects that I could not have begun to have written down at the beginning of the year.
The dahlia in the photo is also a surprise - I don't know what it is, it grew by mistake a few years ago. An unpredictable tuber. Much more beautiful than whichever one I had planned I am sure.
I hope you are having a blooming good week.
J x
The rectangular v.w. badge was a great success with buyers at Top Drawer and lots are winging their way off to beautiful gift shops and galleries throughout the UK. To make up orders I have been batch making them all morning and even managed to make some extras for my customers.
So now - after an unseemly absence - the camper badges are back in stock and back on the website. You have to scroll down past the dogs and hearts, chickens and caravans.
Blog posts are a bit brief at the moment as there is just so much to do getting orders out - for once the quick, daft conversations that are twitter suit me better - an excuse to have a bit of a stretch between bouts on the sewing machine.
One of the bizarre results of going to trade shows in London and Harrogate is that 90% of my stockists are in England, the map on my workroom wall is bottom heavy with its crop of map pins in the Home Counties and hardly any north of Yorkshire..
All this is hopefully going to change later on this week as I shall be exhibiting at the Scottish Trade Fair in the Albert halls in Stirling on Sunday and Monday.
There are some really good stands there - and I've already heard from a few potential stockists who are coming to see me there.
I recently adapted my thistle doorstop design to make mirrors (above), cushions and notebooks. I had intended to launch the range at the Scottish fair but as I had the samples ready I took them to Top Drawer. I was amazed when I got lots of orders from shops in Suffolk, Kent and Cornwall. I am very chuffed as it means that people like the actual design, not just the "touristy" thistly motif.
I often think of the problem of souvenirs, the gap between my aspiration and the reality - I wander round many tourist shops repelled by the nylon and "personalised" tat and I tend to leave & come home clutching photos and pebbles, sea glass and sticks. . But I know that when I have found the right thing to bring home - a bowl from Tunisia, a plastic bag chicken from Paris, a glass fish from Tobermory - it has added to the memories of the holiday.
What do you bring home from holiday?
This morning's breakfast was spent discussing how Christabel Pankhurst would have worn her hair. Yesterday evening was spent searching for a suitable Edwardian looking blouse to fit an eight year old and failing. Strains of backing music and snatches of song are coming from Zoe's room.
We are a week away from the end of the school term and schoolwork has been abandoned in favour of preparing for the school show.
You can also tell that Scottish school's are reaching the end of a year as I have been getting a flurry of orders for teachers' presents - the most popular are the little applique mirrors in pouches.
Speaking to teaching friends they say that it would make a change from scented candles and soap . . .
The photo above is one of the new photos that Jane Robertson has been taking for the upcoming catalogue.
Don't you just love those nails!
All last week I had an interesting website problem. When people ordered things I would be notified of the total but not the items . . . I was having to go through stock numbers, do complicated sums and then double check with customers.
How professional is that? It was worst in the case of badges which people tend to order in groups.
Anyhow it is now fixed . . . order badges with confidence. The website is still being re-jigged - that isn't the finished version - but what is there seems to work. :)
Thank you for all your comments - Diana left comment number 2000 so I have sent off a treat for her.
There are just so many wonderful ones
This is the scented parrot tulip "Rococo" in a bouquet with brunnera and field maple.
And here is the peony flowered double tulip - Mount Tacoma with leucojum and hazel twigs.
I am so grateful for everyone who is continuing to order flowers despite the fact that my website is a bit lacking in polish at the moment. And that is being kind!
Thank you.
Yesterday, walking between Killearn and Balfron, on my way to friends for lunch, I got a call on my mobile from Dubai. A chap working there had been trying to get flowers delivered to his parents who were celebrating their ruby wedding anniversary.
He reeled off list of national florists which hadn't been able to help; could I?
I put together a bouquet of hellebores and wallflowers and drove it along to Blanefield, where was joyously accepted as proof that their son had remembered after all.
What struck me is how this rescue wouldn't have been possible without Internet, mobiles etc.
Im not usually available for work on a Sunday, but this seemed worth it.
Earlier this year Homer in Aberfeldy was taken over by its next door neighbours, Jayne and Kevin Ramage of the Aberfeldy Watermill. This weekend sees the launch of new season stock and to celebrate they are giving 10% discount on everything as well as plying shoppers with a glass of bubbly.
As you might have gathered from my shameless plugging, Homer stocks Snapdragon things! However - I never plug anything I wouldn't recommend to a friend - so if you are in the area - get along and grab a glass of something bubbly and and have a look around.
Tracyann Stewart, who does a lot of the buying for Homer, was one of the first people to ask me about wholesale supply (at a Country Living Fair) and she has been seeking out other examples of "home grown talent" too.
