Wishing you all a belated Merry Christmas and a very happy and healthy New Year!

Pictures and more to follow... I just wanted to get in a blog before the new year :)

We have been having a fantastic time relaxing, it has been utter bliss, I had forgotten what it felt like to relax in the evenings.

Big hugs to all my blogging friends and those who pop by. Hope you have all had a lovely Christmas!

I just had to show you all these...

I Love Mushrooms!

I discovered these items back in September (that feels like it was a long time ago now) and have been patiently waiting until they were available to buy. You can imagine my excitement when they were in stock and my order arrived the next day :)


:

I can't decide which one I love most so will have to keep one of each :)

They will all be available to buy on the website from next week, that is when I have some time to add them.


My lovely white business room resembles a cardboard house at the moment. Full to the brim with stock and orders waiting to go out. So still no pictures for you all. I have my eye on a few bits to finish it off but who knows when I will get the time.




Any spare moments I can grab are being spent with my little girl, she will start full time school in January and I'm going to miss her terribly, but I know she is ready to go, it's lovely to see what a social little butterfly she is growing into and she just loves school.





I have decided to start a book now of ideas of all the things I want to do with her before Christmas and that includes lots of creative stuff. She is a very creative little thing who is desperate to be able to knit and sow like her mummy. She is for ever making clothes for her dolls from scrap pieces of paper, balloons or plastic, I'm trying to think of a little creative kit I could make for her. We have tried fabric but she gets disappointed when she is unable to manipulate it. Maybe felt would be a good idea... any suggestions would be of great help!

Bye for now ;)

xFaye

I am still here... well only just!

That is if you look very closely under hoards of stock, cardboard and bubble wrap. Business is VERY busy, stock is piratically flying out, our feature in the not on the high street Christmas catalogue is fantastic and very productive. I felt very proud when I received the catalogue :)




The business room is finished and thankfully it happened just in time. It works a treat and is so organised, in fact as I am spending so much time in it it's a good job really. No time for pictures I'm afraid. The room is a real pleasure to work in and is exactly how I planned... which made me very happy, the control freak that I am hehe.





I have decided I want lots of books to read over the Christmas holiday break, I came across this one via Amazon. I had it pre ordered and have been very good and not read it yet. I wanted to add it to my post to just inform anyone who is interested in it that The Book People are selling it for £4.99, I have already bought another copy for my mum from them, plus another lovely book Cherry Cake & Ginger Beer.

Ceramic dove

We have also launched our Christmas collection early this year, there is still more coming and lots of lovely new stock to add to the website (that is when I get a spare hour or two).

Ella loved making these paper chains up.

Thank you again for your lovely comments on my previous post, no news on the moving front but with the current climate we are not surprised.

Hopefully I will have chance to resume normal blogging in the new year but sadly it will carry on being rather sporadic in the run up to Christmas.

P.S We have a free UK postage offer on at the moment, but it end this Friday.

Bye for now.

xFaye

Erm... where did summer go?

I'm not ready for Autumn!

Loads has been going on in our house hold/family so I will try to edit it to a few brief paragraphs.

1. My mum and dad have put their house up for sale and have fallen in love with a house in Norfolk. Mixed emotions on this one, my mum and dad have always been within a 5 minute drive from me and the thought of not just being able to nip in is making me feel rather sad and anxious. Not to mention how much Ella totally dotes on them and will miss them immensely. But on the plus side which is how I normally look at life, they will be moving to Cromer, a place we all love and one where we can go to the seaside any time of the year plus when I do see them it will be quality time that I spend with them. Most importantly of all is how important this is for my mum and dad... it's been a dream for a very long time.

2. The business is going to go into overdrive... We have been selected by Not on the high street to be featured in the Christmas magazine; a whole page. As you can imagine the amount of work has doubled and that is even before the catalogue goes out. I am currently surrounded in every room by stock and this brings me to number 3.

3. Why oh why oh why did I start... I have decided that it was about time that the business come craft room was organised and suitable for my needs. This has now equated to having to move everything out so we can decorate. The list is endless and I have to have it all done by the end of September. Not an easy job. We have stripped all the nasty wallpaper and fixed the sash windows. Now we need to paint everything, the bit I am truly excited about is painting the floor boards white, yes I am rather sad but they are the original Victorian ones so I'm really excited. The whole room will be white :) I can't wait. I have every area planned out in detail so lots of pictures will be coming soon of how we got on.

As you can tell this is why my blogging is still very pathetic to say the least. On a good note I did have a break for a day to do some creative stuff for my mums birthday. I always love to make her some sort of handmade personal gift and these two were just perfect.

I didn't really know where it was going but just went with the flow and I was really pleased with the end results. It was a great success... she cried with happiness:)

Heart filled with lavender from our garden.

I have been intending to write a post for ages but have a to do list that is verging on ridiculous. so I threw caution to the wind and decided instead of editing the photographs for some of my Christmas stock I would do some blogging... I miss it sooo much.



I am currently surrounded by Christmas stock, our Christmas collection this year is about three times the size of normal so as you can imagine it is very mad here.



I hope you are all well, please accept my sincere apologies for the lack of comments on your blog posts, I do keep having a quick peek but will try harder to leave a message.

Hugs,

xFaye

I'm Back

Well I have been for two weeks now but came back to a huge amount of work to be do for the business... Christmas stuff.

West Runton beach

We had a fantastic time, lots of fun, relaxing and enjoying being with each other.






Only a short post I'm afraid but I did want to show you some of my favourite pictures of the holiday... I LOVE NORFOLK!

Cromer Pier

A fun trip on the 'Happy Train' around Cromer.

Yummy ice cream and feeding the ducks.

Bye for now

xFaye

Frantic...

A simple word to describe how our house hold is at the moment.

We are off on our summer holidays on Saturday. We cant wait but I have not yet done the packing. Not a good idea when it's a camping holiday! I have sorted half of my 'to do' list so have given myself a little pat on the back, hence sneaking in a little post which should of been done weeks ago.

A Princess picnic

My scrummy new Greengate melamine which Ella loves!

Gorgeous new Joules picnic bag.

Our first crop of home grown vegetables... delicious!

I am also very pleased as another of our products has been featured in a magazine.

The August edition of The Ideal Home magazine wanted to feature our cupcake drawstring bag. They requested the bag so they could photograph it themselves so the picture is different to ours.

Page 100, Ideal V Great Deal

'Splash out or bag a bargain to kit out the kids' bedroom'

Thank you for all of your lovely comments. I was planning on showing some of the stuff I will be adding to the give away but as you have probably guessed, I have run out of time. I will leave the give away open and will do it once I return from my hols. So if you have yet to add a comment please do so :) Sadly I have not had a chance to check up on every ones blogs yet so a huge sorry for that. I will have a long relaxing look when I'm back.

Warm wishes to you all and fingers crossed for some sunny weather!

xFaye

Yeah Its my 1st Birthday!

Well actually it was officially a week ago today but in my true style I never get around to writing a post when I plan to. Is it just me or do any of you suffer from this problem? I have loads of idea's of posts to write but seldom get the time to write them and then when I do the moment or occasion has passed so I don't bother. I am a truly rubbish blogger at the minute.

On to a good note now though...

Thank you to all the lovely people who stop by my blog. I have met some very kind, caring and creative people plus a vast array of lovely blogs to visit too. I love reading peoples comments on my blog, you always make me smile! It really is a lovely feeling to be able to share these thoughts with people I have so much in common with. The strange thing is that all my non blogging friends have never heard or are not interested in blogging, but they don't realise what they are missing I suppose.

As usual I am up to my ears with business stuff to do, our birthday promotion has been very popular, plus I have lots of new stock that has just been delivered that is now piled high ready to be sorted, photographed, oh and lots of paper work needs to be done too. I need longer days!!!

Our little garden is looking lovely at the moment, full of lots of roses and lavender... bliss!

Even our little veg patch is growing well, and the tomatoe plants have eventually decided to grow (at last). I gain so much enjoyment from our little garden and now Ella does too, especially the insect side, she just loves all the creepy crawlies, snail hunting is a favourite past time, the poor things. We have to name every one we find. I'm planning soon to get a planter for Ella to grow her own seeds and plants in, some where she can dig. Every space in the garden is taken and if it looks slightly bare there are loads of bulbs hiding beneath the surface.

Now before I forget look at these beauties...

I came across these over a year ago but couldn't decide weather to stock them. But now I 'm so glad I did. They are just gorgeous and smell Divine too. They are all handmade by a lovely creative lady in America called Debbie, she is so talented and a real pleasure to be able to buy from.

Now as part of my give away one winner will receive there own Soapsicle plus lots of other little goodies that I have yet to make my mind up on. So if you fancy joining my give away just leave a message about what makes you smile.

Bye for now.

xFaye

Where has the time gone and its our birthday!

Last week we celebrated the second birthday of our website...

I thought it would be quite nice to do a post about where my business came from and when it all began.

Where it started...

I always remember being fascinated by shops, interiors and shop displays when I was a little girl. I have fond memories of going to one of my mothers friends gift shops where she would let me re design the shelves and displays, which I thoroughly enjoyed. She used to say what a great eye I had for detail. It only dawned on me the other week that it runs in the blood too. My grandad came from a family of shop owners, mum still talks fondly about the shop they had when she was a little girl.

When it began...

I always wanted to own a bricks and mortar shop but didn't want to make the jump from my career (teaching assistant in a primary school) or life style. That all changed when I became pregnant with Ella and once she was born I started to crave that idyllic dream. I started to fall in love with floral fabric, painted furniture and vintage finds. Its not really a surprise, my love of period properties came from regular trips with my parents to stately homes and castle. So it was only a matter of time really. It did and still does at times feel strange how much my style and love of interiors has changed. I went from buying modern interior magazines to discovering The English Home magazine. Country Living magazine had always been present in my parents home, they still have many original magazines from the 80's. But it became a magazine that I started enjoying... I felt rather detached from some of my friends as they were all very ' Modern'. Another reason why I love blogging is finding so many people who love the same things as me :)

Once Ella was born we decided as a family to relocate to Kent. His mother had a couple of antique shop there and was very eager for Jeremy to join the family business... He had been brought up there, so the idea of moving to Kent really appealed to both of us. The stunning period houses and glorious countryside made it very appealing too. To cut a very long story short, Jeremy left his Job in computing to join the family business and work down in Kent. This was when the idea was born.

To complement the period furniture and vintage accessories in the shop it was decided that we would set up a business selling gift and homes accessories in the shop which Jeremy managed.

And so my dream was born...

The shop was in Rolvenden Kent and was in a lovely old barn! It was such fun buying stock and choosing lots of lovely things to complement the furniture and vintage accessories. Unfortunately our home was still in the Midlands and in need of decorating and updating before we could put it on the market to move to Kent. So I stayed at home with Ella while Jeremy worked in Kent for four days a week... so silly when I think about it now. I used to plan the displays of our stock and Jeremy would go back to Kent with a drawing pad and instructions on 'how to display the stock'. When we would stay with his mother I loved moving stock around and having a go at the practical side of the business.

Unfortunately it became very difficult living apart and we started to become rather phased by why we were doing this... Jeremy also missed his old job, he should of been born with a computer attached to him hehe! Well to cut another long story short I decided in 2005 to start planning a website. I wanted to be able to be actively involved with running the business and yearned to take it to another level.

After endless planning and designing the website was launched in 2006. When you run a business is is amazing how many skills you need to master. The first was designing the website and actually building it... I loved having the creative freedom and ability to do this, not to mention doing something with all the endless hours when Ella was asleep in bed and Jeremy was in Kent. Let me tell you that using Microsoft Front page is no easy task, but it did allow all my creative vision to become a reality. Every area of the website was down to me so I had to learn pretty fast. Lots of computer programming books were not my thing, I'm a visual learner, so everything was done by trial and error. Even our logo took over nine hours to do, I was using a professional editing programme and had no idea of how to do it. Lets just say that I giggle every time I look at the logo, to do the same thing now would only take a couple of hours.

I still have all of my original planning books and the website looks exactly how I had envisaged. I also discovered a love of photography and gain great enjoyment when photographing new stock.

So that brings me to the here and now. The website has grow and evolved tremendously and it is a real source of pleasure... pain some times though. It amazes me how much I have learnt and the drive that I have... I also discovered what a perfectionist I am but when running a business this can only be a good thing.

The best part of running the business is getting emails from customers saying how lovely it was to receive the parcel. Oh and all the shopping for new stock, this bit really is great fun!

I have so many plans for the business to grow and do plan to have my very own bricks and mortar shop in the future. But for now I am very happy doing what I do.

I hope I haven't bored you to death, and this was the seriously edited version. Following your dreams can be very daunting at times but also leads to immense pleasure.

Oh and before I forget, any order placed during the moth of June will receive FREE* delivery so if you do fancy having a look, now is the perfect time.

I will try to do more blogging but alas life is always getting in the way. It will be my first blogging anniversary next week so I better get on and plan what I am going to do for the give away.

Bye for now, I hope you are following your dreams too!

xFaye

Hi everyone sorry for such a long break since my last post...

Every week has just rolled into the next, I made a conscious effort to spend as much time in the garden instead of on the computer, mental note to take pictures.

We have also been busy planning the whole make over of our house. This has turned into a major thought provoker which has even included a break down of every room to do and an estimated time scale. Lets just say it is much less daunting when you actually write down everything that needs doing. I have even bought my self two books for that purpose, one for inspirational pictures and one for planning. The list of to do is huge but will be so worthwhile when finished. The current plan is the landing... this is a major job and sadly will take months to do due to the scale or work to be done, lets just say a three storey house with huge walls feels never ending. My strangest find so far was one wall near the attic room. My curiosity got the better of me the other day when I was feeling the wall ( yes I know I sound strange.. he he) The wall felt squishy, I was expecting to find plenty of layers of wall paper but no, that would of been to simple. Instead under the top layer of paper was this strange wood effect vinyl paper that was backed with polystyrene. What were they thinking when they did that? Another thing we constantly discover is that any previous owners did touch ups when decorating. That simply included covering over any random decorating disaster with yet another one. Needless to say we are having to strip everything back to the bones including most of the plaster work and start again, skimming most walls and that's just the start, don't let me get started on the artex on the walls to the attic room, boy are they are hideous. I will keep you all posted with how we are doing and try to take pictures.

In between all of that planning there has been some lovely days out with Ella and our friends, plus a nursery trip which was great fun :) yes I am still a kid as were the other mums who joined in with all the rides. Sadly though at the moment Ella is recovering from a horrid bought of gastritis flu, she has had it for over a week now and its been no fun at all, on the bright side the sun has been shinning so all of the extra washing has got dry.

I have also been busy a usual on the business front and thought I should include some pictures in my post, so here are a few of the new stock that has just been added to the website.

Finally I just want to say thank you so much to all you lovely people who left comments on Ella's room. It was so lovely to read each one and Ella has loved seeing her bedroom on the computer. It will be my first year blogging soon and I am planning a little give away but more on that later.

I will try and see everybody's blogs over the next few days, I bet you have all been very busy too.

Just found this product for getting rid of artex, it sounds fantastic!

Bye for now

xFaye

Ella would like to invite you all, to take a little peak at her...

Magical Princess Bedroom

I thought it was about time that I actually showed you pictures of Ella's Bedroom. We redecorated it last year, changing it from a nursery to a little girls room.

Every space is used, even behind the door!

The room is a rather awkward shape which is dominated by our huge fitted wardrobes (you may of read it an earlier post that I bought them when I was pregnant, silly me). Thin and tall... limited light and high ceilings.

I had a fantastic time designing the room, ensuring that every space served a purpose yet was appealing to the eye. I still remember Jeremy's face when I showed him the drawings of what I wanted to do with the room. A look of horror at the grand scale of work I had planned for him... I have the creative vision he has the creative talent.

We even made the corona so that I could drape curtains around her bed.

One of my jobs was to make the curtains and the lamp shade.

After not finding a shelf that was suitable I decided to design this one... I even drew the plans out free hand, Jeremy was impressed by that bit hehe. I'm planning to have another one made for the bathroom too. Plus a little bedside table with a shelf for her favourite books.

I designed the bookshelf (pictured below) to maximise the use of wall space. We needed to create lots of storage for all the special little things we had collected when she was a baby, plus all the new things she was getting... hence perfect space for dolls house and her little books.

The storage boxes are perfect for storing her toys. Push along dog has his pride of place.. he is a perfect seat when siting and playing with said dolls house.

Vintage pram and crib in the background, yet another fantastic find from a car boot.

This was my latest revamp... one wooden cooker + 4 hours with a few tins of F & B (Farrow and Ball) paint = pretty pink cooker, much more desirable. It was even met with a squeal of excitement from Ella :)

We just love playing in her bedroom, which was happening whilst taking the pictures... hence things moving from one space to another.

I adore these pictures, they provided great inspiration for Ella's room. Yet another vintage find with a little help from F & B.

The funny thing is that her room was finished last year, yet I have never got around to taking pictures. It made me realise how fantastic blogging is for encouraging you to capture the moment. I'm planning to show you lots more pictures as we continue to decorate the house. Hopefully the sun will be shinning on those days :)

I hope you enjoyed Ella's little tour, she will be very impressed to see her room on the computer!

Bye for now

xFaye and Ella

P.S. The magical part is how the room always manages to stay rather tidy... plus a fairy sneaks in every night to set up a different activity to play with in the morning :)