Last Lot Of Christmas Orders

I think I may have packed up the last few Christmas orders. Feels like time to step back and breath (once I've built up stock of one or two items again...) 

I'm sorry the blog has been so sporadic the last few weeks, it's been really busy (which is good)! 

I'm so thankful that people choose to buy from me and support me, either on my blog here, on social media, on YouTube, comments, shares, likes, it all helps. I feel very lucky that people are still willing to put up with me. 

Building this little business up so it works around the children has been great and it's especially hit home this year with our eldest and her diagnosis of Type One Diabetes.  Being able to drop everything and go get her from school should I need to, or stay up all night with her when levels have gone wrong, has been so essential to everything running smoothly. Making and selling my products in a super flexible way has been great. 

Thanks everyone! 

Don't Use Holiday Mode On Etsy

Etsy has been the main way I've earnt my living for some time now. My business has been slow to build but it fits well around the children, I have a built and designed a good range of products and put a lot of effort into what I do. 

But each year we'd go away and I'd put my shop on holiday mode, which was great as there is no hassle, but it would mean a big gap in my sales. I decided to try a different method this time and have had great success. 

Let me know how you deal with time away if you run your own business

Me & My Stuff

A friend popped over the other day and snapped this picture of me. 

 Me, surrounded by the stuff I proudly make and sell. Wearing wellies...

I keep organised with my work and storage space. Pretty much everything is a custom build and fit to make it work for me (all the shelving is 800mm deep). I have a good work flow now and I'm really enjoying having some products I have put a lot of effort into designing and making. 

Is your workplace organised and tidy?

Maker Of Fine Wooden Garden Items

 The last few weeks I've been working really hard to increase my stock levels of all the items I sell (as well as the more unusual one off items I sometimes make and sell). 

I'm trying to make sure I have a full range of products out there, including different sizes and types of tool boxes, 3 different wire bottomed baskets and potting trays in 5 different sizes. 

There are a few items that I end up making a lot less on, but I enjoy making and think they're a quality product. They also help to complete the range of items I make. I'm trying to see myself more as a "brand" than a small manufacturer. 

One of those is my seed boxes, I do these in two sizes and sometimes in reclaimed materials as well as the carved fronts. I'm currently making a batch with the carved fronts to them, all the carving is done by hand. This helps me be a better craftsman and also has a lovely handmade feel to it. 

Hopefully I'll be able to list these boxes for sale by the end of the week. I need to slice them all open now, add the hinges and dividers, then give them a coat of Danish oil to finish them. Once that's done I have some magazine article work to do and then more stock to make! 

What item would you like to see me make and stock in my shop?

Last Chance To Order For Christmas (hopefully)

So, Christmas is fast approaching, so time for my last bit of shameless self promotion!

When you're a small maker/producer, the increased buying around Christmas makes a huge difference to over all yearly sales. 

Obviously this year has been harder due to postal strikes, but I've been using the same courier my dad uses, who has a regular pick-up slot booked every day, and they're still saying stuff will get there for Christmas. 

Christmas Gift Ideas For Gardeners

I sometimes need to do a bit of shameless self promotion and this is one of those times! I made a short (3 minute) video showing some of the products I make here in my little workshop at the foot of the Malverns. 

I love that I get to make this stuff. I try to build everything as well as I can, use the right materials and have items that will last many years. 

Sales Go Quiet in Summer (for me anyway)

The number of years I've been making garden products for sale I always experience a slump in the summer. When it's hot and dry I guess the last thing people want to be thinking of is buying things for their garden. 

My peak times are Christmas (and for a few weeks afterwards when hints dropped weren't picked up on) and the spring. 

Click the picture to be taken to my Etsy shop with my range of garden tool boxes, baskets, boxes and trays!

Most summers that means I fall back on more traditional carpentry, going off and working on peoples houses or making commissions. This year I've decided to hold my nerve and make extra stock for Christmas, with the hope of having every item I make to sell around that time. 

Click the picture to go straight to my new mini tool boxes - I got the idea for these in a museum in Wales. 

But to invest time and lots of money in timber now does involve a bit of faith in hoping people will still want to buy my items! Especially if we slip into recession like is predicted. I was blown away this weekend where I tweeted about my concerns and I was rewarded with 8 sales! I couldn't quite believe that a tweet could do so much! 

So for the next few months I'm going to concentrate on building the stock of my key items and make sure I have lots of other unique products to sell as well. I also have a lot of magazine articles to write so some of the items from them might be for sale soon as well.  

Do you ever make things for sale? How do you decide how much stock to make of one item?

Christmas Presents For Gardeners

I thought I'd use my blog for a bit of shameless self promotion and show a few of my products I've got for sale on Etsy at the moment. 

My potting trays have been really popular and come in a few different sizes.

 

And the same with my seed boxes. 

There are some other items in my shop and I can make things to order when it's not quite so busy! 

All these items are made by me, not shipped in from somewhere else and "personalised". I also put a free packet of seeds (bagged up by my children) in with every purchase! 

Thanks for looking! 

New Seed Packets

As I spent my free time last week writing out seed packets with the same bits of information on them I was thinking how I should modernise the process a little bit.

I looked online and saw that to have a label I could print on would cost me about 0.5p a sticker!

How I wish I'd looked sooner!

Never mind next year just got easier! And I still have lots to bag up for this year. I'm going to send some packets to some friends and with every craft item I sell on Etsy I'm going to put a packet or two of seed in there as a bonus (although at the moment I'm working on a bigger job so only have a few things listed).

What do you think to the new packets? I hope the instructions will help anyone new to gardening as well.

Should stop my bad spelling - hopefully!

Tomato Plants

My tomato plants are romping away in the greenhouse at the moment. Now is the time I need to start thinking about potting them on and getting them in their final positions.

I'm planning on having at least one bed outside again this year but covered with a mini poly tunnel to start with, next year I'd like to create a couple of beds in the front garden where's there's a bit of a micro climate, I think they'd do well there and if I created a few beds I could rotate some veggies that like it slightly hotter (grow food not lawns and all that).

I have got far too many tomato plants though so when I pricking them out I did pot a few into root trainers with the idea of selling them online later on. I've just added a couple of listings to my Etsy shop which contains two lots of four open pollinated tomato plants.

They are all heritage varieties:

Four varieties of non hybrid tomato:

Amish Paste - From the Amish Community in America, huge plum tomatoes, one slice can cover a piece of bread! Apple sized fruit, dense flesh.

Abraham Lincoln - Large, meaty, flavourful tomatoes, 

Harbinger - An old English variety, produces heavy yields of good flavoured medium size fruit. Tolerates cool weather well so good for outside growing.

Millefleur - Centiflor type tomato. Hundreds of flowers on each truss, produces hundreds of little yellow fruits. 

And the other listing has four other varieties of non hybrid tomatoes:

Abraham Lincoln - Large, meaty, flavourful tomatoes, 

Best Of All - Great Heirloom variety 

Jersey Sunrise - Heavy cropper, very sweet, great all rounder

Legend - Outdoor tomato with good blight resistance, slightly flatter shape than normal, and very few seeds. 

Hopefully this will give someone else the chance to grow some of these interesting varieties of tomatoes!

My Sister's Etsy Shop

My very talented sister designs wallpaper and fabrics for a living. 

She's just set up an Etsy shop to start selling some limited edition lino prints. This method of using lino to make a stamp is how she made the veg and chickens on my blog header.

Lino cut used for making my blog header

She's doing every print as a limited edition run. 

Check out her shop here and give her a like!