At last - the wrap is in the building!!!!!

This has seemed a very long process but we have got there - today I took delivery of my new wrapping paper!

From that first thought over 2 years ago, to getting premises big enough to store it, to then coming up with the designs, getting the printers to work their technical magic, to tweaking wet tests and finally printing!


Getting the colour and quality has been the main focus and I must say seeing the finished product today - I am not disappointed!

So today it took 3 journeys - the palettes one by one got loaded onto the van.

My fantastic shelves - purposely bought for the job, were ready and waiting.

Each set of paper - 24 packs of 250 sheets per pack had to be lifted, by hand up onto the loading bay.

Steve then wheeled them down the corridor to my unit.

Then unloaded the packs on to the shelves one by one - this process had to be repeated 6 times!!

Until finally it was here - all stacked up nice and neat - ready to start selling......

........well there is a slight delay as we are just waiting on the tags - then we will be good to go!

so here are the designs - multi flower with a pink/red spot reverse

multi heart with a pink/red star reverse

Lovebirds with a pink/red stripe reverse

Birthday bunting with a blue/red spot reverse

Celebrate! with a blue/red star reverse

and finally our seaside design with a blue/red stripe reverse.

I haven't forgotten all of you lovely blog followers who left a comment back in February when I was doing some initial research. When the tags arrive, I will randomly chose a winner or 2 to receive some of our new paper.

A huge Thank You must go to the FABULOUS team at St Andrews Press for all their hard work and for making my dream of gift wrap a reality - THANK YOU!

A lovely surprise!

After all the excitement of Friday - Saturday was to be a normal day at home - catching up on those little jobs, resting after all my cleaning!!!!! and taking in the excitement from the previous day. But the doorbell rang - it was the postman with a parcel!

I wasn't expecting a parcel - so had no idea what could be inside and who it was from!

It was a beautiful fabric wreath and fabric cone made by the talented Lisa Perry - now this was totally unnecessary but absolutely gorgeous. You see, well over a year ago, I did some postcards for her business Nappy Cakes - I'm so busy now and she wanted to use the original art work to do some cards of her own. I just sent her the original design, not wanting payment and thought nothing more of it.....

... until yesterday morning when this gorgeous parcel arrived. I love Lisa's work - one of her beautiful wreaths is a very treasured item of mine and has now found it's home on the side of my new 1950's retro cupboard. This wreath is obviously a Christmas one but it's too nice to hide away in a cupboard for the majority of the year - will have to find somewhere to display it!

She also made this gorgeous card which will be finding it's way into a frame too.

Thank you very much Lisa - all gorgeous - all very naughty but lovingly received!

What I've really been up to!!

Months ago I received an email asking me if I would consider my house being featured in a magazine. I LOVE house/style magazines and often wondered how you got to be featured – now I know. I emailed off some photos and blog links and thought nothing more of it but a few weeks ago I received an email.

An email to say that a well known, very popular magazine wanted to feature my little house in their November issue. I'm not allowed yet to say who it is and it won't now be November but Spring - so quite a while to wait before we see ourselves in actual print. How I have managed to keep this a secret for so long is a mystery in it's self.

But today was the day – the day of the photo shoot – I have spent the last week cleaning like a woman possessed!! For the first time, in a long time my house is gleaming, there is not a thing out of place and all those jobs that you put off for another day, have been done!!!

But it has been well worth it - the children have been given the day off from school and were beyond excited, although secretly waiting for the house to go back to normal!!

Thankfully they didn't follow through with their original idea to do a Christmas feature – I could have been putting up the tree and wrapping presents in June!!!!

Nicky and Holly did a fantastic job - arriving at 9.00am and not leaving until gone 5.00pm - we apparently had a lovely house and there were too many shots to choose from!!

So there you have it - something else on my 'One day I wish....' list, ticked off. It's been a fantastic day - fingers crossed they edit me out of every shot - I really do not like having my photo taken!!! Now I have to be super patient - something I'm not good at and wait until Spring to see our little house in print - all VERY exciting!

A little treat!

Over the last week I have been giving the house a little TLC - as I explained in an earlier post I'm used to moving every 3 years and we have been here longer than that - so to help settle my wandering thoughts, I have been doing a little painting, putting up a few new pictures etc. I treated myself the other day, to this gorgeous material.

It's Lil Plain Jane in Aqua by Michael Miller and I wanted to turn it into some new cushion covers to brighten up the sofas.

Now I can't sew - I've always wanted to but never found that pocket of time to sit down and teach myself but I've been spoilt, my Mother-in-Law always did 'sewing stuff' for me so I never had to do it myself.

When she very sadly passed away, I was lucky to find this lovely, very talented lady who could sew, at my husbands work. I gave him the material to take into work this morning and asked if sometime this week she could make me 4 cushion covers.

He came home with 4 beautiful cushion covers this evening!!! I'm off to buy her a big bouquet of flowers to say thank you. I can't believe the speedy service and I absolutely love them.

Saturday morning - working!

This morning I had to drag everyone over to the unit - I'm awaiting delivery of 24,000 postcards and despite kitting out my new premises back in February, I was already running out of space! So I did a quick trip to Ikea yesterday, Jeff put the units together this morning - the children shelved them out and moved the old stock around and hey presto we are now ready for their imminent arrival!

I have started to prep for my big order - 6,264 packs of Christmas cards need to be packed and 2088 packs of Christmas place settings - I have been waiting for the printed stock to arrive barcoded packet tops and 17,584 cards!!!!

This is just some of it!!! I now need to knuckle down and get packing - delivery is to take place August the 1st but I would like to have got it all packed before we go off to our next trade show in Harrogate mid July.

And once home, I'm still on my cleaning frenzy - the under stairs computer area has just been given a clear out - there is now space and it is dust free!!!! I have no doubt though, that this time next week, it will be back in it's normal state - full of clutter!

The Royal Bath and West Show

Every year the Royal Bath and West show takes place just a couple of miles down the road and I must confess it's been nearly 5 years since I last went but today my daughter and I, met my sister and niece and enjoyed a girl's day out at the show.

The weather was beautiful (*whispers* a little too hot at times) but it certainly brought out the crowds - this photo was taken at 9.15am!

The show - like many others being held across the country at this time of year is an agricultural show but has many stands and stalls added in.

This pig and her piglets looked so content relaxing in the mud!

And I caught this farmer proudly displaying all his certificates and rosettes!

Of course we girls were interested in a little retail therapy - love the stripes/colours!

And we couldn't resist the local strawberries and cream.......

....even if it was only 10 o'clock in the morning!!

Titan the Robot

The Bath and West Railway

And the lovely, irresistible Cath Kidston stand.

There was an area for the traditional old style show fair rides - but even Sophie was too hot and tired by the time we got there to venture to the top of the Helter Skelter.

We had a fabulous day - feel exhausted and a little sun kissed but all very enjoyable.

The show finishes late Saturday so if you live close enough - it's well worth a visit.

Bank Holiday Weekend

My Bank Holiday weekend has been spent giving the house a little bit of TLC. There are many jobs around the house that have needed to be done for a while and I use the excuse 'I'm too busy' far too often. So with all my design work done for now, I adorned some old clothes and got painting!

Our bedroom was top of the hit list - when we moved in 3 years ago, after all the renovations were complete, we had a fire. It was predominantly outside at the back of the house - a spark from the floors being sanded set alight a pile of cardboard, which in turn set the fence panels alight. We lived in boarding accommodation and got that dreaded phone call from our neighbours in the middle of the night telling us 'We think your house is on fire!' Although most of the fire was outside, a hole made in the back wall ready to connect the downstairs loo, sucked all the smoke into the house and there was a lot of damage.

Some of the smoke damage wasn't really discovered until later, when I went to wipe what I thought was a mark on the wall a year or so later, it turned out the mark was in fact smoke damage from the fire. When I wiped the mark, the smudge just got bigger and bigger - it has been one of the jobs I just couldn't face until this weekend.

So we moved all the furniture, washed down the walls, radio on and it was back to painting. It really didn't take that long and before bedtime the room was back to normal again - job done!

I then continued to paint over any mark or paint chip around the house - the poor children weren't allowed anywhere because of the wet paint!

I've also been putting up a few new prints that I treated myself to.

And yesterday I treated myself to some new spotty oilcloth in the Laura Ashley sale and recovered our kitchen table - looks much better I think!

There's no stopping me - the children's bedrooms have been cleaned and de-cluttered, the bathroom is getting my attention next then the downstairs! I knew once I started, I wouldn't be able to stop.

My 1950's kitchen cabinet has also been given a little face lift but the paint is still wet so I will share that with you another day!

The rain has just stopped and tomorrow I have to be back in work mode and face all the orders that have started to pile up - so I better tidy everything away for now - enjoy the rest of the week - hopefully the rainy weather has passed and we can enjoy the sunshine again!