Snapdragon's garden

Packaging love

Some people may celebrate the growth of their business with new shoes and handbags or bottles of champagne but I'm afraid that what I get excited about is being able to afford new packaging.

Since last Christmas we have been wanting to change the way we wrap our mirrors - we always like to make our parcels look nice, and everything has always arrived with customers wrapped in tissue and paper.

However the number of people wanting us to wrap everything individually always increases around Christmas and with some orders having 20 mirrors in them it was very time consuming and confusing as they all had to be labelled too.

We also noticed that people, quite understandably, opened the wrapping when it arrived and we just knew that however neatly they put it back together it wouldn't be quite right.

So over the summer we designed these gift pouches - they fit a single mirror and are tied at the top with fine satin ribbon.  We can add a gift label if its needed. They can be opened and then put back together . . . we can label them easily (or check if we lose count!)

Earlier this week 12,000 of them arrived.

From next week all mirror orders will be going out in them.

www.snapdragongarden.co.uk

I hope you like them,

Jane x

Autumn seedheads - limited edition

This is my favourite time of year, especially when you get a run of bright sunny days.

I particularly love the seedheads that take over the garden and fields - poppies, teasels, fennel. I pick them and take into the house to draw.

These are poppy seedheads lined up in stone bottles on the bathroom shelf.

and a wonderful angelica seedhead I found in the field.

Seedheads with their wiry structure are my favourite things to sketch.

I decided to make a very special limited edition herb cushion to incorporate my sketches of seedheads - it is a very complex design, with 4 colours built up in 5 layers. Ochres, olives, sepias and a tiny shot of the bright yellow which lifts the garden at the moment.  I am delighted with how they have turned out.

I am only making 30 of these - and each is signed, dated and numbered on the back - once they are gone they are gone. 

You can find them here http://snapdragongarden.co.uk/acatalog/copy_of_Scented_cushions.html#a946

 

20% off everything today only!

I managed to put lots of our new products up onto the website last night

So to celebrate we are having a one day sale

with 20% off everything for today only

just use the code ZONK at the checkout.

www.snapdragongarden.co.uk

Fritillary cushions

Today I have been mainly embroidering fritillary cushions

I love embroidering this design but it is time consuming not to mention hard on the eyesight with all the little checkered markings.  There are times of year when the light levels are so low that it is almost impossible to do more than one at a time . . . and therefore I had discontinued it

However . . . I decided to bring it back as a herb cushion for one week only. It is a time limited edition that I shall be selling for this week only - after that no more!

So if you want to get a cushion in this design you have to order before Monday www.snapdragongarden.co.uk

I'm intending to do 4 of these limited cushion designs a year - with the hope that people will collect the set - I think they will look great lined up together.

Edwards and Todd

Obviously here at Snapdragon we don't have favourite stockists - they are all lovely - but I do admit to having a soft spot for those shops who took a chance on Snapdragon when I attended my first trade show in London back in 2008 and who have supported us ever since.

And chief amongst these is Edwards and Todd opposite The British Museum in London

The shop is absolutely gorgeous - they have a great eye and display everything beautifully

You might be able to spot some Snapdragonny things here.

Though there isn't an online shop they do post things on their Facebook page (gorgeous things - check out the dodo memo board) which can be bought mail order.  Lovely people, lovely shop, lovely things . . . what more could you want.

Easter department

It is snowing here and we are having lots of mini power cuts - not long lasting but time consuming as they crash the computer and the mug printing machine.

So later today we will be closing the Easter department and taking the Easter things off the website,

So if you fancied getting a chicken or bunny mug now is the time!

New Cat mirrors - free postage for 24 hrs

Above my sewing machine is a list of suggestions that people have made for new mirror designs.  I muse on it while sewing.

Cat Face has been up there for a couple of years, but I just haven't been able to get it to work - I am a "cat person" and I was rather embarrassed by all my squinty and stolid cat designs.

Then - sewing something else altogether, just before Christmas, I suddenly worked out how I could do the design.

So I stopped what I was doing and sorted out templates and a couple of samples - got it out of my system in other words - and then put it aside until I took them to Top Drawer last month.

This morning Kit and I finally got around to sewing some more, and built up enough stock to put them up onto the website.

So for the next 24 hours there will be free postage on any orders which contain a cat face mirror!

The most amazing offer . . . .

If I put that as a title to an emailed newsletter it would get nabbed by the spam filter - however it is true - we are running the most amazing offer.

Our main problem at this time of year is spreading workload - 60% of our retail sales are made in the 6 weeks before Christmas, most of them in December.  It means that every year I have to stop taking orders earlier than I would like, because I wouldn't be able to physically make them.

Naturally saying NO to orders is very upsetting!

So this year, as a thank you, we are offering our amazing offer to early orderers - £10 off and free postage on all orders over £30.  The code is FUN1, and because it is an earlybird offer, it expires (along with October) on Monday!

So hop on over here - www.snapdragongarden.co.uk and have a look around and see whether you can solve any of your present problems and feel thrifty into the bargain.

 

Gift wrap - what a difference

We've recently begun to change the way we sell our gift wrap - it used to sell really well to shops, where people get to feel the quality and see how beautifully it is printed, but less well on our own website.

Then, last week I changed from selling it as sheets and put together gift wrapping sets

sheets of wrap with cards, gift tags, ribbon - everything you need in your present cupboard to put together beautiful presents

I wish that I had thought of it earlier as, as soon as I put them up onto the website they began to sell

and the really interesting thing is that the vespa paper, which is my personal favourite but had been the worst seller, is top of the league!

We use these papers to do the gift wrapping for customer requests, and the more I use them, the more I appreciate just how lovely they are. They don't rip, they crease neatly, they have a wealthy sheen, the colours are clear & bright, and, large or small, presents just look brilliant in them.

I can go on about them like this as most of the good points listed above are due to other people's input!

Art prints on the website - 25% off today

Last night was one of those stressy ones.  It was Katie's school play, something I hadn't anticipated when I agreed to open late for the Open Studios.

In the end I rather rudely had to rush away from showing some people round the workshop and even then ended up late at the school. Why is it that I always feel like I'm in the wrong place? 

However, when we got back home - still rather hassled - in the greenhouse, were the art prints. 

It completely changed the evening!

 for they are GORGEOUS.  Even better than the proofs.

I sort of feel that I can brag about them because it was a team effort with Kate Stockwell, who transformed my scraps of paper and embroideries into proper computer files, and also with the printers JTCP who have done a fantastic job in keeping the texture of the originals.

This is a rather bad photo - in that it was taken inside at 9 pm with no proper lights - but even so you can see the texture of the wallpaper, the lines of stitching, the slight sheen of the 1960s dress fabric.

There are 2 prints - this Land Rover one and the Groovy Alphabet

They are 70 x 50 cm so fit into off the shelf frames, they are printed in the UK onto Carbon Balanced paper, and they are available HERE

To celebrate their arrival - and the fact that we are just so darned happy with them - we are giving 25% off the prints for TODAY ONLY.

Use the code PRINTS.