Mouses in Mousehole

A couple of weeks ago we went away to Mousehole in Cornwall for a few nights. It's such a pretty village and with a name like that I could have kicked myself for not packing a few of the Cottontails mice in my suitcase so I could have a little photo shoot on the harbour.

But not to worry because with the magic of Photoshop I have added a wee mouse to every photo that follows...!

Can you spot the Mousehole mice..?!

That's our cottage at the top of the road

And here it is up close. It was really nice to sit on the step and watch the world go by. (And quite a lot of world there was - Mousehole is a very busy little village)

This is the village pub, where we spent most evenings

And here we are having the first of many ice creams of the holiday...

Isobel and I spent hours sandcastle building while Mike watched the world cup final. The picture completely fails to capture the size of the creation - it was hours of work!

Mousehole is a really pretty little harbour, with a couple of small beaches and lots of boats. It has a very compact and safe feel... nice for families

Even the village fish n chip shop was pretty!

Mostly we just mooched about Mousehole but we did a couple of nice coastal walks. Here we are on our way to Lamorna (blissfully unaware that the skies were about to open on us!!)

So...
Did you spot all the mice...?


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And finally, while we were on hols in Mousehole. Humphrey enjoyed an all-inclusive mouse-free break at Hoppy Holidays in Pershore. A huge thanks to Diane for taking such good care of him as ever.

And the winner is.........

Well done Abby Harris for correctly identifying the three characters painted by Isobel as Jeanne (goose), Mimosa (cat) and Louna (bee).

Isobel wrote out the correct entrants names on Saturday evening and we assembled the three characters to supervise the draw. You can see Louna bee holding the winning name in the photos.



Well done Abby and please email me your address so I can send you something nice - charlotte@cottontailsbaby.co.uk.

Have a look at Abby's lovely blog over at Mutterings from the Moor - she has a lovely creative blog header which I was talking about today in my creative textiles course!

Competition - need entries!!!

Whilst bored during a football match at the weekend (imagine that!) I put up a little competition on the Cottontails facebook page but alas have had no entries... clearly the facebook page is not yet as vibrant and interactive as I hoped it would be!

So I thought I would pop the competition on here. It's quite easy and as I have yet to have any entries the odds of winning must be quite high!

During half term while she was staying with us, Mike's daughter Isobel (aged 9) lined up a few of her favourite Cottontails toys and painted some lovely pictures.

The competition is simple: Can you identify any of the characters? I know you are probably thinking 'I haven't a clue' but it would be ever so easy to find them on the website - just have a look at Moulin Roty's Grand Family toys and Moulin Roty's range of bee and insect toys!

And if you win I will send you a mystery something nice by Moulin Roty :-)


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ps - If you would like to enter twice and thus double your already quite good chances of winning (!) you could leave a comment on the Facebook page too - click here

pps - Oh dear. As the lovely MutteringsFromTheMoor has gently pointed out, there is a bit of a flaw in proceedings as folks can just copy earlier entries... Ah yes. Of course. Hadn't thought of that.

Never mind... press on!

Please enter anyway and I'll give the next competition a bit more thought!

ppps Despite discovering this unfortunate hitch, I am thrilled that putting the competition on the blog has created a bit of interest and a few entries. THANK YOU!

pppps Draw will be Saturday evening (19th) so keep entering up til about 6pm at which point me and Isobel will try and find a hat to draw names from

Potato growing advice...?

I have been 'earthing up' my potatoes for the last fortnight and am wondering how much longer I should keep this up? They keep on growing - which is a good thing - and I'm going to end up with a mountain if I keep heaping earth on them... Advice please!

In the meantime the sunny potato patch is proving to be a popular spot with Nini mouse and her baby..


Also, I have finally got a Cottontails Baby Facebook page up and running. It's a bit more interactive for competitions and things.

Mouse problem spreads to the US

I wrote yesterday about the latest mouse infestation at Cottontails and reports are now coming in of a similar problem unfolding in the US...

One of my lovely regular customers, Jessica, sent me an email to tell me about the problems they are currently experiencing in their New York apartment:

"In our household, in total, we've on hand all the Lila(s) acquired from Cottontails :-) 8 rattle Lila (3 retired/worn out, 2 in rotation, 2 new), 2 Medium Lila (1 retired, 1 new, 1 in use) 2 Large Lila (1 retired, 1 in use) Hubby says we are infested by pink mice! :-))))

And as four more Lila mice head off for New York this afternoon, I'm afraid the problem is only going to get more serious...

Cottontails Kitchen Garden Part 2 - some planting

Another nice weekend weather-wise, and planting is now underway at Cottontails.


Friday evening Mike and I went down to visit mum and dad and do a bit of a raid on my father's greenhouse - he has an amazing garden and had offered me some seeds and plants. This is his lovely garden:


Saturday morning I made a plan of what was going to go where (in the Moulin Roty gardener's notebook of course!).


Then we popped to the local garden center for some compost and some more seeds, and the rest of the weekend was spent digging, sowing and watering.

So far we have little plants of: runner beans, broad beans, beetroots and marigolds, and seeds of loads of herbs, potatoes, radish, carrots, spring onions and salad. I have been checking daily for shoots but nothing yet... guess two days is a little optimistic?


The Cottontails gardening equipment trialed this weekend included our Little Pals gardening gloves (£3) and trowel (£3).


Isobel, aged nine, donned the gloves and gave them a definite thumbs up! She said they are warm and comfy and even commented with surprise how soft they felt inside when she put them on. As for the little trowel, I tried that one out myself and in the interests of honesty have to say I was a bit disappointed that it didn't 'hold' more earth - it is quite a flat little tool. But sturdy and comfy to hold none the less. Just better for digging than for earth carrying!

Finally it's Rabbit Awareness Week this week so I will be back tomorrow with a more rabbity post!

Cottontails Kitchen Garden Part 1 - Building the raised beds

Haven't we had a beautiful weekend? And the timing was perfect as it meant we could make a start on the Cottontails Kitchen Garden.
Thanks to everyone's comments and feedback last week, I decided to go for a mixture of raised beds and a couple of borders. The borders will be for lavender and herbs - maybe with some peas at the back? - and the raised beds will be for other veg and salad things.

Mike did some research and came across Moor Court Farm, a nearby farm selling railway sleepers, oak timbers and vegetable bed kits. We drove over on Thursday afternoon to meet Nick who runs the business, and by Friday morning he had delivered the timber for two 8' x 4' veg beds and two tonnes of top soil. They deliver nationwide (have a shop on ebay) and I can't recommend them enough so if you are on the look out for really good quality raised beds (sustainable oak, 100% organic, not requiring any treatment) have a look at their website.


Saturday morning Mike assembled the raised beds (while I slept in!) and once they were in position we dug out the turf and forked up the ground underneath.


I relaid the turf and started digging the nearby borders while Mike began filling the raised beds with the top soil.


Sunday was spent with more of the same plus digging compost out of our four year old 'heap' of grass cuttings and garden trimmings in the far corner of the garden. It's good stuff!

We worked until 8pm with only the odd break to drink tea and read Alan Titchmarsh, and by the end of the day most of the hard work has been done.



So far there haven't been many occasions to test out my children's gardening equipment (Mike snorted when I suggested we use one of the little pink wheel barrows for transporting the two tonnes of top soil) but I have managed to give the Moulin Roty rake a good work out on the borders and can report that it really is a strong, sturdy tool. Easily up to the job of any full size garden rake but just slightly smaller and lighter - it's a genuinely good quality, scaled down garden tool.


Also I am using a Gardener's Notebook for the planning and ideas:

And next weekend the planting begins!

Cottontails Kitchen Garden

The last few days have been warmer and I have decided the time has come to don one of these...

... and start work on a new project - the Cottontails Kitchen Garden.

The two ranges I am particularly keen to develop at Cottontails are the children's gardening and cooking departments, and I thought a really nice way to do this would be to set up a little kitchen garden and use some of the toys and equipment I sell at Cottontails to grow, harvest and then cook with the fruit, vegetables and herbs. I will take pictures and make little videos along the way.

(It sounds simple doesn't it, but I can see a fair bit of mud, hard work and an aching back ahead - and I will tell you now I am a complete novice at all this.)

The area I have allocated for this is behind the house, and is currently grass and 'rubbley' earth. Here are a few photos.




The photos make the ground look deceptively prepared but as this close up of Delilah the cat shows, it is far from rich and ready.


The first job is to create some vegetable bed areas so - limited knowledge here - I think I have to mark out some beds, take up some turf and turn over the earth. Then add some earth enriching substance like manure? Does this sound right?

Sadly at Cottontails we do not sell heavy duty digging machinery or manure, so I will have to buy this in.

So, stage one: to draw a plan then hire something called a 'Rugged Tiller' this weekend. I will share the results with you soon - assuming of course that they are not too humiliating. It can't be that difficult, right?

Finally, one of my inspirations for all this is my dad, who has created an amazing vegetable garden. This picture, taken last summer, is just one of his herb gardens. You can just about make out who is hiding in the center nibbling the parsley - I think he thought he was in heaven!



Finally, I know some keen gardeners & self sufficiency folk read this blog, so any advice would be most welcome :-)

More Moulin Roty gardening...

I've just been adding some more Moulin Roty things to our new gardening department. Humphrey - and some of the other rabbits - are particularly taken with this lovely grow your own carrots kit...


This one contains Sylvain rabbit and carrot seeds, but there are four other varieties available including Felicie hen and sunflower seeds, Nini mouse and poppy seeds and Perlette frog and pumpkin seeds.

Gardening (and where is Ernest?!)

Just a quick post to let you know that we now have a dedicated children's gardening department at Cottontails. It has been a new and different experience to write the product descriptions - I am so used to describing soft cuddly things that are safe from birth, it is an altogether different thing to be describing, for example, a 3' garden rake - not safe from birth!


One of my favourite things is this small wooden weather vane - perfect for the shed, summerhouse, play house etc - when I get some spare time and a sunny day I am going to put one up on the Cottontails office.


Humphrey meanwhile likes the look of this salad garden kit...


The plan is for me to set up my own little Cottontails garden over the coming weeks, and to use some of the equipment as I do so. And I will of course be writing about it on here...

(****NEWS FLASH****As I am in the middle of writing this post another huge gardening delivery has just arrived - so my gardening department is about to grow!)

Just a little update on Ernest who left for his next destination at Pomona's last week (in case people are wondering where he is, and thinking that maybe I have rooster-napped him and not actually sent him on his way at all - which did of course cross my mind....) Anyway, Pomona has left me a message to say that Ernest has indeed arrrived in Faversham, but that the family has been a bit under the weather so there hasn't been chance for adventures and postings yet... but keep an eye on Pomona's blog and I'm sure he'll pop up very soon now.

Spring Fair and buying stock

I've been meaning to write a post for a couple of weeks about buying stock... Customers quite often ask me where I get my stock from and probably about half of it is sourced through trade fairs.

A trade fair is kind of like shopping on a giant scale. Manufacturers and wholesalers display samples of their goods for retailers to look at and order from - but it's not quite as simple as that as there are usually certain 'rules'. For example, most manufacturers are quite choosy about who they will and won't supply, and certainly won't supply more than one shop in the same town, a lot won't supply Internet-only businesses plus there are often hefty minimum orders so you have to be prepared to spend several hundred pounds. Moreover a lot of what is on display won't actually be available for several months so you have to try and plan ahead. I find the whole thing quite daunting to be honest, and it is so easy to get carried away!

Perhaps the biggest trade fair in the UK is Spring Fair at the NEC in February. It is spread over numerous halls and lasts for five days - I think you could probably go every day and still not see everything.

I used to go for a couple of days and spend ages wandering around looking for inspiration, but now I am much more focused and just pop up for an afternoon to visit the suppliers I particularly want to see. I save inspiration-hunting for less overwhelming situations.

When I went this year - just a couple of weeks ago - I had my afternoon all planned out and kept it to just three suppliers (plus a couple of pit-stops for coffees and muffins). Two of these were companies which I've been 'eyeing up' for quite a while but which are brand new to Cottontails (more about them soon) and the third was Moulin Roty, who had such a lovely stand - just like a gorgeous Moulin Roty shop really!

I took some photos on my phone so the quality isn't great, but it's nice to get an idea...

Here is the stand - you can tell how big it is from how tiny the rocking horses look, standing on the top shelves:


This is one of their wooden baby toys - it's really nice to be able to wheel things around and try them out:


This is a new range of soft toy bunnies which come in their own gift boxes - and they really are soft toys, very floppy and tactile. I think Humphrey might want one.


And this is me brandishing a Moulin Roty garden rake! We have a LOT of gardening goodies due any day now....


Oooh, before I go... I wrote a couple of weeks ago about Ernest, the soft toy rooster who is currently making his way around 'Blogland', and am delighted to announce that he is coming to stay at Cottontails for the week! His last 'host' emailed me last night to say he is on his way so I am half expecting him to arrive tomorrow. As soon as I hear a pecking at the door I'll let you know!

Moulin Roty toys / things to do

Just a quickie - thought some mums out there might find this funny, it is one mother's letter to her children regarding school holiday etiquette:

http://www.frugalfamily.co.uk/2010/02/school-holiday-letters.html

It's very funny!

On the subject of school holidays, here are few 'things to do' kits we have for sale at Cottontails:

This is a lovely paper cut-out-and-dress up doll and bunny kit (£7.00):


This one is a kit to make your own doll's clothes (£21):



And this is a complete kit to make your own working wooden windmill (£31.50) - other toys are available too...

Humphrey and Mole

Mole: Say Humphrey, that was an awfully serious post Charlotte wrote last night, about customer service and things
Humphrey: Hmmm, she's been in a serious mood all week
Charlotte: Oi, you two, I am a serious business woman you know
Humphrey: (snorts)
Mole: (giggles)
Humphrey: Anyway Mole, get your snout out of my hay...

Moulin Roty & competition winner

A little while before Christmas I launched a competition to suggest a new creature to join Moulin Roty's Grand Family range of toys (I should point out that this was just a bit of fun to win a soft toy - sadly I am not an adviser to Moulin Roty!) and I've had a wonderful response.

I will get on to some of the suggestions and the winner in just a moment, but before I do I'd like to introduce the two, actual new members that really are joining the Grand Family this year. They are Jeanne the Goose and Mimosa the cat.


Aren't they lovely! They should be arriving end of March so look out for them then (I just hope they don't send them over in the same box - I'm not sure Jeanne would fare too well).

Anyway, back to the competition. I had a few hundred entries so it's been quite a big job to decide a winner but first I settled on a few criteria:

1. The animal or name can't already exist in any Moulin Roty ranges
2. It must fit in with the existing Grand Family range - so I was looking particularly for woodland or domestic animals
3. The name should be 'quite grown up and human' to fit in with existing naming conventions
4. It can't be a discontinued Grand Family animal (A moments silence please for Philemon Pig, Agathe Cat, Clotaire bear, Charlotte cow... RIP)

Honestly, there were too many good, funny and original suggestions to mention, but here are a few of my favourites:

Gigi the goat
Holiette the horse
Florence the guinea pig
Cardew the stoat

Two animals in particular cropped up again and again and both are, I think, excellent suggestions. These are the squirrel and the badger. For each of these we had various names suggested, including for the squirrels: Estelle, Emmelie, Sebastian, Cyrille and Sabienne, and for the badgers: Horatio, Henri, Bernard and Silas.

But in the end, after much thought and deliberation (mainly over coffee and a biscuits) I finally decided on.......... (drum roll)........

Marcel the Badger!

This was suggested by Vanessa Mathieson. Well done Vanessa (and I will email you in just a moment to tell you the good news and invite you to choose a free toy).


To illustrate the winning suggestion I have borrowed a lovely badger picture from Catherine over at Bumpkin Bears. She makes lovely prints, cards and accessories featuring lots of different animals. This particular picture is called Time for an Adventure and is available in her etsy shop as a print, notecard and soon party invitations and gift tags. In fact I hope to have some of her work for sale at Cottontails in the near future.

For what it is worth I will send the suggestions over to Moulin Roty so who knows, maybe this time next year Marcel the Badger really will be joining the Grand Family. As a woodland creature I think he might get on well with Arsene the fox or Emile the hedgehog (oh hang on, badgers don't eat hedgehogs do they..?!)

On that note I must just finish by telling you that Humphrey is not very happy about the winner. For obvious reasons he is not a fan of the badger and has been sulking ever since I made the decision. I'd better go and have a word with him, see if I can smooth things over with a bit of digestive biscuit...