Snapdragon's garden

Why I don't sell wholesale . . .and why thats OK

When I first began to make things for a living - the height of my ambition was to have my goods sold in shops, any shops.  I thought that it would be a mark of having arrived.  That if a SHOP wanted to buy my things then they must be good. All conventional wisdom says that it is important to get your brand out there.  I've changed my mind.

Now - having had a whole heap of wholesale enquiries over the last month (gallery owners being avid readers of Country Living Emporium) - and having re-visited the basic economics of the whole thing - I can definitely say that I do not supply wholesale.
As I see it - for me to supply wholesale either I suffer or the customer suffers.  The mark up in a shop or gallery is 100% plus VAT; so something selling in a shop for £14 nets the maker £6.    Something that the maker charges £10 for costs the customer £23.50.  I'm not arguing that shops don't deserve this money for their rent, staffing, tissue and bags but explaining the problem as I see it.  What then happens is that you either have to set your retail price very high (and some makers manage this well, their brand becoming aspirational in itself) or you pay yourself very little, way below the minimum wage in my experience of fellow crafters who seem to count any work done after 5 or in front of the tv as somehow not counting in the figures.
What I am trying to do is to set a price that is fair to me - that will allow the business to grow, and not end up a hobby business with Euan funding tissue paper and phone bills, but a price that also allows people to afford the things I make.  The prices that I have settled on for the website are approximately 40 - 60% less than they would be in a shop or gallery and that seems fair to me.  As it costs me less to sell from my website to existing customers there are also special offers for newsletter subscribers along with free gift wrapping and postage for those special customers. Which brings me onto the photos in the post - this fortnight's newsletter is now out - e-mail me if you are not on the list and want to be - it is about making lavender sugar and sowing biennials this time, along with a special offer on my doorstop.
J
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A box of blooms

I think that many of the flowers in the cutting garden at the moment deserve to be seen close up - so when I was asked to put together a special arrangement for a birthday this morning I knew just the thing.
I had a delicate cream and gold deco cup and saucer so filled it with a mix of cottage garden flowers - columbines, astrantias , sweetpeas, french lavender and grasses.  Popped into tissue paper and a plain brown box it looked so pretty, just the kind of thing for a bedside table.
I would like to be able to mail order these (though perhaps I should wait until I get the bouquets up and running!) - wouldn't it make a pretty present and then you could keep the cup afterwards.

Busy bee

There is a feeling of buzziness around here at the moment.  I feel that not enough is getting done.  Perhaps it is a lethargy caused by the last month of sunshine, perhaps it is that some of the beds in the cutting garden are still waist high with weeds.  Do you think I could just lie back in a hammock and claim that they are an experiment in how dahlias would survive in a meadow? 
Perhaps not.
However, the main thing that is making this month swing I think is that people have been so great about the things that I am making this year - I am so grateful, my business depends entirely on people liking what I do enough to buy things.  I am a terrible salesperson so really the things I make have to do the selling for me.
So you can imagine how delighted I was when I featured this new style of bag in my newsletter on Tuesday and they had sold out by yesterday afternoon.  It made me feel so much like a proper crafter! 
I am now completely out of the red Sanderson linen but will make up some more in this style in gold and green.  There is never enough of these gorgeous vintage fabrics so they will be limited numbers and I shall once again give newsletter subscribers first dibs.
There are still a couple of days left to leave a comment for the notebook giveaway - I shall draw the name at the weekend as I need to put in another order for sketchbooks by next week.

Why I just don't understand Etsy . . .

I have admired Lynn and Stella's work at Florence Hope since I came across Lynn's blog Gigibird.  Their style isn't a pastiche of anyone - it is nicely influenced by 1930s and 1970s design (and more recently by muesli) and is thoughtfully put together.
A while ago I bought this corsage as a present for a friend - mmmm - as you can see I still have it - I wear it almost every day and it is one of the most remarked upon pieces of jewelery that I have.
And yet - go across to the Florence Hope Etsy page and you will see it is fully stocked.
Why is this?  Why do many rubbishy things sell out pronto via Etsy and other beautiful things hang about?  It can't be the prices as these are a steal.
I have been meaning to post about this corsage for ages but was stopped by having bought another to give away (and I did manage to this time) to someone who reads this blog.
I have also been making a few corsages this week - I have a stall at a local fashion show on Friday and I thought that it would be a good excuse to try out something "fashiony" in honour.  I decided to keep it very simple - ruffled layers of embroidered wool.  These are probably not things that will fit onto the website at the moment - but they will be at Dunblane Centre, Stirling Road, Dunblane, FK15 9EY from 7pm and then at Killearn Village Hall on 15th March..
I do like this idea of textile jewelery - casual yet beautiful things that can be pinned onto hats, coats, scarves and bags.  It all seems so much more cosy than a string of pearls.

Potted bulbs - now delivering throughout UK

While I may not have been set up for Valentine's Day, I am all ready for Mother's Day.
From Wednesday 27th we shall be able to deliver potted bulbs throughout Britain.  The bulbs to begin with are scented narcissi - Paperwhites or Erichleer - in beautiful aged pots.
This has been a long project.
First it took ages to find the pots - I looked all last year and rejected lots. Some were very cheap looking, others seemed to fight with the flowers planted in them, even more were just too expensive to be feasible.
These ones are a lovely shape and are made to look gently aged - pretty and fresh without being at all twee.  I think that they look just as good in a contemporary house as in one that is more traditional.
Then it took ages to get the boxes designed that would be up to the job of transporting the pots, blooms and supports while still looking attractive.  We had a lot of false starts on that one. 
Now I am all ready to go.
In the photos the bulbs are shown waiting on my greenhouse bench - I shall put dogwood or hazel twigs in amongst the leaves so that they don't flop when the flowers bloom.  Then they will be packed up into our specially designed boxes and sent by overnight courier. 

This year I learned that paperwhites can be kept year to year, ratrher than just being thrown out after flowering - so I shall be putting in care instructions.
The potted bulbs can be ordered here - delivery for Mothers Day will be on Friday 29th and orders need to be in by 26th at the latest.  As a special offer for any bloggers ordering I shall enclose a one of my new embroidered cards - handwritten with your special message.

Off for a while

It is the girls half term - it is the first dry day in ages - I doubt that there will be time to blog properly till next week.
Dahlias are now in the shop
This is Fusciana - mentioned by Sarah Raven as her favourite pink dahlia in a recent telegraph article but difficult to get in decent sized tubers in the UK.
My supplier claims that he had to beg to get the Fusciana tubers that are winging their way to me but he could be trying to impress. 
It has the longest vase life of any pink dahlia that I have grown - is good and hardy, the clump in the photo is 3 years old and has survived -10; the petals almost glow orange near the centre.
All my dahlias are packaged in hessian bags so that they can breathe and sent with full growing instructions.

The photo is (and I'm sure you can tell) one of the ones that Jane Robertson took in my garden at the end of the summer.  3 days before the first frost.

The article written about me by Anna Pavord in The Independent is now up on the web - here

I am feeling very grown up today.

Today I moved the business on a bit by doing something I have been putting off for the past 6 months.  It is a small thing, a very easy thing, but something it seemed that I had a bit of a block about.
I signed up with a carrier.
90% of the parcels that I send out are light - they are honesty hearts and felt robins, they are embroidered stockings and button magnets - they go to the post office and the service and charge is great.  At Drymen we even have a great system going where Euan drops off the box of parcels in the morning on his way to work and I call in to settle up later in the day.
But as soon as a parcel is even moderately heavy the postage charge is just too much with Royal Mail.  It was costing £7.95 to mail out wire baskets that cost £14.50 and that is just too big a hit to swallow up in the margins.  Bulbs were even worse. 
So for ages it has been  obvious that I would have to sort out an alternative for large parcels. But something stopped me from acting.  I could talk for Britain about the pros and cons of all the different carrier companies, I buttonholed people to quiz them about their experiences, I analyzed charts of postcodes and prices.  I did not actually sign up with anyone.

Until today - when I looked at the list of Christmas wreaths that are beginning to be dispatched on Monday and realised that the Royal Mail quote of £19.95 per delivery was just a step too far.
So I called my carrier of choice and a very helpful man called Gio came out to the house this afternoon to explain all the different services and suggest the most cost effective options.  Then  I spoke to the local driver Alan and we sorted out exactly what I need. On Monday afternoon Alan will be here to pick them all up.
It seems like such a small thing - and it is a small thing, my carefully guarded book of pre-paid stamps - but I feel that I have taken a step away from this self image that I have of being a tiny, tiny business to one which has many more options.  We even had a talk about flower deliveries to Edinburgh and Glasgow . . . .there's something to think about.

Fundraiser

Last night's Christmas fund raiser for Strathcarron Hospice at Amanda Reid's house was phenomenally well attended - when I left late last night they had taken about £500 and there was still a tin to count.

It is so good to see a local community supporting local charity - especially when we all know how difficult it is to prise oneself out of a comfy chair and back out into a cold dark night.

It was good to see lovely stalls and I did a fair amount of my Christmas shopping.

Today I shall be working on arrangements for a wedding at the week-end.  I am really looking forward to it - great couple, great venue.

As featured in Country Living Magazine . . .

My copy of Country Living has just popped through the letter box.  Cue rabid scrabbling through the pages.
A few months ago the magazine borrowed lots of things for various photo shoots - the way it works is that there is no way of knowing what, if anything will end up in the magazine as it depends on what fits into their styling when they get to the site and then on which photos make it onto the page.

But I knew one of the shoots had been a Christmas one so ripped the magazine from its wrapper and manically flipped through to see whether I recognised anything -
And suddenly there they were, my honesty hearts and wire linen hearts in a beautifully decorated cottage belonging to Sheila Scholes - Christmas in the cottage.
The photos are very pretty and sumptuous - quite a different feel to my light bright version of the heart here - and show how simple things fit into so many settings. 
I am very pleased that these have been featured - they are really what I want the business to be about - seasonal, hand made, connected to the garden, unique to us . . . .
J
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Not on the High Street . . .

We now have a page on Not on the High Street which can be accessed here

I made these Christmas tree decorations for the site - they are made of dyed and felted vintage blankets with pearl beading and a wire star on top.  They are approximately 30 cm tall and are scented with mulled wine spices.
Over on Snapdragon's chat I'm mulling over what I feel about portals.