Sausage Dogs!

 Another of my best sellers at the moment are my Sausage Dog Earrings (available as studs or drops!) Available Here

I've had a couple of messages from customers saying how much they/their daughter/sister/cousin/bestfriendsneighbourssister is obsessed with Sausage dogs and can they buy more! I took a little shopping trip the other day and noticed Sausage Dogs everywhere too! A little while ago I spotted a Sausage Dog blouse in Primark and it was reduced - I totally regret not buying it because it was so damn cute and I've been on the hunt for it ever since - but alas! No luck! So I think I need to fill my life with these Sausage Dog things instead!

Via The Polkadotte

Via Etsy (click photo for link)

Via Dorothy Perkins

Via John Lewis

Via ASOS

Via Next

Via Etsy

Christmas Baking!

Today I gave myself half the day off! I got my million & one orders packaged up from the weekend and went off to do a spot of shopping & baking! I wanted to try some new cupcakes inspired by some bits I'd seen on Pinterest & other blogs. Here are my Peppermint Cupcakes!

If you fancy making these delicious little cupcakes it was super simple and they look really nice & festive - Perfect for a Christmas party!


I used a basic cupcake recipe & bought some chocolate frosting (I cheated because I was trying to save time! - Homemade frosting definately tastes better though!). I bought some candy canes and bashed them up with a rolling pin (great stress relief) and poured all the crushed pieces in a bowl, with some chocolate sprinkles & pieces. I smothered the buns in chocolate frosting (messier the better!) and then spooned on the crushed pieces and chocolate and gave a final little sprinkle of icing sugar to look like snow and tada! Super Duper simple cupcakes! No messing around with Icing bags - Really nice quick & simple - and not much washing up! I'll be taking some into work tomorrow to share with the girlies :-)

The Bucket List

Whilst I've been super quiet on the blog apparently I haven't been super quiet in life! I totally forgot I put the bucket list on my blog for you all to see so I thought I'd have a nosy and a quick recap and it's been updated! I was quite surprised to see how much I'd actually done!

I finally got round to going to London - I've been about 3 times in the last year now and probably will visit a lot more! I thought I'd be scared of the hustle and bustle of it but I kind of love it. I always try and persuade the mr to hop on the train there for the day :-)

I ran for charity! It was a ridiculously hot day and I felt like dying but I did it! And I rasied over £100!!! Thankyou to everyone who donated!

I've finally started my driving lessons! This is something I've always been scared of doing! But now I don't even know what all the fuss was about! It's going smoothly minus a few hiccups! *ahem!*

I finished uni! woohoo! I'm so thankful of this like every single day! I know a few people who are busy applying away and I just think THANKGOD I got all the stress over and done with. I loved it at the time (most of the time!) but wow it was hard work!

& the biggest of the all - I started my own business. There are days when I'm swamped and I think - what was I thinking, but then I realise - Wow, I'm actually running my own business.. like a REAL business. Not many people can say they've got the self motivation to do that and to work hard at it - so for that - I'm pretty damn proud of myself!

I still have many more I need to tick off my list! But I'm happy I wrote it because of days like this when I can go back and look at how much I've done without even realising! :-)

What's your best seller?

A little while ago I was having a clear out of my craft room (Hi I'm Emma & I'm a hoarder) and I found some wax cord I bought many years ago! I'd seen some wax cord bracelets on pinterest so went back for a cheeky look! I found these wax cord bracelets with various open ended charms in the the middle so set about into my charm box to see what I could find. I had lots of anchors I'd bought wholesale (Hi I'm Emma & I'm a hoarder) So I threw them all together and ended up with my suprisingly best selling item!
In a way my clearout backfired as I've now bought metres upon metres more wax cord to make sure I'm fully stocked all the time!
What's your best seller, and was it something you put a lot of thought into? Have you ever made something super simple and got endless comments on what expensive shop you got it from or where they can find something similar? :-)
xoxo

Packaging

The shop has been super busy at the moment - I really could do with an extra pair of hands around here for the Christmas rush but I'm powering through and managing to keep up (just!). When things get too much, it really helps to have some lovely feedback from customers to really encourage me to stick at it and reassures me all my time and effort is worth it! This week I've had some lovely messages, completely out of the blue telling me how much they've loved the item, and how many compliments people have said about it. Another continous comment I get is about how much they love my packaging. I think packaging an item nicely is really important because it shows you've taken the time and effort to display it makes it look more special. I figure if the item breaks in posting (sadly sometimes accidents do happen!) then it shows I didn't just throw it in a jiffy bag and hope for the best and I think this really comes through to my customers. So anyway...my packaging.

At first I use to painstakingly wrap up each item in bubble wrap then tissue paper then in brown paper - This use to take forever! It didn't look very appealing too, it just looked like a plain parcel - Not too exciting when it comes peeping through your letter box! So I set about finding a more exciting way of wrapping them up. Firstly I bought some little sweet shop gift bags (you know the kind, stripy bright colours?) but this ended up getting expensive and the paper was super thin and fragile - but it did save a lot of time on packaging. So I contiuned searching wanting some Polkadot ones to fit with my brand but alas no luck! Then I had a genius idea of making my own! I found a template on the internet and here it is...

I print out about 100 of these each time (in draft mode to save on ink!) on to a4 plain paper. I then create a Polkadot Pattern and print to borderless a4 on the reverse of the template sheets!

Printing full page colour does use a lot of ink though! So to save I always turn down the saturation to pastel tones, print as draft, and try to vary the colours you print (i tend to do 25 of each, so you don't use ALL the blue ink, and have loads of yellow & red left)

I then snip off the two corner sections, fold & glue together!

This does take a lot of time but I really think it's worth it for all the feedback from my customers I get saying how much they loved recieving it through the post, like a proper gift!

I still wrap all my items in bubble wrap, and tissue paper (shop around for some pretty patterns and not just plain!) and I also make my own cardboard pillow boxes for protection!

Heres my template for the pillow boxes...

It's the same again with them.. Print the outline on the back of the card and your pattern on the front, cut around the lines and score the inner lines.


I personally love making my own packaging. It's really helped me establish a look for my products with matching business cards, order cards, stickers, earrings etc. It also means I can show a bit of personality to my customers and give them something a bit more special than the rest!

My special edition olympics packaging!