Snapdragon's garden

Contemplation

Today as I picked some sweet peas to send in to a friend's father in hospital, it occurred to me that with so many of the things that I enjoy doing it is the thinking that makes them special.

It is the thinking about the person while I am snipping stems; it is the anticipating new life while knitting baby blankets; it is the thoughts that make things special.

Another glorious sunny day

But I am being seasonally dysmorphic - questions from stockists about my Christmas designs have been coming in - Hmmm - so I am out on the sunny deck drawing snowmen.

Bizarre

Antiques - what has happened?

In the new austerity of 2009 you expect some businesses to do badly - car manufacturers, sofa shops, people selling lavish holidays in foreign places - and some to do well.
I had assumed when we began the credit crunch that one of the businesses that would do well would be the small antique shop - the type of antiques that are affordable, one off, retro, recycled.

And yet I am wrong.  I know of three antique shops locally that have closed in the last 6 months and heard of another near to my parents today.

I grew up "in the trade" and therefore I automatically look in antique shops rather than rushing to IKEA but it is clear that I am in a minority.  Another daughter of antique dealers, - Kirsty Allsop :)- has been busy on tv and in print trying to encourage people to venture into antique shops, to second hand markets, to anywhere but the identikit home stores.
I often pop into the antique outlets at Doune and Abernyte and 9 times out of 10 I am the only person there.
It isn't the price - for mostly, as long as you are not looking for something specifically collectible, the prices are way under what you would pay elsewhere.  Perhaps people are just not confident, it seems difficult to see what you are looking for.
I took these photos while visiting my Mum & brother for lunch today - I am borrowing 50 teacups for a village fete influenced wedding.  The photo above is of my Mum's shop window - in Gullane Main Street in East Lothian if anyone is looking  - she colour themes her windows every fortnight - this time it was black and white.  Stunning.
It is great having antique dealers in the family - last time I visited I mentioned that I was looking for something to make a garden table with - and Stephen came up with this great lump of marble which had been sitting in his shop (Lindsey Antiques in North Berwick if anyone is looking!) for a couple of years.
A frame of left over wood, some spare paint (Farrow and Ball down pipe Gigi!) and there you go.  A table that no-one else has, that looks stunning, that is 100% recycled and which didn't cost a fortune.

Jam tomorrow -advice please

Traditionally each year I decide to punch a bit higher than my weight business wise.  Usually it is a gamble  - sometimes it pays off . . .

This year's mad enterprise is to be a catalogue.  I have spoken to the designer and the photographer and we are getting quotes from printers.. I am very much set on producing the catalogue and am more of less convinced that it isn't just the lure of looking like a proper business.  But I need your help.

What I want to know though is which catalogues do you like?  Which do you buy from (as opposed to read in the bath and lust after but then discard - for me this is Whippet Grey)?  Why? Which do you not like?  Why?

Please let me know

J

x

Mulching

This morning I woke up feeling much less wobbly - with the realisation that a whole load of that wobbliness was chemically induced, that it was waiting for my B12 injection to kick in and that this happens every couple of months and that I always forget.  Well now the B12 is doing its thing and life seems a lot less worrying; we have done customer testing on various filling options, I have had a chat with the wholesaler and negotiated a better price if I up my order amount and everything looks much more straightforward.  Sorry for the griping.

Pam emailed me to say that I had been mentioned in The Guardian yesterday - here - and it made me determined to get back to being"extraordinarily enthusiastic" asap.

Yesterday here was spent dealing with this
Mulch arrived to suppress the weeds.
A lot of mulch.
More mulch than I had expected - some had to be dumped on the verge so the afternoon was spend barrowing it off the road.
The girls think it is a wonderful slide.

An update on the lavender - or why I am not a natural business woman

Trawling around the web for retail prices is not one of my favourite things to do - and I think it must have been a couple of years since I checked out retail lavender prices.  Oooops.
On Tuesday night I had half an hour spare and thought I would have a look and see what people paid for lavender from UK farmshops/mail order.

Well - now I see my problem with my lavender products.
I make a 100% wool cushion, embroidered with my sketches of meadow seedheads.  It is 18cm square and contains 265g organic lavender.  It retails - or will when marketed at the beginning of April - at £14.95.  I think it is a good price; but not excessively cheap - I think in other words that the market has a limit.
However to buy 265g dried lavender from a Scottish lavender farm(not organic but small scale production) retail is £15.76.  That is the price for just the lavender - in a cellophane bag.
I'm now wondering how I missed this and really am not all that clear yet as to the way I take this forward.
Often I see craft items which are marketed at very high prices - £200 cushions; £18 lavender hearts; £35 mugs and I wonder who buys them - practical items, designed to be used but at special occasion prices.  That isn't how I want Snapdragon to be . . .and yet.
My business hat seems to have been mislaid.

Authenticity

Denise left a lovely comment on my notebook giveaway post about how she feels authenticity is the way towards a happier life.
Authenticity is one of those words that is cropping up everywhere.  On the front page of my notebook where I collect ideas for the way I want my life and business to work is this list.

Connection
Authenticity
Vitality
Organic
Generosity
Delight.

It was written in August last year when I decided I had to change the way the business worked and concentrate on the Internet.  These were the qualities I wanted to try and transfer to cyberspace.

At the moment my bedtime reading is Sissinghurst an unfinished history by Adam Nicolson.  It documents attempts to re-link the garden and associated shop/restaurant etc back into the surrounding farmland in a meaningful way.  It is a fascinating read.  On p108 Nicolson reproduces a list he compiled - target qualities for the scheme
"Authenticity
Richness
Rootedness
Connectedness
Vitality
Delight"

There must be something in the air.

The photo is of my daughters' den - sadly inauthentically floral; I find my dahlia bed has been raided and prime specimens rammed into the window box to cover up the weeds.

Blue skies

Thank you to everyone for their lovely comments and emails, for the wise words and encouragement.  It is all appreciated a lot.
Thank you particularly to the reader who phoned up her friend Fiona and said that I was looking for help.
 Fiona came round to see me today and will start helping me tackle the weeds on Thursday.

Yesterday evening I lay on the deck by the airstream and looked at the sky - it was amazing, great long wisps - it stopped the wobbles.
Onward and upwards indeed

Mud

Well - the snow vanished fast and we are left with fields of mud - feeding the pigs is now a case of trying not to lose my wellies and fall into the mire.

I spent yesterday trying to solve the books/lack of  cash problem by sorting out the shelves and putting piles of books onto Ebay.  Even if we don't make a great deal at least it will begin to solve our clutter problem.

At some point this year - if the work on the garage goes ahead - we shall need to move out into a caravan, so the less excess junk we have the better.  The level of stuff in the house has also begun to oppress me - I look at pictures of calm, clean, clear homes and that is what I need!  If only there was a clutter busting fairy who could come and sort it all while I sleep.

As it is I think that a lot of work will be involved . . .

The photo is of sweet pea shots - happily growing in the greenhouse

Books and blogs

"And we'll have to do something about the book buying . . . "  That was a key phrase of Euan's in our big financial discussion. 

And he is right, we shall have to do something about it, both on a financial and house space level.

I am a sucker for books,particularly ordering them online. I love them coming through the mail, I find the anticipation really exciting, the setting aside of an evening to read.

I justify the ridiculous numbers involved - in the winter, when I am at my worst as there is most reading time, a package of books arrives most weeks - by feeling that it is cheaper than gym membership and keeps my brain working. 

As with most of my bad habits, my first instinct is to blame my parents. They deal in antiques and justify buying books with the phrase "well you only need to find one thing in it to pay for the book".  They are right - they are talkingabout spotting an arcane Moorcroft case or Gimson designed table - and they have walls and walls of books to prove their point. For me most of those wonderful mind stretching moments come from reading.

My second last package of books arrived a couple of days ago.  It was a good choice containing a couple of books that I shall force myself to sip, rather than gulp.
The one I have begun is Small is the new big by Seth Godin.  I hadn't come across Godin before - though I expect that everyone else has.  He is a marketing writer and Small is the new big is a collection of his writings - many of them blog posts - each putting forward a slightly off centre argument designed to make you think.  In collecting them together here he seems to have created something different than his daily blog. 

I have read some blog based books where I have honestly felt that they added very little to whatever had already been published in the blog.  They may be beautiful, well written, sumptuously illustrated and in a format easier to curl up with in front of a fire, but there was nothing actually different, no slanting point of view.

So I am using Godin's mini essays to prod myself into really thinking about business and the way marketing works.  He describes the book as being "a small prod or maybe a friendly whack - I dare you to read any ten of these essays and still be comfortable settling for what you've got".  I gasped out loud on his definition of hard work as being about risk (as opposed to long hours slaving away within my comfort zone).

His blog post yesterday was about how you can easily sell other people's things on your blog but not your own as the power is in the referral, not the self promotion.  And that is so true, and it made me think about referral and its power and how small businesses can use it on the web.

The only trouble is that I now want to read his other books . . .the library laughed when I called to see if they had a copy and suggested inter-library loan for a price that is actually higher than ordering it from ABE!

We have snow here - just the weather for curling up with a book. . . . hmmm . . . . does anybody have any other thought provoking websites that I can read in the meantime?