Monday 7 May 2012

A Productive Few Days


Happy May Day!

I do love getting packages arrive in the post.  The other day I had my order of blue and plum coloured bakers twine arrive from Pretty Fabrics and Trims and my new mini cards from moo.com land on my door mat.  Which had me fiddling about with parcelling up bundles of my cards ready to photograph them and load them to my website...


Now that all the Post Office postage price increases are in place and I've got a better handle on what the true costs are for my products, it got me thinking of better ways to add value to compensate for having to raise postage costs generally.  Naturally the answer is to try and get as much in a package as possible up to the postage weight threshold, that way you can offer the discount on each item for saving on posting 
items individually.

Which is why you can now find listed on my website, packs of 5 greetings cards for £8 including UK postage and packing (making each card £1.60 each instead of the £2.50 each it costs for them individually). If you fancy a peek here's the link: http://www.artworkbyangie.com/cards-multipacks.html


I've done a fair bit of photographing and listing in the past few days as my on-line shops needed to be given a bit of TLC (they've been a bit neglected lately)...also, I don't even think I've had a moment to let you know about my 2 new on-line shops...




You can now find Artwork By Angie on Luulla  & Your Indies (please click the images to see my shops)


But its not all been about listing items...I've been acquiring a few lately too.  You'll see a little stash below of gorgeous things that are now in my possession.  The lovely bunny is a gift from my friend Marna over at Little A Designs.  I won the pretty crochet brooch and hair slides in Victoria Rose Crafts give-away, which I'm delighted about as Rose from Victoria Rose got me started on all these logo and branding packages, so when I wear the brooch (which I have been doing a lot recently) it holds a lot of meaning for me as I am truly grateful to Rose for getting me going on something that has turned out to be quite successful 
and something I really enjoy - Thank you Rose! :)

The other gorgeous brooch is from one of my favourite Folksy/ Not on The High Street sellers, Polka.  There were a few brooches in Andrea's shop that have been calling my name for a while now, but that little apple dinky brooch really does it for me, so I treated myself...



Actually the apple brooch from Polka looks fab sat next to the Victoria Rose brooch on my jacket and together they zap some colour back into these grey days we've been having lately...

Come on summer sunshine, as Delia Smith would say "Let's be havin' ya!"

I hope you all enjoy the Bank Holiday

Best Wishes

Angie :)

Thursday 3 May 2012

Rain go away! I'm Trying to get my Orders in Order!...


Hello! 

I can't quite believe we've arrived at May already! Although the weather here still feels like the depths of winter.  Do you like my little illo above?...its very old, one of my student drawings in fact...but it sums up how I feel about this dreadful weather...I need a whiff of sunshine now, I'm bored of the rain!

The past few months have been a blur for me, I've been head down getting on with business. 
Mind you, I've been working with some wonderful little businesses lately so I'm still having a ball!  

And, I can't help but notice from reading blogs and facebook pages that many of you are all rushed off your feet too...could it be that there's a bit of a revolution happening where lots more people are turning to independent and handmade for a little something different?  hmmm, its nice to think so!.. I've certainly contributed and have been using my birthday spends to make some rather lovely purchases from some great designer makers lately (but I'll save those for another blog post!).

I would like to say a big THANK YOU to all of you who have been in touch recently with kind words and support whilst my order book has been shut.  I am planning to re-open soon, but I have a few people to contact first as my note below explains all.  I've only just posted this note on my website - if you are interested in my logo and branding service, this note details where I'm at and what my current plan is ...so it hopefully it'll answer any questions about waiting times for the moment....


If you've contacted me about branding recently, I will be getting in touch very soon...I'm going do it in small batches over the coming days so that I can still prioritise the work load I have on currently. If I don't reply to your email immediately, please don't think I'm being rude - I'm just trying to get some work done and most importantly, be mum to my two little girls.

In an effort to restore a bit of work/life balance and harmony in my home, I'm making it a policy to try to reply to emails relating to future jobs within a week. However, for jobs that I am currently working on or are about to begin, I will try my best to reply to messages within 24 hours. 



Above are a few cheeky glimpses of just a fraction of what I've been working on lately.

There is one business I've worked with recently that I do want to sing and dance about, because I think what Leeanne is doing is amazing and deserves whole hearted support.  I recently did a bit of branding work for a facebook page called Heaven's Teaparty.  Leeanne, the face behind the page, creates beautiful hand crafted items such as fabric hearts, hair accessories, brooches - lots of pretty things....and she does this all to support Kindfund.com.  Kindfund is a charity that helps some of the poorest tribes in North Kenya.  They run 3 children's homes and organise meal programmes for local communities - this is just a tiny bit of what they do and you can find out more about them on their website www.kindfund.com

You can also find out more about Heaven's Teaparty by visiting their facebook page here...well worth a visit!: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Heavensteaparty/183143015078925



It's nearly the weekend. I hope yours is a good one!

Best Wishes

Angie :)