Tomorrow...

Happpy Halloween! What a sweet sight it was when I opened the door ten minutes ago to a vision of 6 small children (accompanied by their mummies) dressed in fairy and witchy costumes, their cheeks pink with the cold and the biggest of grins on their faces. The littlest girl (who had obviously been practising carefully) beamed up at me and whispered 'twick or tweet' ~ how could I resist?

We get the keys to the new unit in the morning ~ whoop! I am so excited, even though this means the start of at least 2 or 3 weeks ahead of me with double shifts at work. We will work as usual (we hope) for most of the day and then go over to the new unit to erect the walls and set up the office and shop during the evenings and over the weekends.

My hope is that by 24th November we will be able to open the doors of our shop to the public.

Today has been very chocolatey... milk and chocolate fragranced soaps and chocolate scented candles have made the unit smell good enough to eat. By the time it came to supper this evening, I wasn't terribly hungry!

I need to go and stick more labels onto things. Chat soon, Liz

Get Well Soon

Cecily has just telephoned us, she is feeling very poorly today with a rotten cold (is there ever a joyful cold?) and is missing her 'mommy'. Suffice to say, both Dave and I are missing her too and we just want to send her a message ~

'Get Well Soon'

Love & hugs to Cecily from Mum & Dave.

Stocking up for winter ahead ~ 4 days til we get the keys!

We have been out and about today in Hereford. Not, you might think, the capital of all that is cool and exciting, but it was perfect for our purposes today.
We headed off to visit a garden centre owned by a large company because I wanted to choose some indoor plants for the shop and we thought we would do a 'big food shop' while we were
there.
Now I realise that a visit to Sainsburys may not be everyone's idea of an interesing day, but as we live almost 50 miles from our nearest one (in Hereford), I was really looking forward to restocking our cupboards with all those bits and pieces that we find hard to buy in this little town.

Now our cupboards are almost bursting with both our favourite basics and the inevitable, unnecessary items that ended up in our trolley. The oven is slowly braising some steak with pounds of root vegetables and lots of fresh herbs from the garden, that we will freeze in 2 people portions once cooked and cooled. Our house smells lovely which in turn gives me a cosy warm feeling. Perhaps this is natural nesting and hoarding instinct brought on by the change of the clocks today and the thought of darker evenings ahead.

Well, I had better go and stir the stew, chat soon, Liz

A stitch in time...

With just 6 days until we can collect the keys to our new premises, we have been putting the final touches to our plans for moving and refurbishing the unit.

Dave and I work so well as a team at times like these. I have an overall vision of how I want somewhere/something to look and I describe it to Dave in descriptive language that he doesn't really understand. And he in turn tells me what is physically possible within the timescale, which I ignore and carry on with my flowery imaginings.

Then, when the time comes somehow we manage to pull off what many who know us consider the impossible; we work together as a team and produce results that please both of us. Our whole marriage has been a bit like this and it makes me really happy to know that despite being such different people, our skills combined are a strong force. I guess that Dave goes placidly whilst I am the noise and haste!

Not much to say this evening as I am keeping a few ideas secret and will tell all once the unit is ours... chat soon, Liz

For George and Sally (& 7 days to go!)

It has been a busy few days as we have been organising and packing up all the stock in readiness for our move next week.

We have sold so many goodies in the last few days that some of my favourite items are almost sold out. Of course we will replenish our stocks in readiness for the opening of the shop, so I will be able to do one of my favourite tasks of browsing through the catalogues and deciding which new lines and old favourites we will order.

Here at home, I am also making plans... we have been using our dining room as a storage space and office since we started Pretty Practicals and once we have the larger unit and shop space, we will be able to move everything to the new unit and I will have my dining room back once more. We have bought a dining suite which will grace dining room and I hope, we will have the first family meal in there at Christmas. My thanks to George and Sally who have kindly & patiently waited whilst I have been arranging transport for our new dining room furniture ~ and my apologies that it has taken me so long.

Well you know, as usual, kettles and tea and all that,

chat soon, Liz.

Handmade Exclusives ~ 8 days to go.

Our hand-made cards have arrived today, made exclusively for us at Pretty Practicals by my super-clever friend Carli, they are so pretty and will grace our new shop counter beautifully.

Today has also been a day of book-keeping; Annette has been busy putting the last few entries into our accounts system so that our first VAT return will be ready to submit before the end of the month and hip, hip hooray, it all balances perfectly.

Dave has been improving the admin panel for our websites and helping me sort out the stock ready for our move. Once the shop is completed and open, we will be launching a couple of new websites, with the same Pretty Practicals ethos behind them, they will offer different ranges of furniture and accessories that will be available on a 'to order' basis only.

What a lucky woman I am to have such talented, clever, intelligent, inspiring and joyous people working with me.

This evening I am back to making up gift sets of soaps, lavender bags and fragranced candles, all neatly wrapped in ribbon and celophane, they will make lovely Christmas presents. I have put together some selections of our own label toiletries in presentation baskets which will also make perfect Christmas gifts.

With only 8 days until we get the keys to the new unit (but about 3 or 4 weeks until we open the shop to the public), I am getting really excited about the changes that are afoot. This new phase in the development of Pretty Practicals will enable me to fulfil the dream I have had for it since we starting trading in July 2006 and I am so proud of how much Dave and I have managed to acheive in such a short space of time.

As always, my tea cup is empty... I'm off to put the kettle on
Chat soon, Liz

French soap ~ 9 days to go!

As you probably know, we are moving to new premises soon. We get the keys in 9 days time and will start transforming the small enterprise unit into our new shop, display room and storage space.

I have spent the last month imagining how it will look, feel and smell and having been making plans for layouts and displays. All incredibly exciting as this is the part of my job that I like the most.

To that end I have also been taking stock of which lovelies I need to re-order to make sure that we have enough of them for the shop and for the Christmas orders which usually arrive during November. One of my favourite orders is to our suppliers of French soaps and toiletries because opening the boxes when they arrive is always a treat. Lots of gorgeous fragranced soaps, bath salts and lotions with complementary scents ~ yummy!

Well, no more time to chat right now, I need to go and place my orders ~ Liz

Shabby chic heaven

Despite it being bitterly cold this morning (which usually makes me feel like a bear with a sore head), I am very happy and contented.

I have learnt how to transfer calls from the unit to our home (don't worry ~ we then pay for the call, not the caller) which allows me to work from the comfort and relative warmth of my kitchen today.

This time two years ago, I was making preparations to spend 3 weeks in Australia, visiting friends who kindly offered to put me up and show me their (breathtakingly beautiful) corner of the world. Caroline and Patrick had sent me some pictures of both their house and garden, but nothing prepared me for the gorgeous space that they had created by the love and care that had been lavished on their wonderful home.

Sitting high in the Blue Mountains above Sydney, the house was picturesque and decorated top to bottom in vintage Laura Ashley fabrics and wallpapers. Caroline's considerable sewing skills had been put to good use making Austrian blinds, bedcovers, slip covers for chairs and every conceivable accessory that would make her home more beautiful. Coupled with lovely wooden furniture, it was shabby chic heaven.

I stayed for 11 days with Caroline and Patrick and then took a plane to Tasmania to see my life-long friend, Anna, who moved to Australia some 26 years ago and we have stayed in touch ever since. Anna is one of those friends whom I don't necessarily speak to very often, but when we do it is like we saw each other only yesterday. Our friendship is comfortable and warm, like an old pair of slippers.

Anna is also a creative person, her sewing skills were impressive even when we were teenagers and she too had created a beautiful home for herself and her family. With a scrubbed pine kitchen table, an Amish style quilt hung on the wall (handmade by Anna) and lots of pictures and artwork by her children all around, it had a cosy relaxed country feel.

After 3 weeks in the Australian summer sunshine, I came home to Wales's usual winter offerings... but it was nice to be home with Dave and Cecily once again and to know that I wasn't too far away from Alec should he need me.

That sinking feeling...

I am spending this evening in the company of Kate and Leonardo. No matter how many times I watch this film, I see something new in the sets, the scenery or the costume design.

Set as it is in my favourite historical period, I find lots of inspiration for our home in it. The story itself doesn't move me anymore... after the first couple of times watching it, I knew the plot but that didn't stop Dave feeling the need to tell me something about it ~ 'oh it sinks at the end' he merrily chirpped down the telephone at me. Mr. Witty strikes again!

It's been ever so quiet at work today, Tuesdays are usually really busy, with lots of enquiries and purchases. However, it is half term in parts of the UK and we always find school holidays a little quieter than normal. This has given me a chance to do a mini stock-take and to list a few lovely pieces that have arrived recently and a couple that are due with us any day now.

(Irish dancing has just started on the lower decks)

I can't believe how long the wait for our new premises has become. Despite the days passing, it now feels like an age before we will move over the road and be able to start our well-planned preparations for the shop, the new storage area and office. Good grief, you will be so fed up of reading about it by the time it happens!

(Oh no! There's an iceberg)

I have now made 'choosing the right carrier bag' into an artform. I would never have guessed that there are so many different types of bags, made from different materials in different sizes with vastly differing prices. I really dislike plastic carrier bags (5p each), much prefer paper carriers with handles (70p each) but most of all would like to supply cotton bags (£1.20 each), however (my) basic economics mean that I have to consider carefully the cost implications.

Obviously the enviromental cost also has a great bearing on my decision; I would rather not contribute towards the ever-growing mountain of plastic carrier bags that are discarded after one use, so I am now leaning towards nice paper carriers (which are bio-degradable) with an option for customers to purchase a cotton shopping bag which can be used over and over again ~ hopefully reducing the environmental impact created by Pretty Practicals. Certainly we are always happy to purchase a fabric bag rather than use a plastic one when we shop (if I haven't taken one our fabric shoppers with us) ~ let me know what you think about fabric, paper or plastic bags.

Time for a nice cup of tea once again (whilst they discover that there aren't enough lifeboats), chat soon, Liz

Definition perfection!

I'm not going to comment on the picture above except to say: definition perfection!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It has been a really busy few days, Dave has gone to visit his mother as she is about move almost as far north as you can go before you meet Scotland, I visited my mother to watch the match on Saturday night and then I dashed back to be home in time to see Sunday's match and then was back at work today.

Our patient and quite brilliant book-keeper was with me today in work, sorting through the mountains of paper that I seem to be able to create in our 'paperless office'. She is doing an amazing job of translating my filing system into an ordered set of books. Thank you to Annette for having a seemingly endless smile and collection of kind and encouraging words.

When Dave is away, I always take the opportunity to eat my favourite dishes that Dave doesn't necessarily like very much, so this evening I have made baked haddock with a cracked black pepper and lemon sauce (very light and very tasty), with hardly cooked broccoli ~ yum!

I have also taken the opportunity to sift through the pile of 'stuff' that seems to have accumulated in front of our wardrobe. Now I know that when we put these essential items in the pile that we knew why we needed to hang on to them, but going through the bits and pieces I can think of no good reason to keep:

• one side of a duvet cover that I cut up a couple of years ago,
• the gathered frill that I removed from 1980's curtains when I gave them a revamp at least 6 months ago,
• 5 odd socks
• one pure wool cardigan that went into a hot wash and now looks like grey felt
• one broken hairdryer.

So I have put the fabric items into our recycling bags and put them out for collection in the morning and disposed of the hairdryer (removing the electrical lead first of course). I wonder why I only ever get these sorting out jobs done when Dave isn't here. It's not like he prevents me from tidying up!

It's only a couple more weeks until we get the keys to the new unit and start to move the business into its new home. We think it's going to take 2 weeks to create the shop space and move everything over the road, so hopefully we will be able to open the shop during the third week of November ~ just in time for everyone to come and do some Christmas shopping with us.

Dave and I are really looking forward to having a better office, packing area, display space and of course the new shop. It feels like it is going to be a very exciting end to 2007.

Oh no, my tea cup is empty... chat soon, Liz

Secret messages

Today has been wonderful, with thanks to Dave. He has surprised me, made me laugh and even cooked dinner for me this evening ~ what a star he has been!

Half way through this afternoon, I went to the table that we use for packaging items. Dave had been parcelling up items earlier in the day and had left a bit of a mess, so I started to tidy up.

He had carefully placed his empty tea mug on a small square of cardboard (to make sure that no tea rings where left on the table), so I lifted the mug to take it to the sink to be washed and found that Dave had carefully drawn around the base of the mug to leave a circle on the cardboard and inside the circle he had written the following message:
'If you can see this, then I need a new cup of tea!'
How could I resist such a darling message and laughing to myself, I went and put the kettle on!

Dave has managed to sort out the little problems he had found with our website, none of them could be seen when you visit the site because they were in our administration panel, but irritating for me all the same. Still, that's all sorted now which is lovely.

I have spent much of the day selecting goodies and making up gift sets punctuated with telephone enquiries. Several people have rung us this week asking when our shop will open as they would like to visit. Good grief! How excited am I now?! I also popped out to get our lunch and treated us to a mince pie for pudding, they were superb with melt-in-the-mouth pastry and an excellent combination of dried fruits and peel. It's the first mince pie I've had since just after Christmas last year and made me feel all warm and cosy and looking forward to Christmas this year.

I was talking to a good friend last night who couldn't believe that I had mentioned the 'C' word to her, but we are only 10 weeks away and for us this year there will be a new pre-C project ~ our shop.

Anyway, back to today... we left the unit a little earlier than usual and popped to our local convenience store where we bought 'the basics' ~ bread, milk, cat food and Dave slipped bacon and eggs into the shopping basket while I wasn't looking and when we got home he cooked supper for me. Now usually I would think that Dave was trying to get into my good books for some reason or other, but today I think he is just being sweet. Whilst we were walking along the high street, arms around each other, I asked if he thought that we would still walk everywhere together hand in hand or arm in arm when we are 70. His response was 'probably not, but we can share a double Zimmer frame'. And they say romance is dead!

So here we are this evening in our normal evening routine; I am sitting in the drawing room with the laptop watching dramatisations of Jane Austin novels on DVD (tonight it's Emma) and Dave is in the dining room shooting things on his PC game!

Well, the kettle calls... chat soon, Liz

Mirror, mirror on the wall

Hindsight, they say, is a wonderful thing! I have been looking back over the last week and trying to take on board the lessons that are there to be learnt. We have had a very busy week and have had a problem with one of our delivery services... actually with two of them.

One courier has had a personnel issue, which has meant they have not provided the level of service that we expect from them and they have not delivered the parcels we need them to, on the days that they should.

Royal Mail have been taking industrial which means that any items that we send out by post would have not been processed through their system, so we have delayed in sending all of those parcels out until last night. All in all, this has caused a huge disruption to the service that we usually offer and made us start to reassess our delivery system.

Usually we send out parcels using 3 or 4 different methods and it is only very occasionally that there are hiccoughs. Watching the pile of unposted parcels grow in my office this week has made me realise just how quickly we usually send out items after they have been bought. It makes me rather pleased with the service that we are able to provide.

I have been jolly busy developing the plans for the shop and organising work that needs to be done on the building etc as we are only 20 days away from getting the keys to the building. Dave has been sorting out some little niggles that we have with the website and developing a couple of other projects that we have planned. He has also created a couple of beautiful pieces of artwork for which I am eternally grateful and am incredibly proud of him.

In the quieter moments this week, I have been preparing the gift sets of soaps, toiletries and candles that will appear on the website over the next week or so. I have been enveloped by some of my favourite fragrances, it's a lovely way to spend an hour or so at the end of busy day.

Well, it's the start of another day and I need to go and get on with some work. Perhaps I'll have a cuppa before I start.... chat soon, Liz

Autumn approaching

Gosh the temperatures are really starting to drop here in Mid Wales. I have given in to the pressure from 'he whom I love the most' and put the central heating on. Not a dreadful move really; we have had a couple of very cold nights that have threatened frosts before dawn.

We have retrieved 'cosy blanket' from it's place in the blanket box in the drawing room and huddle under it to watch the telly in the evenings.

An old friend used to laugh at me for having blankets and quilts folded along the back of my sofa ~ then one winter she came to stay with us for the weekend. After she had put on her thermal vest and socks, thick tracksuit bottoms and numerous jumpers, I cosied her up on the sofa under a quilt (neatly tucked under her chin) so that she would be comfortably warm whilst watching a film on the telly with us. Following that visit, she never laughed at my winter preparations again.

The down side of having this spacious home is that any heat generated by our old and somewhat temperamental boiler rises to the ceilings and stays there, which is very useful one is stood on a ladder decorating the top of the room, but not so handy if sat on the sofa!

This week, I have brought home a couple of the quilts from work. We bought a new sofa in July and I wanted to have some pretty quilts that would look nice on the sofa when not in use.

I have found several new quilts for Pretty Practicals in some gorgeous toile designs and lots of children's designs too and am waiting for a range of thermal fleece blankets to arrive any day now. I love the change of season at work, autumn brings soft and luxurious fabrics, deep, rich colours and heart-warming fragrances and sets my mind towards Christmas.

Well, just for a change ... I'll go and put the kettle on, chat soon, Liz

Ooooh new shoes!

It's the end of the week and quite frankly, I am delighted! Tomorrow I am hitting the shops with a friend and we are going shoe shopping ~ second only to finding pretty things for the website and shop, this is my favourite kind of shopping.

When I was a teenager and shoes were very high up on my agenda of essential things in life, shoe manufacturers seemed to create the best shoes in a limited range of sizes. I would spend hours looking for shoes that fitted my (rather large) feet and be reduced to tears of frustration that I couldn't have 'that pair in that colour'. Nowadays, manufacturers seem to cater for a wider range of sizes and tastes (thank you) and the whole experience is much more pleasant.

Now according to Dave, taking me shoe shopping is a nightmare and he just doesn't get the subtle differences between heel heights or the importance of toe shapes. He has a couple of pairs of shoes, both the same design, one that he wears for everyday use and one that he keeps 'for best'. I, on the other hand, have slightly more than 2 pairs and am always ready to make room in the wardrobe to accomodate one more pair ~ I usually do this by getting rid of something of Dave's.

As we live in a rural area, I usually shop for clothes online, but there are some things in life that I feel I need to be 'in situ' to make the purchase, shoes are one of these things. For almost everything else I prefer to shop online. I love it when I come across a website I haven't seen before and spend half and hour or so exploring their goodies. I hope that you have had the same experience exploring Pretty Practicals.

Back to the shoes... As Dave has learnt over the years that one pair of new shoes = shoes, handbag, scarf and accessories (like a brooch or earings) and in winter it can also mean a hat too. So tomorrow's little jolly should be great fun, even if it will leave a dent in my bank balance!

Well it's late and I have been awake for the greater part of the day (today's first blog was at silly o'clock this morning), as usual a cup of tea awaits me... chat soon, Liz

P.S. Congratulations to Carli & Gary who have had good news recently.

Postal Strike

The postal service faces disruption this week as a result of industrial action. Items that are usually sent out by Royal Mail will take at least a week to get to you, so please bear with us until the action ends.
We will send more items by Parcelforce and courier so that more items reach you before the end of the industrial action, but small items will need to wait until next week before they are processed. If you need anything quickly, it is worth ringing us and requesting delivery by Parcelforce, obviously this costs a bit more but may be worth it for you if you have a tight time scale. We send items by Parcelforce 48 hour service although it still takes 3 days to get to you as collections need to be booked the day before during this week of industrial action.
Best wishes, Liz

Smelly, smelly, yum yum!

Today our unit can only be described as 'fragrance heaven'. I have been to collect some organic lavender from my sister's home which she kindly cuts for me each year at this time. When I arrived at her home (also on a Welsh hillside) to collect it, I found that she had carefully gathered and bundled it into two 'wheatsheaf' bundles for me. They are now outside drying in the early autumn sunshine like a couple of stooks*. In a couple of weeks I will use it to make heart shaped lavender hanging decorations ~ strongly-scented organic lavender combined with our own special mix of sweet smelling spices in a gingham heart.

Inside, I have been preparing the labels for our newly arrived lavender bathroom products (and of course I have had to keep checking that each one smells as nice as I remember it being). Made in France, by Savonnerie de Bormes these have a wonderful real lavender aroma and we stock a range of bath salts (both with and without lavender pieces), moisturising hand and body lotions, bath gels and hand washes in lovely dumpy glass bottles. They will appear on our website pages over the next week or so, in plenty of time for Christmas.

We have been asked if we have Gift Vouchers or Certificates and the simple answer is yes! Dave has to do something clever with the website so that you can pay using a Gift Voucher, but in the meantime, if you wish to purchase one, just telephone us and I can organise one for you nicely presented in a gift card and if your recipient wishes to pay using a Gift Voucher, it is easy for them to do so over the telephone too. No doubt Dave will have got that organised on the site within a couple of days (he is an absolute wizard with all things technical!).

Oh must dash, tea making duties again! Chat soon, Liz
* Stook ~ an upright bundle of cereal (usually hay or wheat) that used to be a familiar sight in country fields.

All things rosey...

There's only a month until we get the keys to the new unit where we will be moving all our goodies, the office and creating a display showroom. We have had great fun trying to decide what we want to include in the shop space and how to display it.

Dave & I have spent the last year or so thinking of a suitable logo for Pretty Practicals and it is probably one of the only things that we haven't been able to agree on. Taking a leaf from my parents book 'if you can't agree don't do anything about it yet', we have trundled along without a logo motif for business. Well, the good news is that we may possibly have found something that we both like. We will have a further play with the design, but I am hoping that by the end of the week our new logo may be launched. It will then appear on our labels, on the candles in a tin (which look a bit naked at the moment ~ see the pic on the last post of this blog), on our adverts etc. It feels like we have managed to leap a huge hurdle this weekend.

Cecily telephoned me today with a list of items that she would like me to take her when I visit her this week in the university halls of residence. My daughter is so like me, no matter where I live, there are certain domestic essentials I want to have around me and it seems she has the same ideas; her list comprises:

• a set of cake tins from the kitchen cupboard,
• some finishing touches that she had in her room at home (like the tinsel wrapped around her bed canopy),
• a concertina clothes horse for drying her clothes ( 'cos I'm too mean to pay for the tumble dryer') and
• her collection of Harry Potter books

All essential things for a new student!

Oh, I forgot to tell you.... Dave did remember our wedding anniversary a week or so ago, he gave me a lovely gift of DVDs (the first two series of Monarch of the Glen) which I just love. The television reception at our home is pretty dreadful , we get BBC 1 snowstorm, BBC 2 fine but with vertical lines running across the screen, ITV some days fine, other days it's just fuzzy and S4C light snowstorm, but I don't speak or understand Welsh so it is limited viewing. Mostly we watch DVDs of old television series and films as they become available on DVD, so this gift was very much appreciated. I think he liked his screenprint of Yoda.

Must dash, cup of tea is overdue... chat soon, Liz