She's Crafty!

For the longest time I have loved to sew... Mostly by hand because if the sewing machine starts to choke on my gorgeous fabric it can end in tears! Well it seems sewing is now very much out of the closet and the clever people over at Sparrow Kids have put together these divine little kits for you to diy yourself a project.

There's a corsage, a daisy chain necklace,

an egg cozy, all felt and oh so easy.A great pressie for little people and big people alike and a perfect inside thing to do while its too cold to stay outside!

Orla Kiely Goodness

I accidently stumbled upon the work of UK designer Orla Kiely while searching for Cath Kidston fabric on ebay. Her bold graphic style prints, have a gorgeous retro feel to them, and a colour palette to match! She does a classic "repeat" pattern which I just love...
Fresh out of The Royal College of Arts Orla was comissioned by Harrods to design a range of hats, kick starting her textiles career. Her bags and soft accessories are perhaps what she is best known for, but her range now includes clothing, paper goods and ceramics.
So you can imagine my delight when (tired and at the end of my concertration span) at a trade show in Sydney this year I saw - oh my gosh- it is her - Orla Kiely paper goods tucked into a little stand! And it finally arrived to me, from the UK via New Zealand, safe and sound into little 'ol Launceston this week. YAY!!!!!! Sadly the textiles, clothing and homewares are currently not available in Australia, but her stationery is a beautiful start...

know your product

Like alot of businesses the fast approaching end of June means only one thing - stocktake. I like to think that I have a pretty good attention span when it comes to doing most things but stocktaking my little shop has been all over the place!
You see we do things the old fashioned way here - sure I have a computer but that's for email and internet... And every year I swear I'm putting in a computerized point of sale after losing count of gift wrap so I can walk up and zap things and ta da- its counted!
Anyhow after enlisting my other half's help last year, and the pain it caused him, he took it upon himself to find a better way using his computer geek savy without turning my shop into a multi national type bar coded sticker nightmare. And so we have excel. Hooray!!!