Ribbon!

 Today I took delivery of 2 big boxes of ribbon. I LOVE ribbon and have quite a collection myself but we thought it was time to have ribbon on offer to our lovely dots and spots customers. So we have sourced and selected some beautiful ribbon for you made here in the UK.  As soon as I get it photographed and loaded onto our *NEW* website (coming soon) it will be available for you to buy. It will be available either by the meter or a selection will be available on 4m reels. Perfect for wrapping those lovely gifts or any crafty project you have on the go.

 We will of course have spotty ribbon and gingham - all available in red, blue, pink and green.

 And stitched and striped ribbon,

and of course more spots in sheer, satin, grosgrain, either micro or polka dot! 

Some of our new products will include ribbon so I will be a busy bee over the next week or so.

Please note the ribbon will not be available to our TRADE customers but we are happy to share with you our supplier if you like it.

Road closed!

I could not believe my eyes last night - I was dropping one of Sophie's friends home and in doing so did the 'school run' and there on the bridge was one of those yellow signs warning of a road closure starting on the 10th of September. Inwardly I groaned as a small stretch of this road has been closed before for 5 days and caused major diversions and hassle. On our way home we made sure we read the board fully and to our horror, discovered that it was be be closed until the 23rd of DECEMBER!!  A whole term of chaos! I checked the Council website when I got home and it was even worse saying closure until 31st of January! 

I have just phoned the council and am now sat waiting for a return call. If the road is going to be closed I'm afraid I will be extremely grumpy for the next 4 months. We chose to send our child to a school out of catchment but as our son's primary school is on route, it was a sensible choice. The school run is such a time waster as it is but if the bridge does close, it'll mean a good 20 min detour 4 times a day and I'm not going to even think about the cost of all that extra petrol! Why they didn't start work 6 weeks ago during the school holidays, is beyond me too - not the best way to start the new school year!

Bit of a catch up!

 I've been feeling a little sad that the Summer seems to be nearly over without the sun actually shining! It's been so wet and there really is an Autumnal feel in the air now. I came home today to see hubby chopping down an old apple tree in the hedge which has just, this afternoon fallen, probably as a result of all this rain!

 My swan has gone back out on display for the remaining 2 weeks of the Swans in Wells Art Trail. It is in it's new home - it's third no less, under one of the Town Hall archways. We're hoping it may be a little more sheltered from any more heavy downpours, before it comes in for good on the 3rd of September for a little TLC before the Swansong Preview weekend.

I've been taking more photo's of our festive products in preparation for 'that' time of year. We will be loading everything onto our website in the coming weeks. I've got my fingers crossed that we are in for a sunny September - we certainly deserve one. Last minute shoe shopping, uniform checks and a few friend get together's are in the diary for next week before the new school term starts! 

Where has the past 5 weeks gone?

Forgot to say - am off to the Shepton Flea bright and early tomorrow morning - will report back any nice findings - enjoy the Bank Holiday weekend wherever you are.

It's the start of the..........

..........most wonderful time of the year!

 Today it was officially time to start Christmas! Eek, there I said it 'CHRISTMAS'

Trade orders are starting to come in and in a few weeks it will be that crazy time of the year again.

 We have our fabulous advent calendars, Christmas gift wrap and tags, Christmas cards, festive decorative tape, party invites and thank you's and plenty of stocking fillers - notebooks, stickers, magnets, mugs and more! So I spent ALL day photographing our lovely products.

 In a few weeks I will have to do it all again as we have a few *NEW* products coming your way - some for our trade customers designed and printed by us and some we have personally selected for our retail customers which add to what we already offer.

 I have a pile of tidying up to do tomorrow and lots of jobs to tick off my 'to do' list. The Summer holidays are whizzing by and I may have relaxed a little too much in the first few weeks - I blame the Olympics - so I'm playing catch up! Not the best way to start the festive season!

I was hoping to have designed all my 2013 greeting and Christmas cards this summer - I haven't done one! Silly me, as I'll now be doing all my designing during the Christmas madness - when will I learn!

Shepton Show

 So today was Shepton Show and we were up bright and early - carrying all our show stock by foot at 8am this morning. It was so busy and the ground was so wet, so rather than risk the car getting stuck in the mud we decided to carry everything - well Jeff did most of it whilst I did the nice bit of setting up the stand.

 We had a great spot by the door so as the heat built throughout the day, we had a little fresh air. The show was super busy and we sold our lovely products to some lovely new customers, facebook and blog followers and a few fellow tweeters. Well done to those of you that brought along your vouchers and thank you for coming by to say hello - it was lovely to meet you.

 I had a super helper complete with spotty wellies - Sophie has been a great help all day.

So it's 6.30pm, everything is packed in the car ready to return to the unit in the morning and I'm about to enjoy a fish and chips treat for tea, with my place on the sofa booked to rest my tired feet. A big thank you to Kim for inviting us to exhibit in the Shepton in Business Marquee and yes the sun did shine!

Show Prep!

 On Sunday it is the Mid-Somerset Agricultural Show or commonly known as the Shepton Show - I think I  mentioned before that we would be having a stand there. The show prep in the field is building nicely into tent city, so I thought I ought to do a little of my own show prep and work out how many things I could squeeze onto a table to show off all we do!

 So Sophie and I headed over to the unit for the day to do just that, whilst we waited for a delivery to arrive.

 It's so hard to choose what to take as we will have to carry everything into the show on the day, as the fields are already being churned to mud along the tracks.

 We will be offering Special Show prices on all our products as this is the first time we have come out 'to play' in a couple of years, so do come and find us in the Shepton in Business Marquee on the East side of the main show arena.

 We hope we will have plenty to tempt you with and maybe any of you doing a little early Christmas shopping may find something to hide away until December!!!

 Our delivery did arrive..... eventually and is neatly stacked away on shelves in the new bit of our premises - all will be revealed in the coming months but I'm chuffed with the possibilities ahead that this new product may bring.

Don't forget to print off our special voucher if you are coming to the show *Information here* - we are giving away a free roll of tape with every purchase in exchange of the voucher. Make sure you come and say hello - I hear it may even be dry, maybe even a little bit of sun too - so spoilt!

Swan for SALE!

Who would like to buy my swan?

She gets auctioned off on the 29th of September

As you know she has been out in the rain in Wells all Summer, so will be reformed to her former glory in time for the Swansong Preview weekend on the 15th/16th of September. Ideally she would be suited to a covered or inside spot as despite being a swan,she appears to not be too keen on the rain!

All details of the auction can be found here *AUCTION DETAILS*

Cushions!

 Today I treated Sophie and I to a one-to-one cushion making session at the lovely Millie Moon in Wells. We took Sophie's machine with us so that she could be familiar with her own machine and after a few practice lines we were good to go!

 We chose our fabric, eventually - we were so spoilt for choice.

 We were in the hands of the very lovely Angela who was so kind, patient and encouraging and she let Sophie do it all.....

 .....even the ironing!!

 Once we had done all the cutting and preparation, we were ready to sew.

 After 2 hours of fabulous step by step instruction, learning lots of skills and picking up lots of tips along the way, we had finished

 The trickiest bit was putting the cushion into the cover!

But she got there in the end and here is the proud owner of her new bright, colourful cushion.

Thank you Angela for a lovely afternoon, now what shall we do next?

London Calling

 So as you will have seen from my previous post, we surprised the children with a trip to London yesterday to soak up a little of the Olympic atmosphere and feel just a little part of such a fabulous Games.

 We were up bright and early to wait for the coach from Shepton to London,

 we even had our nails painted in the Olympic colours for the occasion!

 and for me, it was the Olympic Rings that I really wanted to see - the iconic image of the rings on Tower Bridge.

 And it didn't disappoint - they were huge!

 We walked along the Embankment past large out door screens and decorated Olympic mascots,

 past many an Olympic Volunteer, dressed in their cheery pink uniforms.

 There were flags and bunting down side streets, along walkways wherever you looked.

 We walked as far as London Bridge, one more glace at the magnificent Tower bridge and the Olympic rings then we tubed it to Trafalgar Square,

 to see the Olympic Countdown Clock and Nelson wearing his Union jack hat.

 The children did get very hot and tired! It was just our luck to pick the hottest day of the Summer to go to London but we booked it over a week ago and must confess had been willing it not to rain ever since!!

 So we decided to head along Regent's Street to see all the Countries colourful flags,

 look at some of the fabulous shop window displays and ultimately,

 bribe the boy with a visit to the 5th floor of Hamleys and the Lego department!

 Hyde Park was our next stop,

 to see where the Marathon swim and Triathlon had taken part. We were too late to go into the BT Live area to see the large screens etc but

 quite frankly, some of us had just had enough!

 So we tubed it back to Hammersmith, picked up our coach

and headed back home to Somerset, having had a thoroughly good day!