Tuesday 30 November 2010

Snow and an offer.



What an a very un-Cornish weekend it's been: we woke to a scene of snow on Saturday which looked so beautiful in the bright sunshine and then were snowed in yesterday as more fell, billowing over the landscape and turning our steep hill into an icy impassable skid bowl. Of course, I forgot to take any pictures!

So, no school, no post bring my much needed box of notebooks and envelopes and labels and definitely no getting orders to the post office.



Instead Isabella and Daddy steamed the Christmas puddings they had made at the weekend



Lucy and Elias played - trains followed by Tarot with Daddy to the sound of Edith Piaf floating on the air



and as for me? Well, I sewed of course! Thank you by the way to everyone who entered my giveaway and well done to the winners. For the rest who may be interested, I have put a special offer in place for the Dove and Mistletoe Christmas Hearts. They are now available for £14.00 each or £23.00 for a set of two until Monday 6th December.

In the meantime, the sun looks set to shine here so it's back to normal routines...sigh.



Have a good day x

Sunday 28 November 2010

Giveaway Winner(s)



The giveaway is over and the winner as chosen by the Random Generator is.....

The lovely Donna Flower!

Of course, me being me I felt mean that so many of you sweet people had entered and so decided to give three more hearts away. The numbers chosen were for the equally lovely:

* Julia Crossland

* Gemma Mortlock

& * Roslyn Mitchell



As Donna was the first and therefore the 'real' winner I will send her two hearts - one of each design because I'm quite nice like that!



Please send me your addresses ladies - poltiskofarm@talktalk.net - and I will post them off to you this week.

Well done and thank you all so much for entering. Another one soon methinks!
Happy Sunday x

Thursday 25 November 2010

A Little Heart Giveaway



As a celebration of the fact that we now have computer access and I am no longer floating around in the ether I have decided to do a little giveaway.

The prize will be one of these ...

Either a Mistletoe Peace Heart



or a Dove Peace Heart



Both of which can be seen in my pipany shop along with a whole host of other goodies.



All you have to do to win is say which heart you would like and tell me what you plan to do with it - hang it by the fire, give it as a gift, throw it in the bin...hmm, I so hope not!



The closing date will be Sunday 2pm for no real reason other than that popped into my head as I typed. I shall announce the winner later that day and will post the prize off in about January!! Of course those of you who have waited for previous giveaways from me are probably nodding sagely about now thinking that would be early by my standards, but I promise to be good on this one and post it out next week.



So there you are. I hope you will all enter and pass the message on to other bloggers as I love it when new people visit. It is open to all as ever - new visitors, old (!) friends and those who have won before. Here's a snowy picture to get you in the mood (and we have sun here today typically).



Oh and I nearly forgot to say that if you look on my sidebar you will see Pipany now has a Facebook page. Do pop over for a look please as it may be very lonely over there!

Have a good Thursday x

Tuesday 23 November 2010

I'm Back!



At last, we have bitten the bullet and bought a new computer. Our old one has been worked on, gone wrong again, worked when it felt like it...you get the picture? We brought the ancient laptop into play, but it couldn't cope with all we needed it to do. Dear son, Sam, lent us his computer and even that started to go wrong! Definitely time to accept defeat, especially when you run a mostly online business and it is the busiest season of the year.



And oh my, has it been busy!



Having spent seven days a week working from about 7am till way past midnight for the last goodness knows how many weeks I can honestly say I have learnt a few lessons:

1. I need sleep!

2. There is no such thing as too much stock in hand.

3. When your partner and best friend (who has a three week old baby I might add) are frantically cutting out, your children are stuffing Christmas hearts and helping package orders for wholesale and even your daughter who lives a long way away is sending down packages of notebook covers all ready to be hand embroidered then it really is time to consider employing!



Pipany has really taken off this year which is so exciting for me as I had a plan when I started it with my tiny baby in tow - I wanted it to gradually grow over four years ready for when Isabella started school full time which happens in January. When one baby moves on the other will be waiting for me and I will be able to push it to the next stage. And that means employing.

One thing about sewing almost all day (and all night) is that your mind is free to wander. For me this means I have a whole host of ideas for how to take the business forward.



All I need now is for Christmas to arrive so that I can actually sit and plan out how to make it all happen!



In the meantime, it is back to work. Apologies to all who have enquired about how we coped with the recent floods - we are fine thank you as we live high on a hill so were unaffected unlike so many other poor souls. Apologies also to any customers who may be waiting to hear from me! Now we have a computer that works I will get there I promise!

Oh and look who's beautiful daughter graduated last week - congratulations my beautiful, talented, totally gorgeous Lauren. We love you x



Have a good day and see you soon x

P.S. The Christmas Emporium is now open!

Monday 8 November 2010

Going fast and Going Slow.



Yet more old photographs I'm afraid. Still waiting for the return of our computer and thus still using ye old and slow laptop in the meantime. Things could be worse though as I can at least access my orders and believe me, dealing with orders is pretty much all I seem to do these days.



It has been unbelievably busy with midnight seeming an old friend as I work away on the ever-increasing invoice list. The Notonthehighstreet Christmas catalogue is now out and orders for my Garden Journal have gone through the roof, far exceding the projected order figures.



This is all fantastic news and definitely helps to build my belief in what I am doing though I do miss eating properly, cooking properly, sleeping for a whole night and of course, blogging but that is more down to the lack of a decent computer. Hopefully it will return to us soon.



Watch this space! In the meantime, I will dip into blogs when I can though leaving comments is beyond my patience for now as it takes sooo long on the laptop.

Missing you all. Have fun x