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 :)

Easter + Snow = Fun!

Well not the Easter we were expecting but great fun anyway.

It started with a fantastic Easter egg hunt at Rufford park, where it was rather bleak to say the least, but after a few hours running around with the kids in the new play area then lunch in the Cafe we were all warm and excitedly running around while it was trying to snow (I revert to a child when it snows I'm afraid), with my toe on the mend (make that strapped up), we were sure the icy cold weather would not stop us all from having fun. My great friend Linda is just like me so we all had a fantastic time running around playing tig with the kids... ah the excitement every time it tried to snow :)(only had phone camera and the pictures were rather blurred to say the least).

When we awoke on Sunday, I sleepily thought that it was a sunny day which would equate to my eagerly awaited car boot. But it just wasn't meant to be. When I looked out the window I was strangely rather shocked to see snow on the ground with yet more still falling. By the time we managed to get out (half an hour) the show had turned to rain and any snow that was on the ground was fast disappearing. As Ella has hardly see snow let alone had chance to get out and play with it, we made the most of what we could find... I was amazed at how much we managed to rescue from the car he he, and look we still made our own little snow man. We did however go straight up to my mums house where there is always more snow. Jeremy was rather shocked to see the fields full of snow ready for fun, after a huge snowman... made by Jeremy, a couple of snow Angles from Ella and lots of running around the field we went for a lovely walk. It is amazing how when something is rare you really do appreciate and enjoy it. By tea time there was no evidence that we had had any snow at all (all the pictures were taken on my old camera as the battery had run out on the digital one...typical).

So as a result of our snow crazed expeditions lots of yummy choc was eaten and cuddles on the sofa. Sadly no new treasures were found only memories of a great Easter which I feel were a thousand times better. My aim for this year was to get out more and have more fun, and so far I am doing really well on that front :)

I hope your Easter was just as fun filled!

xFaye

Happy Easter

Hi everyone, just a short post to say hello and thank you for all your lovely messages. I have loads to show you but need to take pictures first.

Business is hectic as usual oh and I have dislocated my little toe... not a nice thing, toes just shouldn't bend that way. I will spare you the details but will just add... an adult chasing kids around a soft play land is never a good thing especially when you cant wear your shoes, equating to yet more rest and time from the gym :(

Hope you will all have a lovely Easter break... we have lots of fun planned. Fingers crossed that the weather is lovely and I'm keeping my fingers double crossed that our local car boot will be starting up again this weekend.

xFaye

Well what can I say, two posts in one month is not good. I had started the year so well and really enjoyed blogging regularly but with one thing and another this month has just flown by. Here is a little run down of where my time has gone.

• Work, joining http://www.notonthehighstreet/ has taken up most of my time, oh and the lovely new addition of a mountain of stock that then needs to be photographed with my swish new SLR camera, wow it is amazing to use, hence me taking hundreds of photos compared to my usual few. I love photography, a passion I discovered when I started up the website. But this did then equate to three times the amount of editing. Then all that needs to be added to the website etc... a job I have yet to get round to finishing. Oh and there is even more stock arriving which will need to go through the long process. Fingers crossed for some lovely sunshine but at the moment that doesn't look very likely (rain and dull grey clouds here).

• Having fun. It was my birthday the other week so a great excuse for meals out with friends and family. Not to mention fun days out with Ella at half term.

• Gardening, not much but enough to keep me happy, lots of prep for the year ahead. We will be planting our seeds tomorrow ( Ella and me that is), we have decided that we are going to grow our own veg and salad things this summer. Only a small amount of space but that wont stop us. Vine tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, carrots, spring onions oh and Ella's favourite runner beans.

• Being ill, oh how I hate it, especially when I have a huge to do list.

• Making lots of things for orders through the website.

• A house that never stays tidy no matter how much I try.

• The gym... the one place I can completely switch off and relax mentally. I gain so many benefits from going so was rather down when my back was playing up. Fingers crossed it has been ok recently.

When you write it down like that there really isn't very much, but boy do they all take time up.

Ella is asking for a drink... for the tenth time that is, so I really better get off and sort one out. Bye for now...

xFaye

Happy

Valentine's

Day




Look what my gorgeous man made for me... heart shaped toast and a yummy hot chocolate. Plus my favourite chocolates and flowers.. thank you Jeremy it's these little things you do that make me love you so much x x x

Sadly we are all ill at our house with a terrible cold, typical when the house is filled with lots of new stock and a huge to do list for the business, as always things never go to plan but at least we can all snuggle up on the sofa, relax and eat some delicious chocolates :)

x x x With love to you all x x x

xFaye