Seed Pod fabric and brooches

Some more images of our Seed Pod fabric, you can buy the fabric here and these fun little brooches right here.

A bad review

While I'm on the subject of Not On the High Street, I got one of those dreaded emails the other day saying that I had received some negative feedback on the site, uugh! Nothing makes my heart sink more, its just horrible. A customer had ordered a Hot Dog thinking it was a cushion of some sort. So had posted feedback to say that the product was much smaller than she had thought and that for what it turned out to be it didn't seem worth the money. Well, naturally I sunk into a deep depression ( I really must learn to handle things like that better) but when I thought about it a day or so later I decided that really its down to me to try and explain what the product is, the right size and why its worth the money I charge. I did have the size written into the product description but clearly that isn't enough. So I decided it was time to take some lifestyle shots of the dogs. I've tried this before with a model and they looked horrendous so I went for a sort of bedside table set up. I hope they visually explain the size, I will try again with images of somebody holding them but I hope these will help for now.

As far as addressing the value for money aspect, these products are all handmade in our studio, quite a lot of time goes into printing, cutting, sewing, stuffing and packaging them and the materials themselves are not super cheep, Organic fair trade cotton is getting more expensive almost every time I buy it as prices of cotton increase globally. The wheat is organic and the lavender I have chosen to use has got the most wonderful smell, its a highly fragranced french lavender, which is essential when its being mixed with the wheat as I really want it to keep its smell for years to come. I think all the decisions I have made with my supplies and how I make these dogs produces a really great product but again if I don't tell people about it I can't expect them to know. So I have rewritten my product descriptions and I hope they give a bit more information about these wee doggies.

What's that saying about there being no such thing as bad press? well I'm not totally sure about that but at least it has taught me that I need to take more care with my images and descriptions. How very grown up of me.

Ampersands and a crazy man

A couple of days ago we had a custom badge order from Not on the High street, we sell a lot of badge packs through them so I guess it was only a matter of time before somebody ordered something we didn't have - namely an Ampersand.  I emailed the customer back apologising but when I didn't hear back from I thought it was daft not to just make some up, so here they are:
Ampersands are go:

While I was at the studio yesterday popped in to see my friend Dennis. He has a space downstairs from me and is a proper eccentric artist type, all crazy hair and paint splatters. He was also the first person I ever saw Bruno properly smile at, he makes me laugh too, this video proves my point.

A Birthday Tea

Birthday tea for Michael: I love making pizzas using this Jamie Oliver recipe for the base, I stick the rest of the dough in the freezer and feel properly smug about it too.
The cheese cake was by request, I've never made one before - my go to cake would usually have a lot more butter cream on top (that's the best bit right?) sadly I couldn't find any cheese cake recipes that included lashings of icing but this was actually pretty good nonetheless.
Perhaps I should have another wee slice now to make sure.

More Sale Items

We are having a bit of a spring clean of our own and I have decided to put my first collection - hidden patterns on sale in the shop. We have some bits left from this collection and would love to see them go to new homes.

They are all 50% off so no messing about, this is a proper sale!

Cushions: were £55 now £27.50

 Purses: were £20 now £10

Shoulder Bags: were £62 now £31

Seed Pods

This is the first of my new fabric designs, I've called it Seed Pods, and its been printed in a gorgeous light grey and a beautiful sunny yellow, I'm a bit obsessed with yellow, I can't help it and I've always loved grey and yellow together so there you go. Enjoy!

Its been printed onto white organic fair trade cotton and each panel measures 58 x 41cm.

I've listed them in my etsy shop and they will appear on the website soon. Yours to make what you want with.

Fabric

Over the last few weeks we've been working on some new designs soon to grace the website, including some new fabric patterns which I can't wait to print. While I was thinking about uses for the fabric today I realised that I had forgotten to say anything about a little collaboration I worked on towards the end of last year (blame the baby brain). Behold some very pretty lampshades using my Winter Seasons fabric printed in bespoke colours for my good pal Michelle of Bay Designs.

I met Michelle at Top Drawer last spring when her first words to me were, "I like your company name, Showpony, I've got one of those!" Cue the next three days spent talking about everything from horses to sewing to running a small business. Michelles lampshades are really beautiful and I was chuffed she wanted to make some using my fabric, I think they look really sweet, and if you do too you could buy them here.

Introductions

I thought it was probably about time I introduced you to some new members of the team, some of whom contribute more than others......
First up Bruno!

My wee boy was born 2 weeks late on the 30th of December. It was very kind of him to make sure I could get all the Christmas orders out of the way before making his appearance. He's now three and a half months old and an absolute joy. Everyone takes great pleasure in telling you how much your life is going to change after you have a baby, which is true, but what I wasn't quite prepared for is just how lovely the changes are. I'll try not to gush too much because its not my style and we are only ever a couple of sleepless nights away from revising our opinions but at the moment life is good.
However he isn't leaving me much (or any) time for work so the more productive new member of the showpony team is Jenny. When I asked her for a photo she said it was almost impossible to find one where she wasn't drunk or doing something silly, so I've gone for one of each, I think she looks lovely anyway.

Jenny is a brilliant seamstress, designer and a very enthusiastic assistant. She has been working hard getting orders out, making our products and helping me dream up new designs. She can also be found popping up on our facebook and twitter pages if you fancy saying hia.

Spring Clean Sale

This week I screen printed the remainder of our linen union tea towels and decided to put all 4 designs on sale. I also decided that once they're gone they're gone and I won't be reprinting them.... at least for a while anyway.
So before its too late head over to the shop and grab a bargain, all tea towels reduced from £11 to £7, these are fantastic quality tea towels and you never know they might just make you a better person.

I've added three new Christmas card designs to the website. These screen printed by hand onto an Ivory card and come in packs of 5 with luscious gold envelopes.
You can get them here