Hello,
November seemed to whizz by - sorry it's been such a long time since my last blog post.
November has been the month of 'the planner' for me. It's something I've wanted to launch as product for a while. The reason being, over the past year I have been making more of an effort to be more efficient in my own business planning in attempt to avoid some of the things that caused problems for me and my little business in the past.
One of the benefits of a few years experience of this design and online selling m'larky is that I can clearly to see patterns in what works and what doesn't work. I can see the little habits I've formed for tackling tasks (or, being perfectly honest, at times avoiding them!). Sometimes these habits are good, sometimes they aren't. Looking at them all objectively has really helped me put together a better plan for 2014.
And guess what? on the whole, my plan is working for me!...Plans work - who knew?!
On the back of this little personal revelation of mine, I began to design my wallplanner for 2015 - the one I wanted to put by my desk. Something lovely to make me feel happy and inspired by the tasks that lay ahead. Something very practical, easy to use with decent space for my messy frenetic handwriting (I can never get ideas on paper fast enough!)....
Here it is - my happy, bright and pretty planner for me to 'Make Beautiful Plans' throughout 2015.
Then I turned my attention to my lovely regular customers, the ones I know and chat to often. Many of whom have their own craft or baking businesses - I figured that they would probably feel the same way as me about wanting to make plans on something lovely for their craft space, studio or kitchen walls. So, two more wall planner designs came into being....
and
Having a yearly planner is simply not enough though - there are plans that need to be made each week and each day.
I set to work on a further six designs - a daily and a weekly planner in each of the same three themes as my wall planners. These planners are now available as printable downloads or as A5 (148 x 210mm) 40 page, spiral bound notebooks....
The digital printable download versions are available from my Etsy shop here.
So far so good on the launch of my new products. It seems I am not alone in my desire for something colourful and lovely to plan important life and work stuff on.
The first wave of the orders for these have all been sent out and this morning my message in boxes have welcomed me with lots of lovely feedback from happy customers who now have their planners. I think my favourite reaction of all of them has to be this very simple and direct one:
"Parcel received. It's bloody stunning!"
Thank you - that comment made me smile from ear to ear. It makes all the work I put into creating these planners last month worth every minute!!...
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On the subject of planning, it's time to say Happy December to you all and it's time for us all to crack on with plans for Christmas. There's still plenty of time to shop regardless of all the Black Friday and Cyber Monday frenzy! Here is some useful info to help with your shopping plans...
My online shops will be open right up to Christmas, and as most of my items are sent by Royal Mail, here's a handy reminder of those all important Christmas postal deadline dates this year:
International Standard (formerly Air Mail)
Wed 3rd Dec - Asia, Far East (Inc. Japan), New Zealand
Thur 4th Dec - Australia
Fri 5th Dec - Africa, Caribbean, Central and South America, Middle East
Mon 8th Dec - Cyprus, Eastern Europe, Greece
Tue 9th Dec - Canada, Poland
Fri 12th Dec - USA, International Standard to static HM Forces Mail
Sat 13th Dec - Western Europe (excluding Greece and Poland)
UK
Thur 18th Dec - 2nd class and Royal Mail Signed for 2nd class
Sat 20th Dec - 1st class and Royal Mail Signed For 1st class
Mon 22nd Dec - ParcelForce Worldwide Express 48
Tue 23rd Dec - Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed
ParcelForce Worldwide Express 48
My Newsletter readers are getting a 20% discount code which is valid not only at my website and Etsy shop, but now that Folksy has discount codes - it is now valid at Folksy too. This discount will run up until Dec 18th . I will be sending out another copy of that newsletter this evening to send that code to all those who subscribed over the weekend (thank you for those subscribes).
If you'd like to subscribe and get your code too, here's where you opt in: subscribe to my newsletter
I think that catches up on everything for now.
Have a very happy week!
Best wishes
