Wooden stocking - £2.95!!

Isn't this gorgeous? I think it is. It's a flat wooden stocking - quite large, 40cm - from Maileg, with a little of their stripey red ribbon to hang it by. I ordered loads of these because I thought they were so different and lovely, but I've only sold a few so have put them into the sale which means they are now only £2.95. A bargain!

Every Christmas there is one item I over-order - last year it was the Maileg pigs. I had pigs all over the place until the summer. Although as my boyfriend pointed out, this year's 'mistake' is rather more unforgiving - after all there isn't going to much call for wooden stockings after the 25th!

I have a feeling my own home is going to be covered in them this Christmas... not to worry!

Cottages for sale

Okay, this is seriously 'blow the budget' stuff, but after months of deliberation I have finally introduced a couple of play houses to the website. These are really - really! - lovely, and hand crafted to order so customers can specify their own details - thatched roof, stable door, window boxes and so on. They are so expensive that I am blushing, but then again, consider the many days work that goes in to creating them. I'll whisper this bit... £3500.. sshhhh!

But I think they're lovely and if I had children (and a healthy bank balance) I wouldn't think twice. In fact I would love to buy one for the bunnies... but that does seem a tad extravagant, especially considering all they'd really want to do is nibble it!

Nutty Christmas Window

Mum put together a Christmas window display yesterday - and hid a monkey nut in it! There is a competition in Pershore where all the shops hide a mystery object in their windows (it can be anything, just something that 'doesn't belong') and this year I thought a monkey nut would be good - something slightly festive but devilishly small! I have seen several people peering in the window today searching for the 'something' - not sure if they spotted it or not. To make things harder mum has half tucked it inside a bunny's shoe. If you zoom in on the picture and peer very closely at the bunnies sitting on the fireplace you might be able to spot it...

I had a brief wander around town and had a look at some other shops earlier and so far I have spotted a sprout in Three Little Pigs gift shop, a nail file in Top Drawer lingerie and a key in Coach House Books. I'll keep looking... there's a £25 voucher up for grabs!

It isn't all a mess though!

Here is part of our nice festive display. My favourite thing is the Maileg angel princess on the tree.

Today I need to enter the 'Christmas mystery window competition' in the town - the idea is to hide something that doesn't belong somewhere in my window display. I am thinking maybe a monkey nut..?

Christmas chaos...

Christmas chaos is well and truly upon us. My laptop is bleeping every few minutes with orders, the phone does not stop ringing and we have just had a pallet of toys from France. The pictures say it all I think!

The shop itself is painfully quiet - you would hardly know it was Christmas - but maybe that's not a bad thing given that we are are rushed off our feet online, and - as you can see from the photos - there isn't exactly a lot of room for customers anyway!

Mouse House Refurbishment

The Maileg mouse houses are gorgeous aren't they? But just to complicate things, Maileg have gone and changed their design three weeks before Christmas. Grrr! The house itself has changed a little in that it has a new - and vastly improved - roof. Before it was a thin kind of ply wood... now it is lovely chunky wood. (Still with 'cheese hole' in!) But the real change is inside. Here are the before and after contents:

Mouse house before:
-mouse
-bed & bedding
-cotton reel table
-stool
-kettle
-cup

Mouse house now:
-cotton reel table
-two stools
-cloth rug
-two cups
-kettle

So you see, crucially, there is now no mouse! I think the reasoning behind this is that Maileg are now selling mice in matchbox beds as separate items - but the trouble is that the UK distributors have run out of these until after Christmas. Grrr again!

I am trying to get some little baby Nini mice from Moulin Roty for next week - they would be just as happy inside the Mouse House I'm sure!

And the good news is that the new house is only £32. Hurrah!

Ragley Hall

Every so often, in a fit of misguided enthusiasm, I find myself agreeing to take part in a gift fair... Typically this involves taking some stock along to an organised 'shopping event' - usually held in a public hall or country house - setting up a little stand and selling things. That's the idea anyway. The reality is that these events are never, ever worthwhile for me and I usually make a loss.

Well, it's been a while since the last one and the memory of standing for hours on end, smiling benignly at people wandering by, had faded sufficiently for me to agree to take part in a fair at Ragley Hall this weekend just gone. And guess what...? It was a disaster! Oh, it was a nice enough set up - lovely location, lots of nice stands and actually quite a lot of people. But nobody ever seems to buy anything from me! I have no idea where I go wrong, and can only think that it's a confidence thing... I'm not very good at 'selling' things, absolutely hate the idea of pushing things onto people... so I just stand there smiling!

Ah well, maybe I'll learn my lesson this time and say no to the next one! One good thing to come out of it was that I came across some lovely vintage style jewellery handmade by a lady in Coventry. I treated myself to a ring for £10 - and in doing so pretty much spent the weekend's profit in one go! Have a look at her website at www.helenwoodward.co.uk