Snapdragon's garden

Difficult decisions

We realised last week that we were getting low on our camper van tea towels so contacted the printers for a reprint.

The price had gone up.  Again.

And when we sat down with a calculator to do the sums it appeared that at the new price we would be actually making a loss.

So we are faced with a choice.

1. Put the price up - but would anyone really pay £12 for a tea towel, linen union or no?

2. Print on a cheaper tea towel and keep the price the same.

3. (and this is what I have had to do at the moment) take them off sale

There isn't the option of shopping about as the screens are with the existing printer and they cost a lot to set up and get the colours correct.

So - there you are - our sunniest product is discontinued on the sunniest day!

 

Targets

At the beginning of each year I set targets for the business.  Some are to do with production, some to do with sales but the most important ones are to do with customer service.

I believe that a big part of what sets Snapdragon apart is that the team here really, really care about each order and in exceeding the expectations of each and every customer.

But its a tough one to measure - so I decided to use the feefo customer feedback statistics on the Not on the High Street site which we sell through.  Feefo asks customers to rate their experience as either excellent, good, poor, or bad.  My aim was to move from 86.2% excellent (13.4 % good 0.4% poor) to 90% excellent (10% good 0% poor) - we have been tantalisingly close for a couple of weeks and this morning we tipped over that 90%.

In some ways its a daft way of measuring anything - only a small percentage of people reply to the feedback email and you can catch them on a good day or a bad day.  But it keeps me on my toes, it keeps me tweaking how we do things, it keeps me thinking about how we can make the whole "buying from Snapdragon" thing just a little bit better each time - for we need people to come back and buy from us again and again and again . . .(all suggestions for how we can improve are always appreciated - snapdragonjane@googlemail.com)

The cat images are because it was a customer's love of our cat mirrors and her "excellent" rating & lovely comments that tipped us over the 90%

Mindstore

About 8 years ago, a friend told me of a course that she had been on called the Mindstore course - she described it as a kind of positivity, life balancing, goal setting kind of course, run by the Scottish motivational speaker Jack Black.

I was impressed with how it had affected the way she was living her life, but typically did nothing and it was only a couple of years later when I became ill with an auto immune disorder, and was in need of a bit of positivity, that I remembered about it and bought Jack's book.

I find it difficult to desribe the whole Mindstore thing - and I must say that sometimes when I do so people look as though I am a bit loopy - but it basically involves creating an imaginary architectural framework  - a "house on the right bank" which makes meditation, goal setting, stress management creativity and so on easy.

I can honestly say that it changed my life - I believe that being positive is something that you need to work at and over the past 6 years, despite health issues that have been constant and at times frightening, I have become much more positive, more focused, more energetic, more creative and ambitious than I was before - something that I believe stems from the 10 minutes a day that I spend pootling about in my Mindstore house. (I am aware that makes it sound like an internal Sims)

Recently though I have felt that I'm only dipping my toes in, that I haven't begun to really explore the possibilities - so I was delighted to hear that there is a Mindstore course in Glasgow on 3rd March - I booked up immediately and am so looking forward to it.

One thing that I think is brilliant too is that Jack gives free Mindstore courses to school children in Glasgow - I'm hoping that Stirlingshire will take up his offer to do some there too as I think that our teens would benefit so much.  Even if they only learned how to focus before exams, how to block negativity, it would be so valuable

Networking the new way

Back in the early days of Snapdragon I tried a lot of Networking groups out - partly, it must be said, because I had small children and thought it would be a good way to get out of the house.

It turned out that I hated them - they all seemed to be full of puffed up men looking over my shoulder for someone more interesting/influential and droning on about their flash cars and watches.

The meetings made me feel despondent, insecure and worried about the viability of my business.

I stopped going to the networking groups.

Now, I'm a lot more experienced and, having seem many of the very same men with their "we're going global" businesses going bust, I realise that they were bluffing and lying and covering up (a great lesson). 

I now realise it was them, it wasn't me.  Nevertheless it put me off networking groups.

Then, a few weeks ago, I heard about 4 Networking - a network of breakfast meetings set up by Brad Burton.  It was rumoured to be informal, relaxed and devoid of glassy eyed people looking over shoulders.

So, a fortnight ago, I went along to the Stirling meeting - enjoyed it so much that I joined on the spot and tomorrow head out to Milngavie for an 8am breakfast with the North Glasgow group.

I'm now very aware that this blog post reads like a puff blurb on the back of a book . . . . but it isn't.

The photos - for there has to be photos - are of cream badges I have been working on today - and once they are up on the website tonight that will be all the meadowy bit finished!!!!!!

Flowers, flowers and more flowers

A large part of our holiday was spent with me drooling over flowers - not flowers in gardens, for to be honest we didn't really come across much gardening going on - but those in fields and on verges.

These photos were all taken on the walk from our campsite down to the chalk cliffs at Mons Klint.

The mix of flowers was amazing - presumably due to the thinnish soil

 and it was amazing to look over the meadows and see the washes of different colours with different flowers growing in different soil conditions.

 but details were enchanting too.

Our soil is too heavy fertile and damp to create proper meadows easily, but one thing that I have brought back is the urge to plant rosa rugosa hedges along our long boundary.

Oh - and plant a birch wood - but that is for another day . . .

Fathers -

Yesterday, being Fathers' Day, I thought about my Dad, and fathers in general, a lot.

I was also reading Caitlin Moran's very fine new book

and realised that my Dad is my feminist hero.

Its not that he does his fair share of domestic work or campaigns for women's right - for he doesn't. 

In fact the idea of my Dad being a feminist of any sort would bring on snorts around the breakfast table.

Its just that he brought me up to be blessedly unconcerned about what the wider world may think, to assess whether society's norms were "fun" and, if not, to dismiss them as fluff and fear. 

If I enjoy playing about with make up, if hair dye is fun, if red shiny high heels make me dance - then I should go ahead - BUT if I'm covering my face through worry, if the shoes cramp my style, if I am trying to fight my age - well I should think about the whys and whether they will make me happy.

So I've gone through my life doing only the minimal in many areas - you won't find me up at 3am making miniature gardens for Brownies' shows, you won't find me in a flap about party bags or manically scrubbing the house before anyone can come in. 

I cheerfully accept I could never do ballet hair or have feet that look good in sandals.

Which really frees up time for things that I enjoy - like reading Caitlin Moran's book. 

I laughed so much through it that there is a queue forming to get it after me - Euan (my other feminist hero) is having it for Dougalling reading at the weekend.

 

So thats what it was.

Earlier this year The Observer newspaper published this photo of holiday makers on Blackpool Beach in 1948.

The crowding was intense, not my thing at all, but there was something about the photo that really touched me. I cut it out and put it on the inspiration board, but I wasn't sure why I found it so appealing.

Then I found this

It is taken from a slide of my Dad's side of the family on one of their pic-nics - fancy heavy deckchairs with footstools set up in a windbreak on the dunes, men in shirts with ties and bare feet for paddling, women in floral dresses and pearls. 

It is a bit before I was born, though not that much I suspect - My Grandparents are the cuddling couple in the centre  - my Dad in whites (asleep I suspect) on a deck chair, my Cousin John and Aunty Greta at the front (lovely dress Greta!).

Pic-nics like this were a big part of my childhood, though this is perhaps 10 years before the pic-nics I remember, I know that there will be a hamper full of tartan flasks and enamel pie plates out of shot. A link from 1948 to 1978.

 

Needling

Some people just like to needle.  Often men of a certain age.  It seems to be their amusement to see whether the can get a reaction.

I grew up with lots of them around, so it rarely works, but it does churn up interesting conversations.

Over the weekend I had such a conversation - it started out about freehand embroidery "don't you think there is a lot of it about?"

I explained that I felt that it was a medium that allowed creativity but avoided the need for a lot of hand finishing or embellishing.  Therefore it was great for people who want to make hand crafted products which can retail at an affordable price.

Then he let on that he was a friend of a friend of another freehand embroiderer, based in England, and that they had just got a great contract. "Doesn't that make you feel bad?  Doesn't that make you ask why them, why not you?"

Now I was surprised - not just at the odd way this chap got his amusement (I am not paraphrasing)- but actually that it didn't make me feel bad, not a tot.

It made me feel - "wow thats great", "handmade being appreciated", "expanding the market", "chance for us all".

Perhaps it is because I use twitter a lot - its a great way to dip in and out of people's lives in a water cooler way.  Many of the people I chose to follow are other makers - and what you get are a string of triumphs and failures, good news and set backs.  If I read it and felt bad every time I heard that someone had got a great stockist or felt smug when I heard that their sewing machine broke  . . . well . . . it would be getting entertainment in a very warped way.  Aside from that, it would be very exhausting.

So dear needling chap at the weekend, if you happen to read this blog, may I just stress I was sincere in my hope that you pass on my congratulations, and in my hope that together we continue to expand the market for beautifully handmade in the UK items - you can never have enough.

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.