Penny Lindop Designs

Rare and Inspirational

2012-01-31T12:47:00.001Z

Our interest in rare and ancient breeds of agriculturalanimals goes back to when Penny worked in archaeology. While working in theBritish Museum she became interested in ancient technology and explored aspectsof early European textiles. This naturally led on to an interest in the ancientbreeds of sheep, and now, some 25 years later, this interest has re-awakenened. Much inspiration comes from watching these wonderful animals.

We are currently working on our range of ancient breed greeting cards and art - you can see a couple of them on our website: Hebridean and Portland sheep.

I remember many visits during my childhood to all sorts offarms and visitor centres with animals, and so have grown up with a love of allanimals. Personally I’m really fond of the cows, and always look forward toseeing them at the Rare Breeds stand at the Royal Norfolk Show, but my sisteralways had a passion for pigs!

Here are a few characters we fell in love with at some of the shows:

Rare and ancient breeds are an important part of ourheritage, and still have many uses today; the sheep produce a wonderful rangeof colours in their fleeces which are sought after by hand spinners, weaversand knitters. Many rare breed horses and ponies are used in cross breeding toproduce good riding and hunting horses, and of course the shire horses arealways fun to watch at agricultural shows! Rare breeds also possess a greatdeal of adaptability and are often quite hardy creatures; the North Ronaldsaysheep are a good example. These sheep are confined to the shoreline of theisland for the majority of the year and so survive mainly on seaweed, howeverit has also been found that if needed, the digestive system of the sheep canadjust to a non-seaweed based diet in just two generations! To find out moreabout rare breeds take a look at the Rare Breeds Survival Trust

I think we're rather like these rare breeds - us, and all the other artisan designer/makers. We're an important part of our heritage, we're very adaptable, quite hardy, and of course fun to watch. We're all rare breeds, on the Watch list, but I believe we're no longer on the critical list. What do you think?

Emma

Love is in the air

2012-01-11T20:58:00.000Z

We mentioned the Welsh equivalent of St. Valentine’s Day, St. Dwynwen’s Day, in our recent newsletter (what, you don’t receive our newsletter? Sign up here on our website). St. Dwynwen's Day is January 25th, St Dwynwen being the Welsh patron saint of lovers. When researching this, we also found out about another interesting Welsh tradition.

Hundreds of years ago, young men would not only give sweets and cakes as a sign of love and affection, but would also carve and give a unique lovespoon to the girl they admired.

The carving of a lovespoon would take hours, and many different symbols would be incorporated into the spoon. A heart was the symbol for love, bells for marriage, and a wheel was used to represent the provision of security.

Some of the oldest Welsh lovespoons, one dating from 1667, can still be seen today in the Welsh Folk Museum in Cardiff, although the tradition of lovespoons was widespread across the whole of Europe and the earliest known spoon was found in Germany and is from 1664.

To read more about lovespoons, have a look at Robin Wood's blog here and here. He has a wealth of information and some great photos.

If carving a spoon for your loved one may prove a little challenging, then why not consider a pretty handmade card like this hand painted heart design. You can see lots more on our website

And you can take a look at our range of Welsh cards here

Emma

Emma's Christmas Show Blog

2011-11-21T17:13:00.000Z

I always enjoy helping out at different shows, and this year was the second time that I’ve been to Spirit of Christmas in London. The first challenge for me was to get from Euston station to Kensington Olympia; last year I took the bus option, but this year I braved the tube, and managed not to get lost once (it was a lot easier than I expected). When I arrived Mum had already done most of the setting up, and there was just the finishing touches to get done (that's the part I love doing). I think the stand looked pretty good, considering we had a pillar to work around!

The first day was incredibly busy, trying to keep track and write down everything that was sold proved a tricky task, and finding the time to drink the odd cup of tea was very difficult. I like busy days though, they seem to go a lot quicker than normal, and I like learning which products are more popular at different shows; it was Border terriers this year on all sorts of products from cards and gift tags through to pictures, and the calendars were selling fast too.

At the beginning of the days, before the show opens to the public, we had a chance to have a quick look around, and get a bit of Christmas shopping done, the whole show looked very Christmassy and the best view was found from the upper level looking down.

I was only at the show for a couple of days, and then it was back to uni. I was quite disappointed that I couldn’t go to the Country Living show too, although I’m not too sure how much stock there was left after this one!

Mum’s only got a few more shows left before the end of the year, so if you still need to buy someone a special card for Christmas, or a present that’s a little bit different, then try and get along to Blackthorpe Barns in Suffolk where we have a special offer! And of course you can always visit our newly refurbished website.

New Website

2011-10-17T11:46:00.000+01:00

What a bonkers idea - to launch our new website at our busiest time of year! But it was as ready as it was ever going to be, so it was time to hit the go-live button.

Now the work really begins - checking it all, updating things, ironing out glitches (as well as get ready for the Christmas shows!). But most of all we have a whole new lot of stuff to learn as we are using a different system.

But it's exciting.

We have a new look, a new logo, fresh colours and we think it's looking great. We hope you agree!

We'll be able to update it while we're away at shows, but orders can still be processed back at base.

So please be patient with us while we try to do too many things at once.

And at some stage we'd better update our blog banner...

Christmas thoughts by Emma

2011-10-04T16:44:00.000+01:00

It may only be the beginning of October, but here at Penny Lindop Designs, we’ve been busy, busy, busy on our preparations for the Christmas period. In fact, we actually had to start thinking about Christmas at the beginning of the year when we were designing the 2012 calendar. It’s always quite a challenge to come up with new ideas for every month, so if you have any designs on your wishlist for future editions please let us know! I hope you like my idea for the Olympics in July...

During the summer months, I’ll often take a cup of tea down to Mum in the cabin and be surprised to find her adding fluff to reindeers and Christmas stockings - take a peak at the Christmas designs here - but I think all the planning ahead is worth it, as there are plenty of new designs for this year; my favourite is this horse with the little robin.

At this time of year, it’s all about building up stock for the Christmas shows that are coming up throughout November and December, and for the shop orders that we have coming in. With our small team it can often be a challenge to make sure we have enough cards, and even more of a challenge trying to store them all before the shows!

Even though it’s hard work, the Christmas period is also one of the most enjoyable times of the year for us, as we get to meet more of our customers and hear what they think about what we’re doing. So if you can get to any of the shows (which will be listed on our website) do come and see what we have to offer. I shall be doing one or two days, depending on my university studies, and obviously Mum will be at them all!

We look forward to seeing lots of you.

Ideas - where do they come from?

2011-09-05T11:27:00.000+01:00

I often get asked: "Where do you get all your ideas from?" So I've given this some thought recently.

To be honest, most of my ideas nowadays come from my customers and people I chat to at the various shows I'm at. They make requests (some of which may transform into a new design, but some, I'm afraid, get put into a notebook where they stay). Working on these designs very often leads on to other ideas....

But I find walking with the dogs a very creative time; it's a time that I spend on my own when I can switch off from the humdrum of running a business and the daily household chores. As soon as the mind is cleared of all that detritus, then there's room for the ideas to start coming in. The hardest thing of all is to keep that mental space when back in the studio so that the ideas can be committed to paper or computer.

Sketch books from various decades

The challenge I set for myself is to make space in my weekly routine (ha ha - routine!!) for a creative few hours. Apart from the benefit to the business, it's so important for me, to recharge the batteries. And guess what? Once you start playing around with ideas, more just keep on coming!

So, I get some ideas; then what happens?

Quite a bit of research, usually with Google these days, but I do love to browse through books or my photographic collection looking for poses or colours or leaf formation. Then it's time for the sketch book with ink and watercolour or pencils. This can sometimes be a very frustrating time, as I just can't seem to get quite what I have in my head - if I could spend more time sketching it would become easier....

And finally the work is scanned into the computer and maybe tweaked a bit before being committed to a card or picture design. It's amazing how you can change the expression of a little dog with just a little tweak of the Photoshop erasor tool.

Once the designs are on the computer, it's just a matter of placing them onto card or picture layouts. The card layouts are then sent to our wonderful printers who do a fantastic job for us; they proof the designs, we approve them and then we're in production.

The pictures are printed here in our studios, so those designs just get pulled up as and when we need.

And that's all there is to it!

Penny Lindop Designs meets Prince Charles

2011-08-10T16:17:00.000+01:00

Well, it's been busy, busy, busy here at the Penny Lindop camp, so I've not visited this writing space for quite a while. But it's been an exciting few weeks, and today I just want to tell you a little about the Great Yorkshire Show which happened in the middle of July.

Yes, that's me talking with Prince Charles

We were exhibiting in the Country Living Marquee with its fantastic location on the site.

Anyway, great excitement this year, as we had a royal visit on the Wednesday.

To celebrate the 1st anniversary of the Prince's Countryside Fund Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall visited the show, and the Country Living marquee where Prince Charles made a speech and announced who was to benefit by receiving funds.

Before his speech the Prince was introduced to a few of the exhibitors, and Emma and I were some of the lucky folk that he spoke to. I am truly grateful to Lizzie Kershaw of National Magazines for making the introduction and for appreciating the small effort we are making at Penny Lindop Designs to help promote knowledge of the rare and endangered agricultural breeds of Britain. We shall be working on our range of rare breed greeting card designs over the next few weeks, so will let you see more anon.

Prince Charles is the patron of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust - hence me being pleased to be introduced. The Duchess of Cornwall took away one of my Portland sheep greeting cards....

Our Portland sheep greeting card - a horned sheep with a tan face

And here is Prince Charles stopping at our stand: not brilliant photos, but they're the only ones and I'm really grateful to Wood Like to Play for thinking about taking them.

Here are a few that I managed to take through the crowds:

Lizzie Kershaw's Hampshire Down sheep, Lady Baa Baa and Ewe Beauty - they were introduced to the Prince too

Some of the award winners including Gareth Barlow in the checked shirt - the man with the passion for Hebridean sheep

Always polite - having a little chat with Lady Baa Baa, the Hampshire Down sheep

In conversation with Fiona Davies from WireUK - lucky recipients of some of the funds. Well done WireUK!


With WireUK's Fiona Davies

Read more about Gareth Barlow here - a man with a passion for his Hebridean sheep who has Prince Charles to thank for getting him started.
You can see our Hebridean cards here, and even buy them!

Hebridean Sheep with an old Fergie tractor

My 30 Days of Inspiration

2011-07-04T20:08:00.000+01:00

I came across this challenge, 30 days of creativity quite by chance by following various links of people I like in Facebook, and thought: yes, I could do that. I’m up for the challenge. But because life is pretty full at the moment I set myself the additional challenge of a half hour time limit.

30 days to make a habit; "Your brain is like a muscle. When you exercise it, it gets stronger."

Well, much to my amazement I got to the end of the 30 days with something sketched or created every day - they're all now on my Pinterest board here

I really enjoyed doing this, and as a result I have a new range of little collages ready to take to my next show; I've found some inspiration from some of the days; I have some new card designs, including some sheep, some plants and flowers and the much requested greyhounds

The challenge has been incredibly worthwhile - I've done some stuff I wouldn't have thought of doing before, and all just because I made an effort for 30 minutes each day!

New dragonfly card

Greyhound soon to be on a card

New Rubbish Ideas Collages

Summer time with new designs and the joys of Norfolk

2011-07-04T16:54:00.000+01:00

With summer now officially underway, there are lots of things to look forward to, including playing a bit of tennis if you were inspired by Wimbledon. Are you a Rodger or Rafa fan? What about Novak? Or did you think Andy could do it?! For any tennis fans this new greeting card design is perfect

or if you prefer to enjoy the summer with a glass of pimms and a slice of strawberry cake, this may be more appropriate

Living in Norfolk has its benefits, one of them being the Norfolk broads!

Each summer we hire a little day boat for a few hours - it's so peaceful and so full of inspiration. The two dogs seem to enjoy a little boat trip, although they can disturb the peace when they get a little over excited and end up in the water!

There’s always lots to see on the broads, with ducks, swans, and my favourite, the cute coots! Here's a new design, of a dragonfly which is already very popular.

Project Garden

2011-05-31T17:10:00.000+01:00

Bank holiday weekend - time to take a break - why not tackle the garden, I thought. Garden! More like an unruly jungle. So I've spent 2 days out there and hardly made any impact at all. But I do have a plan: just attack one area at a time, and try to love the chaos elsewhere.

So, this is what I have to work with - not a very inspiring, and definitely not destined for Chelsea, garden. And there's a whole lot more the other side of my studio down there..

Just a long expanse of space with no real design. I need a path because of trolleying heavy boxes up from the studio, and Mr PLD wants easy lawn (that's his job, to keep it from becoming a hay meadow), so we're just sticking with the dull layout for now.

This is a small area of "before" - packed full of nettles, brambles and heaven knows what, but quite hard to get clear, especially as the ground is so hard, and also because the lovely birds have sown seeds over the years that have grown into trees! I love trees, but couldn't they be trained to plant the seeds somewhere more appropriate?

So after quite a few hours of hard labour, this is all I managed to do: a tiny area of future colour! But with the addition of strawberries and cabbages...

This is the start of a herb area, but this will have other stuff in too - lupins, and maybe the odd raspberry cane...

And this is an area that I really think I will continue to ignore, and try to love, for quite a while longer!

Pensthorpe Nature Reserve

2011-05-27T17:34:00.000+01:00

We’re off to Pensthorpe nature reserve in early June http://www.pensthorpe.com/events/index.php to take part in their annual Gardening, Craft and Food fair, as part of Dead Good Designs. It’ll be our first show working together as a team, so should be a lot of fun.

Pensthorpe? Yes, it might ring a bell as it was the nature reserve that played host to the BBC’s Springwatch for the last three years – just have a look at this impressive list of species that live or visit there. What an amazing number of birds in particular! The reserve is recognised as a breeding site for numerous species of rare birds, and the Pensthorpe Conservation Trust works on the captive breeding and release of such species, especially those that are associated with the Wetlands. Looking through the species list has been useful in helping us to decide which card designs we should take when we go, how about:

It also made us realise that we don’t seem to have all that many bird designs! Somehow, I don’t think that there are too many guinea fowl wondering around the nature reserve.

So watch this space for a few more designs soon! I shall be taking my camera and sketch book to the show. The great thing about working with Dead Good Designs is that we’re a team, and so we will have the luxury of being able to go off for a wander. Now how good is that!

Dog's Trust Chester joins his local business community

2011-05-25T11:14:00.000+01:00

Chester, our rescue dog from the Dog's Trust in Snetterton, joined his local business community last night on a netwalking event at the Norfolk Showground - and he had a thoroughly good time! There's no way he would have coped with the event when he first came to us, but that was some years ago now. I'm very pleased to say that he had no rude words to say to his fellow dog walkers (I can't say that his manners are always so impeccable!), and happily joined in the fun - one of the first to check out the stockman's accomodation (he's the black dog, the other is Malcolm),

and one of the first to the buffet at the end of the walk.

He even tried to get a lift home with the Best of Norwich team!

He so thoroughly enjoyed himself that he's wondering where the next one might be - he'll have to check out Norfolk networking here to find out!

The Malvern Gardening Show

2011-05-19T15:40:00.000+01:00

I loved the Malvern Gardening Show - not exhibited at this type of show before, so it was quite a gamble but one that I think will pay off. I was in the Country Living Magazine's marquee, along with some really lovely people - it makes such a difference when everyone is so friendly and helpful.
I allowed 2 days to get to Malvern and set up the stand - I like the more relaxed start to a show, and it gave me time to have lunch with daughter Emma in Birmingham.
The stand went together really well which surprised me

and gave me a chance to wander around the showground. These are some of the gardens I liked, but I'm told that there weren't as many as in previous years - these are mostly the Chris Beardshaw Mentoring Scholarship gardens.

Once upon a time there were Three Little Pigs

2011-05-17T17:11:00.000+01:00

And the Three Little Pigs I'm keen on is this lovely shop in Pershore, Worcestershire, who've been stocking my work since the start. I can now convincingly say that this really is a lovely shop because I visited it last week. Deceptively tiny from the outside, but what treats await you when you step through the door.

New to Three Little Pigs is their blog, written in part by Noah - this will be one to follow I think, as I have a feeling that Noah will have some good stories to tell.

Pershore, itself, is a place worth visiting with its Abbey, the river Avon, the bridges and lots more besides.

I had a good wander around the abbey and along the river - just what was needed after a busy few days at the Malvern Gardening Show, more of which will follow later.

Another school reminiscence

2011-05-08T14:16:00.000+01:00

Having just listened to the Food Programme on Radio 4, I am reminded of another special aspect of the school I was sent between ages 8 and 11, and that was the mulberry tree.

I haven't any photos of the school tree but it was similar (in my memory) to this one which I found here.

This was the most tremendous tree on one of the lawns, and it fed the school silkworms every year. We would pick leaves every morning and watch as the soft white caterpillars grew and grew - this was a joy through the summer term. Heaven only knows how they didn't all escape from the shoe boxes!

These are some I found on Spicywok's blog where the progress from egg to cocoon is being documented.

We weren't allowed to eat the mulberries themselves (but of course we did, and they were delicious!) - probably something to do with staining our uniforms.
But then the school holidays would happen and we never saw the full cycle through - I've no idea whether they were allowed to hatch into moths or were turned into silk thread; I'm assuming that at least some went on to hatch in order to produce the eggs for next year.

Sadly the school has been demolished and the mulberry tree is also no more.

There's heaps of information on mulberry trees here - I'm inspired to look into whether our soil conditions would suit growing one. Does anyone know? We're in the Waveney valley along the Norfolk/Suffolk border.

(I've one more reminiscence for another time....)

May - a time to celebrate the work of nurses

2011-05-04T16:54:00.000+01:00

Now that we have a student nurse in the family we have become aware of International Nurses Day which is celebrated on May 12^th, the birth date of Florence Nightingale.

Florence Nightingale

It seems that this is quite controversial as some would argue that she is no longer representative of modern nursing, and would prefer the day to be celebrated perhaps on May 21^st instead, being the birth date of Elizabeth Fry who founded the Institution of Nursing Sisters.

Elizabeth Fry

However, the day seems to be established for May 12^th – a day to celebrate the hard work and dedication of nurses throughout the world.

Each year there is a service at Westminster Abbey, London, to commemorate the life of Florence Nightingale and celebrate the nursing profession. A lamp is handed from one nurse to the next and finally to the Dean who places it on the High Altar. This signifies both the passing of knowledge from one nurse to another, and Florence Nightingale’s nickname of Lady of the Lamp.

Many hospitals, day care centres, hospices etc hold fund raising and awareness events around this time – coffee mornings, open days etc.

Forget- Me- Not Village

2011-04-08T14:33:00.000+01:00

The forget-me-nots are just beginning to flower in our garden. Without fail these little flowers take me right back to when I was 8 years old when I was sent away to school.

At this school we had a woodland area at the top of the grounds where adults were not allowed. It was called Forget-Me-Not Village and was where we, as children, were free to go after school during the spring and summer. The path up to the woodland was full of forget me nots; the woodland itself had been modified by, presumably the school gardener - paths were cut around the trees leaving the trees standing on little islands. Each island was a house, and each year we children put ourselves into little make believe families. Holly leaves were our currency when we went shopping. We had to wear our blue smock overalls to be allowed into the village; I remember we held weddings, and we did shopping. I don't remember much else except for the darkness of the woods and the beautiful mass of blue flowers along the path.

Most of the children at the school came from families in the forces overseas or from broken families, so I don't know how happy a place this village was for everyone. I suspect that it was a perfect escape for some, and very sad for others. My own memories are not of families and make believe, but of tranquility and calm.

I only have one card design at the moment, but you can see it if you click here

I love this photograph by the acclaimed garden photographer, Clive Nichols. See more of his work here

I'm looking forward to watching these lovely little blue flowers blossom - with all the sunshine at the moment, they should do well in the next few days.

Story from the British Museum

2011-04-02T10:14:00.000+01:00

Well, we all love a story and this is one I learnt from chatting to 2 guys in the breakfast queue at the Business Design Centre, Islington, during the recent Country Living Show:

These guys were in the catering dept of the museum, and reminded me of the coffee machines with a push button to dispense the drink. Yes, I knew them, because they worked there at the same time as I did, in the 80's.

In the mornings they would bash the machines about with rolling pins and then vacuum up all the cockroaches that fell out. The coffee was supplied in frozen blocks (I won't mention the brand!) made up of coffee and animal fat (beware all you vegetarians!) - 250 cups were made from one small block. The cockroaches were addicted to the caffeine and loved the animal fat.

As if that wasn't enough, these guys went on to tell me that if any of the concentrate got spilt, it would strip the surface off the tiles, and staff would have to wear protective gear to clear it up!

All I can say is, thank goodness I worked in a basement miles away from the staff canteen, and we had our own kettle.

Simnel Sunday

2011-03-30T09:39:00.000+01:00

We celebrate Mother’s day every year, but I’ve never thought to find out more about it.

Mothering Sunday can also be referred to as Simnel Sunday, as a reference to the baking and serving of Simnel cakes, which are said to be a symbol to celebrate the holiday of Lent. The word simnel most likely comes from the latin “simila”, meaning fine, wheaten flour, but I much prefer the story of Simon and Nell; there is a legend that a husband and wife, Simon and Nell, argued over the best method to make a Mothering Sunday cake. In the end they decided to both boil and bake the cake, and so the cake was named after both of them; Sim-nell.

I’d like to be able to say that I’ll be attempting to cook a traditional Simnel cake for my mum, but I’ve had a quick look at a recipe and I can safely say that my very limited cooking skills mean that this most definitely won’t happen. I’ll stick to fairy cakes. For those of you who want to try baking the real thing, there's a recipe here

If you’re still looking for a present or card for Mother’s day then make sure you check out our website, where we have plenty of original cards and gift ideas.

Blog post by Emma

Wibble wobble, wibble wobble, jelly on a plate

2011-02-14T22:57:00.000Z

No, I've not gone back to my primary school and skipping games in the playground. Instead I spent the day at Norfolk Jelly in Norwich - getting on with my own work but not down in my studio on my own, but rather in a room with others getting on with their own work. It's a great way of working, sharing and brain-storming.

Jelly started in New York in 2006 when a couple of friends realized that they loved working from home, but missed the creative brainstorming, sharing, and camaraderie of a traditional office. They started inviting friends to their home to work just one day a week and soon found that working alongside new and interesting people resulted in new ideas and interesting conversations.

And thus Jelly was born.

I've no idea why "jelly", but why not? And it's an excuse to eat jelly beans as I discovered today.

Jelly Norfolk was started by Sophie Garrett and Cassie Tillett and has been running successfully for a few months now.

So is it worthwhile for me to drive to Norwich (45+ minutes), park at £4.50 for the day, spend the day with others who work on their own and then drive the 45 minutes home? I'd say so.

Today I entered all the tedious petty cash receipts into my accounts package - I really do drink too much tea and coffee while away at trade shows - far too many receipts!! It's a tedious job which gets put off when in the studio, so that's a job well done.

I then prepared the email letters to be sent out tomorrow to all the customers and visitors to my stand last week - I couldn't send it today as I needed to work on a few photos which I don't do on the laptop. But they're ready to go 1st thing in the morning.

This was followed by an incredibly useful bit of brain storming with Sophie, then some lunch, and then a bit of work on the website. Thrown in for good measure was the ability to pick the brains of others on anything that came to mind - Facebook issues, ecommerce web developers, laptop problems, and why some of the jelly beans brought in by Cassie tasted good and others were disgusting!!

The question I ask myself is, would I have done all this while in the studio? The answer is definitely no, as I would have done other jobs. But I could focus on the jobs I'd planned for today which more than likely would have got put off and put off, and get them done - with the added bonus of picking other people's brains, learning new stuff and actually having quite a decent fun sort of day.

I recommend it as a way of working. Come and join us, or find one near you, if you work on your own.

Spring Trade Fair - our display

2011-02-12T14:37:00.000Z

Another 5 days spent at the NEC, Birmingham at the International Spring Fair - well, that's 5 days of the show, but another 2 days setting up. We had alot of interest in what we'd planned for our display this year, so the following will reveal all.

The stand, after unloading the van

Emma painting the blocks of Farrow and Ball colours onto the wall

This year we are rebranding slightly and will be using a colour palette of autumn/spring colours - yellow, green, orange and brick, all chosen from the Farrow and Ball range of paints.
Blocks of colour were painted onto the wall as a backdrop to the various card designs. We had to carefully work out the size of each block of colour, depending on how many cards were to be displayed - fiddly to mark up, but worth it.

We then stencilled some large scale animals above the blocks - stencilled which we'd cut beforehand - sheep (of course!), hen, dog, cat and hare.

The Farrow and Ball paints along with our stylish stencil brushes

Painting all done, just some product needed now

Emma got the lovely job of pegging up the cards along with their label

And this was the end result - better photo to come later

We used string from which to peg the cards - the string was painted in our colours, as were the pegs - it was much admired by many - inexpensive and very eye catching. So much so that we now have to replicate it several times for some of our retailers.

And then we had to take it all down again!

Crescendo

2011-01-28T08:58:00.000Z

Crescendo - now that's a lovely musical term and nicely sums up the activity happening in the studio, house and garden at the moment. One week now before Spring Fair Birmingham, the giant of the UK trade shows. Preparations got off to a gentle start after Christmas with designs going off to the printers, thoughts being jotted down, lists drawn up, but not a lot of activity to start with. We then had to move up a gear with some marketing - newsletters, surveys and the like. And now we're at a bit of a gallop....

Mr PLD is busy renovating the displays - hosing down our horticultural crates that make up the stand, painting bits of MDF, checking light fittings and the like. While I've been busy doing the more "creative" stuff (I like to think!) - cutting stencils:

and painting wooden clothes pegs!:

But I must be careful that my crescendo ends on a high, and not an awful bang....long bath and glass of wine at the end of the day helps!

Valentine's Day

2011-01-21T10:58:00.000Z

With Valentine’s Day fast approaching, I thought I’d dig up a few interesting facts relating to the annual celebration.

With Welsh cards being an ever popular part of our range, and Nicola now studying over in Wales, I was interested to find out that St. Dwynwen is the Welsh equivalent of St. Valentine, and that the celebration of this Welsh patron saint of lovers actually occurs on January 25th.

Dwynwen lived during the 5th century and fell in love with a prince. Unfortunately her father had already arranged that she should marry someone else. She was so upset that she could not marry her prince that she begged God to make her forget him and then devoted herself to God for the rest of her life. She founded a convent on Llanddwyn, off the west coast of Anglesey, where a well named after her became a place of pilgrimage after her death in 465AD.

Here's one of our Welsh cards - big kiss!

"Big kiss"

The Chinese also do not celebrate Valentine’s Day on Feb 14^th, but rather, the seventh day of the seventh month of the lunar calendar year – personally I can’t work that one out, but I’m sure some of you can.

This last little snippet tickled me slightly: it turns out that 3% of pet owners prefer to give valentine gifts to their pets, as they are more grateful than humans, I’m sure there are a few of you that can relate to that!

Who can resist this little border terrier!

We have a few Valentine designs that you may enjoy here on our website and on this page you can find some of our dog cards with hearts - but contact us if you'd like a gold heart on a different design.

Apologies

2011-01-20T21:44:00.000Z

Oh it has been a long time since we last wrote anything here! It's been an amazingly busy few months, but help is at hand: Emma and I will be sharing the joys of writing here, with little anecdotes and stories, so there's a much greater chance that there'll be posts to read - starting very shortly.....

Not your average lazy Sunday

2010-10-31T20:52:00.000Z

Today, being Sunday, I thought I could really get on with those last bits that need doing before setting off for the shows. Sundays are quiet days, no phone calls, no one trying to sell me anything etc - aren't they?
So today, when I have a long list to work through, the phone starts at 9.30 with someone wanting to order from the website but preferring to do this by phone - and could she have the order quite quickly please?
10.15 another phone call - someone from Scotland wanting some advice on calendars.
An then an email comes in - could she place an order for her business please, and could she have this next week?
And another email - could I please do this one bespoke card by Nov 12th for someone's birthday? Well, no not really, but guess what? I've just done it for them, so I hope they'll like it. In fact I've done everyone's orders and they'll all go out on Tuesday.

All's done. I've even remembered to pack a few clothes and a book. The van's loaded with every last square inch filled - poor thing will have to work hard tomorrow!

Autumnal joys

2010-10-30T18:00:00.000+01:00

Well, that was my last walk locally for a couple of weeks, and what a beautiful afternoon - a perfect leaf-kicking sort of day.

Here are a couple of our villagers who we chatted with - I think I might do some Gloucester Old Spotty designs.....

The light was glorious looking up through the canopy of the beech trees:

The sparse beauty of a freshly worked field appealed to me today too:

And these are the boys who came out with me:

Now I have the remains of the weekend to finish the last jobs that need doing before setting off for London. Next week it's Spirit of Christmas at Olympia, preceded by a trip to St James' Palace with my younger daughter for her Duke of Edinburgh gold award - how exciting!
The following week is the Country Living Magazine's Christmas Fair at the Business Design Centre in Islington.
A busy couple of weeks, but so much fun - I love meeting all my lovely customers.

A Plea to Retailers

2010-10-07T11:59:00.000+01:00

We love retailers. Without them we'd be without a business. They do a great job getting our work in front of people and they work incredibly hard.
But please could retailers think about us when they place their orders - by "us", I mean all designer/makers. We take your order and then fulfil it. This means that we, yes us as designer/makers, sit down and make whatever it is you've ordered.We've paid for the materials needed to make your order, we spend time on the pieces especially for you. We don't run a factory overseas - ours is a little "factory" at the bottom of the garden with just one or two people.
Do you know how much it hurts when you turn round to us and say that you've changed your mind and you don't want the order anymore? Apart from upsetting the cashflow...
This is a relationship based on trust - you trust us enough to place your order, we trust you enough to pay. Foolish us!
Let's get that trust back.
Personally I have a lovely relationship with all of my customers, built up over time, based on trust. When a customer messes me about, I stop supplying them, and they cease to be a customer.

Welcome to Agatha Christie

2010-10-02T12:28:00.000+01:00

The girls have both left for university, but never fear, we've been adopted by another two. These two seem to prefer our house and garden better than their own, and are just as untidy as the two who have left! And, like teenagers, they just come and go as they please...

Wordle fun

2010-09-20T21:48:00.000+01:00

This is totally frivoulous, but quite fun. Wordle clouds - go to wordle.com to play with some text.

This one uses the text taken from this blog

And this one is based on the About Us page on our website, and seems to feature sheep quite heavily!

They may be a bit small to see here

Empty Nest Syndrome

2010-09-20T19:57:00.000+01:00

I caught part of a programme today on BBC Radio Norfolk about Empty Nest Syndrome - ie, the kids have just flown the nest. Both my girls have now left for university, the youngest just starting her 1st year in nursing at Cardiff and the elder just starting her 2nd year in International Studies with Economics at Birmingham.
I thought I'd reflect on this idea of empty nest syndrome. I always thought that a syndrome was a medical condition, and surely when you have children you accept that one day they will leave home and do their own thing. So, syndrome?...

Sure, I feel sad that they've gone, but that's only from a selfish point of view - I'm sad because they're not here to chat to etc. Actually I'm excited for them, setting out on their journey through life, making their own mistakes and revelling in their discoveries and joys. If I'm honest, I'm a tad jealous too - I had a wonderful time at university and would gladly go there all over again!

I'm proud that I've brought up 2 girls who are brave enough to leave their nest and launch themselves onto the big outside world.

However, that does leave myself and their dad to sort out our lives! This might take us some time, getting used to the new found freedom. It hasn't taken any time at all to enjoy the reduced amount of dishes and clothes that need washing!

So, all change - but what an opportunity for all members of the family.

A Little Inspiration towards Christmas

2010-09-06T18:51:00.001+01:00

I don't usually follow fashion trends, but I just thought these little bunting decorations would look great on a Christmas tree, or where ever.

It's just simple paper bunting with my hand drawn sketchy animals with their woolly bodies. They were fun to make and kept me away from the computer for a good part of the day - what a delight!

Having made up 2, I then needed to find a Christmas tree - which I did, on the main A1066. Heaven knows what other drivers thought I was doing, especially as it was blowing a gale! It's now raining really quite hard, so that was good timing.

And then I couldn't resist these gorgeous autumn berries

A few commissions

2010-08-30T18:54:00.001+01:00

It's been a busy month, with lots of orders from shops getting ready for Christmas along with the summer holidays and preparations for both daughters being at university. But I've just been tidying up some of the folders on the desktop, and came across a couple of commissions I did a while back.
I thought I'd share a couple of them today.
This first is a recent commission for a clock, which is going to my home county of Worcestershire:

And here a just a few others that I've enjoyed doing:

An order with a surprise

2010-08-08T17:32:00.000+01:00

Just a short post - I did something very silly the other day. I received an order in the form of a spreadsheet, and printed it off and sent off the invoice, only to be advised by the customer that I'd not spotted the tabs on the spreadsheet - there were 3 pages to this order, not one! These are some of the products I wouldn't have sent:

9 clocks on test

A pile of 43 pictures

100 tiny sheep gift bags drying

It's a good size order, so I've been working all weekend, and the rest, to get all the work done. Just some more gift bags to finish, and then it's ready for packing up.

Some recent commissions

2010-08-07T13:07:00.000+01:00

I had a lovely commission recently, and such a good surprise. Some years ago I did some wedding invitation cards using my fluffy sheep as the theme (well, she was marrying a Yorkshire man!).

I was then asked to continue the theme through for the birth of their first child, and then for the birth of their second child. That was back in 2005.

And now they have moved to Canada and are expecting their 3rd child and I've just sent them their birth announcement cards! Baby Celia, due fairly soon.

The new canvas paintings

2010-08-05T07:40:00.000+01:00

Just an update on the canvas paintings I did to attract buyers to my stand at the Home and Gift Fair in Harrogate.
On the evening before leaving Norfolk I quickly did a 3rd canvas - I still had a long thin area of white wall on my stand, so I decided on a canvas 1 metre long by 30 cms high. I quickly rustled up a landscape (I really don't think you can "rustle up" such a thing) in between loading the van and cooking a meal.
Well, the canvasses were quite the talking point - so much so, that I've been asked to work out trade prices for them. I now need to think about this new development - can I reach a good trade price? Is this something I'd like to add to what I do for a while? What other paintings can I do?
All very flattering, and I'm looking forward to exploring the possibilities.

2 of the canvasses at the Home and Gift Fair

Another show, another display

2010-07-12T08:58:00.000+01:00

I set myself yet another challenge recently:

The design of my stand at the next trade fair, Harrogate at the end of the week, was looking a little bare at the top, so I decided I needed to do something. I fancied doing something to link this display with the one I did at Spring Fair, where we painted a mural.

So I bought a couple of canvasses and a tube each of black and white acrylic paint with the idea that I would paint my photographic landscapes and superimpose my fluffy animals.

Now I've never used acrylic paints before so this might seem rash, with the show being so imminent!

I dug out my mother's old easel - it's HUGE!! But then she used to do 8 x 4 foot paintings. It was a lovely day, so I put the easel up in the garden in the shade and, well, had some fun!

The canvasses aren't quite as large as I would have liked, but they were all the shop had at the time, and the results aren't as good as I'd like, but I'll take them to the show and see how they look.

These are the results:

This is taken from a photo I took in the Lickey Hills a few years ago.

And this is from the Yorkshire Dales

What do you think? Shall I use them, or should I leave them behind in disgrace?!

Where 2 lives meet

2010-06-25T09:57:00.000+01:00

I recently found some very old sketch books - nothing inspiring in them unfortunately, but it was interesting to see where my 2 lives crossed although at the time I couldn't see this.

These are a couple of pages from 1981 when I was working on an archaeological excavation in France. This particular site, Pincevent, is fascinating - a site where hunter-gatherers set up camp in the autumn to ambush the migrating reindeer, about 12,000 years ago.

Sketches of the site, with the reconstructed tents, plus some random scribbling on the left - some of the scribblings are about the tools we were excavating and about whether they were produced by specialists/artisans - was there such a person as an artisan this long ago? Certainly the flint knapping was produced by skilled craftsmen.
Some more of the scribblings are about another important Upper Palaeolithic site, Etiolle, and more is just some random boring dream I had!

These 2 sketches are of the late Guy Celerier, the director of the excavations at Pont d'Ambon in the Perigord where I worked for several summers - a lovely, lovely man.

And these 2 sketches are from a much longer time ago, in 1972, when I worked on a Roman site in Xanten, in Germany - a rough sketch of the sites boudary fence and someone's rucksack!

Colour in my world

2010-06-23T10:55:00.001+01:00

I had the tiniest parcel of fleece delivered yesterday and it led to a massive, all-day sort out of all the fleeces on hand at the moment. This has to be done every year to check for moths, and a fine day is perfect.

But I just love fleece, and I love all the colours I've built up over the years. There's no way I will ever use it all up in my work (unless I take up spinning again.....), but it's so gorgeous!

I ordered these carded batts of Scandinavian fleece, because I didn't know what they were like and here, we all prefer working with fleece from the sheep (washed, obviously!) or fleece that has been carded. With carded fleece the fibres are in all directions and there's alot of air in there - they're light and open and a joy to twizzle into my little sheep - you can see some of my little sheep on our website here. Fleece rovings, which we sometimes use, are not such fun - a bit dull I always think. The fibres are all smoothed out and perfectly aligned with each other. Somehow the character is lost.

These are the carded batts:

They came oiled ready for spinning or felting, so I washed them, and they are gorgeous, if a little hairy! Very light and very warm, and probably not suitable for the cat walk!

So having dealt with my tiny fleece order, I went on to sort out my stock of fleece.
These are the colours I've built up over the years, all different fleeces, dyed using fibre reactive dyes:

The moth hadn't got through to these, I'm pleased to say, although they had got to one lovely light grey fleece that I obviously hadn't washed and packed carefully enough. Moths much prefer dirty wool, so do make sure you wash all your winter woollies before you pack them away.

And these are just a few of the natural coloured fleeces I have - Manx Loaghtan, Shetland, and a couple of mystery breeds from a friendly small holder.

This is what a Manx Loaghtan sheep looks like - not my photo - I found it on stuff and nonsense's blog - I hope she doesn't mind. Aren't they just the best looking sheep!

Early morning delights in south Norfolk

2010-06-09T08:51:00.001+01:00

The birds woke me early this morning, as they do every morning, but today I decided to take the dogs out for an early walk, before any rain set in.

It was lovely - it's lovely every day. There's always something to raise the spirits, whatever the weather. This is what cheered me today at 6.30:

glorious poppies standing with grasses,

the village church with marguerites growing by the boundary wall,

cow parsley that's already set its seed.

And below are 2 new hedges on the edge of the small holding where the lovely Clun Forest sheep live. This first photo is their new hedge, planted this year. The second photo shows a similar hedge planted 5 years ago and is now an absolute haven for wildlife.

Peace

2010-06-07T09:12:00.000+01:00

While on a day's course recently I unexpectedly learnt the Chinese for peace: he-ping or hépíng or 和平(pronounced her-ping).

Shropshire Clun Forest sheep in Norfolk

2010-06-06T14:02:00.001+01:00

Just a short post today to get back into the swing of writing here.

This morning I took the dogs out for their usual walk up to the woods and around the fields, and met a couple who have a small holding in the village with Norfolk's only pedigree flock of Clun Forest sheep. I had a lovely chat with Georgie and Richard, met the flock and came home with a bag of fleece rescued from the hedges where they'd put it as a mulch! This fleece, now washed, is drying and will be used in our cards and pictures. Not a rare breed, but it is a minority breed which I rather like. It originates from the beautiful area around Clun in Shropshire, and funnily enough I have been supplying a lovely shop in Clun with my work for many years.

I'll go back with my camera and put up some photos, but this is what they look like with their very long black upright ears and elegant long black legs:

Mad, mad dogs

2010-04-08T15:42:00.009+01:00

Do I treat our dogs badly? Is there something vital missing in their diet? Should I consider having them re-homed?These are not serious questions as our dogs are very happy, very much loved, and well looked after.
But
WHY do they do this to us:
Chester, our Dog's Trust rescue, has taken a fancy to offcuts of mount board (and not always small offcuts either) - so much so that he made his mouth sore, and I now have to be much more careful with my recycling stuff in the studio. I've posted this photo before, but you can see he does rather like a sizeable piece! And the border collie is Whisper, and he's developed a couple of strange tastes. He discovered my tiny gift boxes and over a few days (before I noticed what was going on) he helped himself and took them outside to bury in the garden. Just the gift boxes, nothing else.

And then recently, it's brillo pads - you know, those soapy wirewool pads for scouring saucepans. He's been helping himself, taking them off to his bed and tearing them to shreds. His feet were what gave it away - rust coloured when he found an old one, and pink when he found a new one!! I shall be glad when we've finished rebuilding the kitchen and utility room and everything is safely stored away! Hmm - wonder whether I should put childproof locks on the doors?!

Setting up at Country Living Spring Fair 2010

2010-03-31T10:31:00.010+01:00

Just a little insight into the setting up of our stand at the Country Living Magazine's Spring Fair.
Our scheduled arrival time was between 1 and 2 pm on the Monday - we hoped it would be less busy being 2 days before the show opens. It was less busy but we still had to wait on the street for quite a while - "Just park up for a while" were the instructions on arrival. "Just park up"!! on this road, in Islington! But we found somewhere and read the paper and chatted to others who'd just parked up, and chatted to these guys trying to organise us all (poor guys! they did a great job). We finally got into the loading bay, and unloaded the van. The queues for the one lift were enormous, so we carried what we could up the 2 flights of stairs.
Our stand was up on the top floor in the room dedicated to Wire (Women in Rural Enterprise) - a great place to be! Follow this link to find out how to join Wire, and get the benefits for your business.

This is the view of the mezzanine floor from where we were, before all the stands were set up: And this is our stand finished and ready to go: We set up the basics on the Monday - the electrics, the pictures, the tables and covers. Mike then took the van back to Norfolk to enjoy a few days without the business. I spent the following morning finishing the stand, and then took myself off to Tate Modern for the rest of the day - wonderful!

Trip to Crufts

2010-03-14T11:35:00.008Z

I've finally managed to spend a day at Crufts - talked about it for years! But you need more than a day to see everything.
It was fascinating to see all the weird and lovely breeds there, and most of the breeders were really friendly and informative. They must get so fed up with saying the same things - but actually probably not since they're passionate about their breed of dog and could probably talk about it for ever.
I went with my daughters who have grown up with dogs (and loads of other animals!) - it was interesting to see which types of dogs we were all drawn to. Border collies of course! But then the Bedlington terrier - look at these - Emma found this one's tickle spot!

Our temporary mural - Part 2

2010-03-02T17:54:00.008Z

Just to finish off the story behind our mural and Spring Fair trade stand:

We wanted our stand to be true to our beliefs of re-using and no waste, and it took quite a bit of effort to get it to come together.

Having decided to paint our mural, based on the photography of the woods which we use in our Country Walks range of cards, we then had to put the display together so that it all looked in keeping.

We already have our wonderful boxes made from reclaimed timber by Once Upon a Pine, but we needed some sort of shelving to sit our products on. I'd already got a couple of old plastic horticultural crates from our local nurseries, and I thought they might work. But it was a devil's own job to find more crates because they come in from Holland with the potted plants in. After days of googling and phoning, I was put on to a nursery even closer - believe it or not, in our own village!!
So a huge thank you to Robin Taachi Plants who were able to let me have as many as I needed at a very reasonable rate - they were just sitting outside not doing anything, so that pleased me that, a) they were very local and b) they were just sitting around being idle.

Next problem: they'd been sitting outside for years and all that dirt and staining had to be removed. We tried all sorts of things to get them looking good until husband thought about the back to black stuff he uses on the car bumpers. He did the work, and they came up a treat.

These crates are brilliant - all the products sat in them for transport to the show, so we didn't need extra boxes. And then we just used cable ties to fasten them together as shelving. I'm so pleased! And I'll be using them for stock for my retail shows too - like Country Living Spring in a couple of weeks.

2010-02-28T15:26:00.011Z

I've just discovered this slide show website, and thought I'd try it out for some of my great designs for Mother's Day. You can buy any of them on our website here

Our temporary mural - Part 1

2010-02-25T20:38:00.021Z

I thought I'd share with you the fun experience of creating some very temporary art.

Our last trade show was the Spring Fair, Birmingham, and we were exhibiting in the greetings hall for the first time (up till now we've been in contemporary gifts). So I decided I'd do something a bit different with my space.
I wanted a display that reflected the philosophy of our business - fun, different, recycling, no waste, all that sort of thing.
So I decided to have a go at something I've never done before - paint a mural on the walls, top to bottom, side to side - 5.5 m x almost 3m tall. And here's what we did:

I booked an extra night at my b&b to give me more time. Emma came to the NEC after her university lectures had finished for the day and we got painting.

We marked up a pencil grid, and then started. Here's Emma making the first marks, and chatting away about knowing that her Grade B in GCSE art would come in handy one day! (Any idea what we're painting yet?)

This is when the funny looks from other exhibitors and contractors began, along with comments like "Would you like a bigger paint roller? - that's going to take you ages".
Yes, we got lots of comments mentioning Rolf Harris!

This was the equipment we used - 3 paint trays, a mini roller, a couple of bristle art brushes and the all important blue nylon scrubby thing from the bathroom, along with cheap white emulsion and a bottle of kid's black poster paint.

This is where we left it on the Friday night - I was just a little concerned that it may not go according to plan and look rubbish:

And this is how it looked when it was finished and the stand was dressed, ready for a busy week of business. It's my interpretation of our Country Walks range of cards - you can see one of them here to compare, and it's also our local part of Thetford Forest where we all love to walk the dogs.

And finally, here is my last view as I left the NEC hall at the end of the 5 day show - lights have been swithched off, the carpet's gone, other exhitors have left:

I wonder whether I should have signed the panels?
If anyone ever sees these panels again, do take a photograph and let me know!! I'm told they get painted over and used at the next show...

The art of postcards

2010-02-02T11:34:00.013Z

Postcards - I love them, and have kept some of those sent to me over the years. I'd like to encourage everyone to start sending them again. We need some fun post landing on our door mats. It's a really lovely way to show someone that you thought of them. You don't have to write much - the main thing is that you were thinking of them.

I love to write them as much as receive them. If you have a shop and sell lovely postcards, don't forget that we all need stamps too.

Here's a postcard I was sent a long time ago - it's from my parents when they went to the Arctic Circle, leaving my brother and I with, well, I can't remember who, but I've kept the postcard:

I'd love to hear what others think of postcards - have you got some that you've treasured over the years? When you receive one in the post, what do you do with it? Stick it on the fridge? Shove it in a box? Dare I say it, throw it in the bin?.... Mine go on the fridge or on my studio wall, and eventually make it into a box.

So, to help me on my mission to encourage the sending of postcards for fun, I'm adding some of my designs as postcards to my portfolio of work. They will be on show for the first time at Spring Fair Birmingham next week, and will be available online in a few weeks time.

Here's a sneaky preview:

Spring Fair, Birmingham, 2010

2010-01-28T18:28:00.010Z

Well, we're nearly organised for the Spring Fair at the NEC Birmingham in 10 days time.

We have a completely new display which I'm quite pleased with - almost everything is recycled, reclaimed or re-used, so this fits in nicely with our whole philosophy. We've had a lot of support from various sources, helping us to find the bits we've needed - quite a challenge at times! It would have been easier to just buy a display system, but we don't do "easy"!!

I have some beautiful boxes made by Once Upon a Pine from timber reclaimed from a barn in North Yorkshire - find out more about them at www.onceuponapine.co.uk. I really love these boxes; they're so "warm" - perfect for holding my cards.

All that now remains to do, in terms of the actual display, is to get to the NEC a day early in order to paint my mural!!
Yes, I'm going to try and paint a mural as my backdrop, and I'll have only a few hours to do it. I've done a practise one in our hallway at home - looking good, but I'm not letting you see any photos yet....

W've still a lot to do to get the products ready - just waiting on some new things to arrive, hopefully mid week if all goes to plan with the printers. Do we leave things to the last minute? Yes, I suppose we do, but that's all part of the fun - maybe!

More work on our website

2010-01-07T18:37:00.010Z

Well, we've been doing some work on the website while we're snowed in.

We've added some new sections within the greeting cards to see if this helps customers to find an appropriate card - it would be lovely if you could post any comments!

The new sections are:
Cards for this time of year (currently some cards for winter, and a few for Valentine's Day), Cards for her and Cards for him. In these last two categories we've just chosen a few designs from our collections which you may enjoy.

We've also added a small range of cards with insects and British wild flowers, which are very distinctive and unusual. We hope they may be enjoyed by gardeners as well as anyone with an interest in our wildlife. You can have a look at all of them here, but here's one to whet your appetite:

And just a few more snowy pictures of our village, Garboldisham:

Enjoying the snow.

2009-12-27T17:00:00.008Z

I'm shocked by myself - no blogging, yet again, for such a long time, but it has been an incredibly busy time ending with a nasty cold. All better now, and I did enjoy the snow. I'm hoping I may have some more material for some new designs later in the year - I've just been having a play with some of them, but nothing's ready to be revealed yet.
Here are a couple of photos - not a huge amount of snow, but quite a lot for Norfolk and it did transform the countryside.

This is my studio, looking much prettier than usual:

And this is our village church:

Rescued juvenile hedgehog

2009-11-04T10:39:00.008Z

Driving back from a lunch meeting recently, I drove past a hedgehog in the road. It was heading for the grass verge, so I drove on. Seconds later, I realised I'd have to go back - turned round as soon as I could, and just got onto the road again in front of a large grain lorry. Got back to where hedgehog was, and of course it'd changed direction and was right in the middle of the road, just where the lorry would have crushed it.

I stopped my van, and made the lorry stop with arm gestures to die for, and scooped up the sorry little creature. I let the lorry continue with a big thank you (he must have thought I was nuts, but who cares), put the hedgehog in the passenger footwell and drove home.

I left him there because I had loads to do to get ready for a show the next day - I needed to bring everything up from the garden studio before it got dark.

I then googled looking after hedgehogs - I've done it before but needed a refresher. The main thing they kept saying was keep them warm. Oh my goodness - I'd left this one in the van all afternoon!
I rushed out to bring him in - he was a bit chilly, but after a while on a warm hot water bottle, all seemed well.
He's now functioning extremely well (oh, does he smell!), and very active at night, and living in a very tall cardboard box in the bathroom. He got out of the normal size box with no trouble.

When we over-wintered one before, he managed to rattle the door of the rabbit hutch where he lived until the door opened. He'd fall to the floor, some 3 feet below, and was off. All this happened several times, always in the middle of the night. I'd go to sort him out in the morning and the wretch had made a run for it. But he was always found curled up in an awkward corner - the dogs always smelt him out!

He's so cute!! Or she, of course.

British Wool Marketing Board won't allow welfare standards on British Wool

2009-10-25T10:15:00.020Z

Izzy Lane has a wonderful business - ethical fashion from the fleece from her own flocks of rare Shetland and Wensleydale sheep. It's an amazing story - read more here

This is Izzy with one of her Wensleydales:

But the following is one of the issues that she and many sheep farmers are up against. This is her press release:

"For several years Isobel Davies has been working to bring attention to animal welfare standards in wool production, as well as give support to, as well as to create markets for British Wool and aid the ailing British Textile Industry. While continuing to use the wool from her won600 strong rescued flock, a deal was pending to break into the mainstream with Tesco having sought out Izzy Lane for a diffusion range.

Izzy Lane was to deliver the first wool cloth ever with an animal welfare standard on it.

The cloth would be made in Britain using some of the last scourers, spinners, dyers, weavers and finishers in the country and located in areas now depressed and with a high unemployment as a result of the demise of the textile industry. It was a glimmer of hope in a struggling industry, British wool heading for the first time to supermarket rails and with an animal welfare standard to boot.

In the initial work, Isobel was supported by certain employees of the Wool Board who helped to identify farmers who met her strict criteria which included:

No sheep from the flock to ever be live-exported
No sheep to ever be sold in livestock markets, with the exception of breeding stock
No sheep to ever be transported for more than 120 miles or a maximum time of 3 hours, with the exception of breeding stock.

Each farmer by law has to send their wool to the British Wool Marketing Board. Once it arrives, it goes into the bulk and loses its source and identity. It is then auctioned off to the wool merchants. The farmers are paid so little that many just burn and bury it as it doesn't even cover shearing costs.

Britain's wealth was founded on the wool trade in the Middle Ages and it is what later fuelled the industrial revolution. But it is now sadly deemed a "waste product".

The wool for Isobel's project was sent to the wool board, all tagged up and ready to be sent off to be processed. Then the shock, that the Wool Board would not endorse the use of animal welfare standards in the promotion of British wool as it didn't think it was fair to those farmers who do not meet the criteria.

British wool in British supermarkets, Britain setting the precedent for animal welfare in the fashion industry, the support of the British mills in these difficult times, premiums paid for the wool to the struggling farmers. There was also a deal to supply the fabric for coats to export to Japan.

Isobel Davies"

If you are surprised, or shocked by any of this, please let others know.

I'm currently using fleece from Shetlands, Portlands and Manx Loaghtans among others for my work - you can see some of it here. I love them all, with their fine fleece and beautiful colours.

The bonuses of fund raising

2009-10-23T13:20:00.009+01:00

We've just dispatched the younger daughter off to Sri Lanka with a group from her school - all very exciting, but also very expensive. We've not paid for this trip - she's had to raise the funds herself. But I did help - I decided that my stiffening fingers could do with a work-out, so I got out the crochet hook and made flower brooches and hairclips - loads of them!! We've been selling them at all sorts of events and they've been really popular, so I keep on crocheting. Here's a few of them:

These are made using left-over bits from hand spinning years ago - Wensleydale fleece and camel wool. I enjoyed making these, and may even get out my spinning wheel again.

And these use bits and pieces from the wool bag and have been really popular with youngsters:

And these ones have leaves!

The great bonuses in all of this are:
Nicola has learnt to crochet and has made some of them herself
And my fingers are benefitting from their work outs.

Big Red Bag went to Autumn Fair trade show

2009-10-16T17:22:00.010+01:00

Big Red Bag - you may remember it: I won this amazing canvas bag in a business raffle at a Wire meeting. It was donated by Toy Tidy who supply great storage solutions for all that stuff that kids have.

I had a problem at the Autumn Fair this year, because I had to take a delivery with me for a customer to collect from my stand. But there's really no storage space on my stand, especially for a box as big as this one. But then I had a brain wave and rushed to get Big Red Bag. I stuffed it with lots of my lovely dyed fleece that I use on my handmade greeting cards and art work (have a look here if you can't remember what I do - lots of amusing fluffy animals!) and took it off to the show.

And lo and behold, behind Big Red Bag, and hidden beneath all the overflowing fleece, is the box for my customer! (Well, you can't lo and behold it actually, because it's hidden...)

That fleece is so scrummy - soft, warm and with a lovely smell. I can't resist it! I do find myself emptying my supplies onto the studio floor sometimes, just because of the warmth and the colour!

An unusual afternoon snack

2009-10-06T17:42:00.005+01:00

Please don't get us to send our dog back to the Dog's Trust - we do feed him, really, but he obviously doesn't think so!

Here's he's taken some mount board for his mid afternoon snack, but really he prefers some nice offcuts of handmade Himalayan mountain paper!

A fresh start

2009-10-05T09:04:00.010+01:00

October already and not a blog posted for weeks. Oh dear.

September is traditionally a busy month for us with the Autumn Fair trade show and the start of a new school year both falling together in a the first week or two, along with both daughters' birthdays in the middle of the month.

But this year we had some added "busy-ness" with Emma leaving to go to university, and a couple of business market place events falling at the same time as the birthdays.

But here we are, in October, and the start of a hectic time preparing for the Christmas season. The office has been blitzed, with all the filing up to date, raw materials have been ordered, and the team are busy putting together the outstanding orders for our customers - Christmas cards, calendars (lots of these!), pictures and clocks.

Order your cards and gifts soon, from the website, while stock levels are high. We'd hate you to be disappointed.

Here's one of our most popular Christmas cards for this year:

this was a cat I sketched while in Germany a while back - she was just lying on the pavement enjoying the sunshine, so I thought she could now just relax in front of the Christmas tree and contemplate playing with the fallen bauble.

Autumn Fair Birmingham

2009-09-05T08:58:00.005+01:00

Well I've not been good at posting here - it's been an incredibly busy and eventful summer - but it's officially the start of autumn here as I'm off to Autumn Fair at the NEC in Birmingham in about an hour. The van is loaded - amazingly this was actually done last night! Now I just need some sustenance to keep me going - apricots, nuts, that sort of thing - as it's hard to get off the stand during the show - I shall be on my own this time as Emma, my trusty co-pilot, is off to Birmingham University in a couple of weeks and has lots to do herself.

I'll certainly know the way to Birmingham!

It's been a challenge helping Emma to prepare for uni - student finance being the biggest challenge. She's still not heard about her finance yet.... But everything else is finally falling into place and it's getting quite exciting. She's even got herself a Facebook page - reluctantly!! My 2 daughters must be very unusual teenagers - neither are bothered about Facebook - yet!!

The Big Red Bag will be coming to the trade show with me - filled with lovely goodies... It may even get into another photo. I'll post something up on my return.

Since I've decided that it is now autumn, I shall just go and put raincoat and boots in the van.

If you're coming to the show, do come and say hello - Stand 3 X19 - if not, why not leave a comment here so that I can see if anyone actually reads the blog!

Big Red Bag goes to Norfolk Show

2009-07-02T06:35:00.004+01:00

On Tuesday this week I won the business card raffle, amazingly! and I won my Big Red Bag - more of this next time, but this is to show his first day out, up at the Norfolk Show yesterday. I think he enjoyed himself and thought he fitted in very well! He's packed and ready for another day there today, so here he is, and we must go:

Royal Norfolk Show

2009-06-26T17:10:00.007+01:00

Plans are in place now for the Royal Norfolk Show next week. Not everything has gone quite according to plan, but being a flexible kind of girl I shall work with what I have. There's still lots to get ready, but the work looks great. I'm very pleased with some of the new designs, so let's hope the visitors will like my offerings.

There will be some special offers for the show (but they're still a secret) - and you can come and commission work too.

I'm hoping to go out and about with my camera - I always seem to take lots of photos of sheep!

Wedding penguins in action

2009-06-19T11:22:00.006+01:00

I recently supplied some of my penguin wedding cards to a customer in Ireland, for a wedding in early June, where quirky was definitely considered good.
This is what she did to them, and I love it!
I love people to adapt, modify and write on the cards that I design - such great team work! And it's even better when they send me a picture of them.

You can see more of Mark's photography here

Drawing Trees

2009-06-10T15:38:00.010+01:00

I decided that I needed time to myself away from the hustle and bustle of A level revision and business, so I booked myself onto a workshop to draw trees for a day - up near Acle in Norfolk. I had no idea what to expect, so just decided to enjoy, whatever.
It wasn't such a brilliant day in terms of weather, but we managed to get outside for a walk alongside some beautiful trees - mostly ash, and mostly magnificent - and we sat and sketched for a while. Then the rain came and we went back indoors.
Lunch was followed by some painting - poster paints, big brushes. Painting like I hadn't done for years, if ever really - very free and the results are not astounding, but it was such fun just pushing colour around the page - well, actually quite a few pages because I do have a tendency to work quickly.

And now it's back to the grindstone, because I don't think this is material for my greeting cards! But I do think I want to add more colour, so watch this space....

Scottie dogs

2009-04-30T10:40:00.013+01:00

I've recently supplied some of my Scottie dog products to The Scottish Terrier Emergency Care Scheme and as I didn't know about them before thought I'd give them a mention on my blog. There seem to be lots of Scottie dog fans out there - I have friends who have recently moved out to France with their 3 and have since got a 4th one. We've had their Scotties to stay in the past, while they were away, and I have to say they are quite full of character and determination! The first thing Gordon did when he arrived for his weekend was to "mark his patch" by peeing up one of my boxes of greeting cards!! A bad start to our relationship, but we made friends later!
If you want to rehome a Scottie or have any Scottie dog queries, this would be a good place to start: www.stecs.net

I've got a movie clip of some puppies when they were just 36 hours old - if anyone can tell me what to do with the clip so that I can post it here, I'd be very grateful (at the moment it's 134MB and 1.15 minutes long - it's obviously way too big to be able to put on the web...)

In the mean time, here are a couple of photos:

Here's mum with the puppies at 36 hours old:

And these are 3 of the same puppies at 2 months:

And if you'd like to see some of my cards, giftbags and other gifts, have a look at my website and put Scottie dogs into the search box

Some new designs

2009-04-25T05:48:00.010+01:00

I've had an excellent response to my advertising in The Lady which has been great. But it's brought it's own problems because many readers of the magazine don't use the internet, so I'm still having to produce printed catalogues - time consuming to keep up to date, and expensive. I really could do with help producing a decent mail order catalogue.... I need to do some more thinking here.

However, it is easy to put new greeting card designs up on the website which is just what I did yesterday. A few new designs came in from the printers yesterday morning including a few summery beach ones with seagulls and the popular little dogs, so they are now finished and up online. You can have a look here - I'd love to hear what you think, or if you have ideas for designs I should be doing. What am I not doing that you would like to see?

The Lady Magazine

2009-04-06T16:49:00.008+01:00

The Lady Magazine has been in publication since 1885 - that's an amazing 124 years. It's current publisher and chief exec is Ben Budworth who is the great- grandson of the founder - that's amazing too, don't you think? A real family business.

In celebration of being almost 125, the magazine has had a make-over or a face lift - colour is in, amongst other things.

It's not a magazine that I've much looked at, I have to confess, although I do remember my mother and stepfather putting in adverts years ago when they had a little holiday cottage round the corner from them in Devon.

It's the place to look for all sorts of holidays or if you need a gardener or nanny - that's quite well known. But they are introducing additional headings for their classified columns such as fashion and home furnishings, arts crafts and gifts, entertainment. So that's where I will have an advert in the next issue - in the arts, crafts and gifts section.

And there are some interesting articles too - gardens, theatre, places to visit (even with some special offers), an article on taking care of your tax allowance.

And I might try their version of fish pie (it does look very similar to the recipe I use which my mum gave me - so who knows, she might have got the recipe from The Lady herself!). Fish pie is great in our house, simply because everyone enjoys it.

And I'm sure there must be many readers of the magazine who really love to send fabulous greeting cards...

Seriously responsible printing

2009-03-31T07:01:00.007+01:00

Do you want to lessen the impact your business printing has on the environment?

I'm working with a great company in Norwich who are seriously environmentally friendly with their green and ethical printing business - not only do they use the latest technology to lessen the environmental impact, but they also bale you out when you get into a pickle (I speak from experience!)

So if you have a printing job, care for your environment, and want excellent customer care, contact them. They're called Seriously Responsible Print Ltd

New home page for the website

2009-03-24T11:01:00.009Z

I would really appreciate comments on the new layout of my home page. There's now a slide show of some of my products - do you think the slide show is at the right speed? Is it of interest to you to see a range of products in this format?
I also now have a button to enable you to sign up for a newsletter and another to come here to my blog.
As a tiny thankyou for any useful comments, I will send you out a little sample - so do please email me separately to let me have a postal address: info@pennylindop.com

Thanks!
PS. The border terrier was the most popular breed for me at the Country Living Show, so here he is!

An Episode in the life of a primula plant

2009-03-23T08:04:00.007Z

So I've just done the Country Living Magazine's Spring Fair, well a week ago now, and this is a little story about my primula plant that I took there.
I have a wonderful friend who came over to help me load the van before the show. She then went to our very brilliant local post office in Garboldisham (Norfolk) and found this very pretty primula plant - lots of flowers and lots of buds still to come, and a lovely orangey pinky colour. She bought it for my stand, so I dutifully put it by the front door along with my bag and the important show paperwork, just before leaving the house so that I wouldn't forget it.
It's obvious what would happen next, but I wasn't into the obvious at the time - the border collie sat on it!
Looking a bit sadder, it sat on the dashboard all the way to London.
At the show I tidied it up a bit and it spent 5 days under 12 spot lights, just like I did. We both wilted a bit.
But no end of customers admired it with comments like "I've never seen such a pretty primula; the colour is beautiful"
It must have listened to this because it looked great for the whole time - sorry, I forgot to take a photo
Then it got put in a crate along with other stuff for the journey home, and then of course it was forgotten until the crates got unpacked, which wasn't for a day or two.
A bit of water helped to revive the poor thing and deadheading.
But it's not happy - it's getting it's own back, because it's now just an ordinary yellow primula with not a sign of orangey pink left.
I guess it had been drugged!
And I'll continue to give it some tlc.

Online marketing strategy with networking opportunities

2009-03-18T07:37:00.007Z

I attended a fantastic workshop yesterday on building an effective online marketing strategy up in Norwich. It was put on by takeITon and run by Derrick Cameron of Eximium. I came away with a really useful list of what I need to do for my online marketing. If you get a chance to go to any workshops run by Derrick, then I'd advise you go - clear plain English and lots of enthusiasm. You can actually view his seminar "Fight the credit crunch with IT" on the takeITon website

However, I sat next to Tessa Shepperson who runs www.landlordlaw.co.uk and thought I'd like to let more people know about her services and her website. This is an extremely useful website for landlords and tenants alike and, as I have a daughter about to embark on a few years at university, thought that this would be a useful site for all students and their parents to bookmark. It would be a good place to start if you need help with a tenancy agreement and the like.

I'm now off to Birmingham University with my daughter to visit the School of Government and Society. We'll have a look around the campus too which will be very odd for me as I went to Birmingham Uni way back in the 70's. I read Archaeology and Ancient History, and look at me now, designing greeting cards and prints!

Count Down to Country Living Spring Fair

2009-02-26T16:15:00.009Z

The count down has started - 12 days to finish getting ready for the Country Living Spring Fair in Islington, London. Sounds quite a long time, until you make yourself a time table and fill in the slots and then realise there are not enough time slots to fit in what still needs to be done. But it always gets done, and I rarely work late into the nights (I just get up much earlier instead!)
I'm usually quite chaotic when it comes to organising my time in the studio, and usually find that I'm working on lots of things at once. The work surfaces get over cluttered, and when I need a piece of equipment I often can't find it because it's so well buried. So, I'm using these next 12 days to become more methodical and more organised. I'm determined to be calm, fit, rested and ready for the show so here is what I'm putting in place, and let's see if I get my intended results!:

Divide each day into 3 slots, morning, afternoon and evening.
Block in those times where I'm already committed to be away from the studio
Set precise tasks for each of the other slots, but not so tightly that if one job takes longer than anticipated I get into a pickle
Allow time for office admin tasks, checking email, fulfilling orders, etc but to be ruthless
with the emails - delete those that really aren't relevant, reply immediately to those that need a reply.
Take time out for short coffee breaks, meals and family
Feel a great sense of achievement for each task done, and give myself a pat on the back (or a glass of wine, or whatever)

All you guys are probably really well organised and never find yourself playing solitaire or clicking interesting-looking links and the like - but when you work on your own it can be hard to be disciplined (and it can be dull too - clicking on those interesting-looking links can take you to some great places - but there's a time and place, I suppose)

And it's only for the next 12 days! And hey, if this works, I could try it again....!

Here are a couple of photos of a couple of our animals who make me laugh - Whisper is the border collie, and Stripe is the house rabbit. He's eating a brussel sprout stalk, by the way!

A little information on the Hebridean sheep

2009-02-16T14:49:00.013Z

It's mid February already, and the sun is shining. My log cabin is much warmer and lighter today giving me a feeling that spring is on it's way. For me this is a time to clear out some old designs and some old raw materials, clean away the cobwebs a.nd piles of dog hairs from the corners. I'd love to be able to make more of the very small space that I have, but that will have to go on a wish list.

I've been reading through some of the comments from customers, and it's so interesting what you can learn. I'll share a couple with you here:

25 Jan is the Welsh Valentine, Santes Dwynewn, not February 14th

Rachel is a Hebrew name, meaning sheep or ewe

And talking of sheep, I've recently added a couple of Hebridean sheep designs to my sheep range of cards - well, they are black sheep and have horns.

The Hebridean breed, sometimes called the St Kilda sheep, is one of our rare breeds of sheep and can often be seen in nature reserves, parks and stately homes. They are a small breed of sheep that may well have died out if they had not been kept at such places. They are fine animals to look at with their dark fleece and horns - they are often multi-horned, usually with 4 horns - which is one of the reasons they have been a popular breed for stately homes.

The fleece is black or dark brown, often with grey tinges as they get older. It's a fairly course fleece, but nevertheless is popular with handspinners. It is often used in rug weaving.

They are related to other North European breeds such as Shetland, North Ronaldsay, Manx Loghtan and Icelandic. These breeds are all small and hardy, and thrive in poor condions.

Thoughts on sending Christmas cards

2008-12-12T18:16:00.005Z

We still have stocks of some of our very unusual handmade Christmas cards, so it's not too late to choose 1 or 2 for someone special. Have a look at our website to see the range. I thank everyone who has bought our cards, calendar and gifts this season. We have been kept very busy which has been wonderful. And thank you for all those kind comments.

What are your thoughts on sending Christmas cards? We're encouraged to divert the money spent on cards to charities, which is great, or to buy charity cards - also great, and there are some really lovely cards available.
But how about a compromise - sending just a few beautiful designer cards supports the designer and sending all cards supports your local post office. All our cards are printed in the UK and handfinished by a small team in Norfolk - trying to be greener by keeping local.
And what do you think about ecards? Personally I'm not keen, but then it's not in my interest to be keen on them. I actually love to receive post that isn't business post, and I love images and the feel of paper. So I love to receive quality and beautiful cards.

Busy times

2008-11-27T21:33:00.010Z

Well, it is to be expected that this time of year is busy, but it still comes as a surprise to me each year! I've been at Blackthorpe Barn Christmas craft markets for the last 2 weekends, and will be there this weekend too - lots of Penny Lindop cards and artwork available. If you live in East Anglia and you have a passion for the beautiful and unusual, this is a wonderful place to visit. You can get your Christmas tree here too, and some really lovely decorations.
There have been some great networking opportunities too this month, with Wire meetings and the Enterprising Women's annual conference and hey, guess what, I was a finalist in the Enterprising Women's Awards for 2008, so I'm happy. The conference was excellent and it was so good to catch up with some people I'd not seen for a while.
And then there's next year to prepare for. The first trade fair for me is in mid January in Dublin, Showcase Ireland, and I really do need to finalise some new designs and work on some ideas that are still only in my head. Here's a piece by Jerpoint Glass from Kilkenny in Ireland which I enjoy - I shall look forward to see their new work.

Penny Lindop's handmade calendar

2008-11-10T10:41:00.009Z

Penny Lindop has been producing a unique handmade calendar every year since 2000. It's available from the website but stocks are running out fast.
While you are thinking about Christmas this year, and getting your diaries and calendars for next year, we are having to come up with designs now for 2010! This will be the 11th calendar - that'll be 132 individual calendar pictures, all with our fluffy handfinished element!
We've got most of the ideas now for 2010 - I just need to sit down and get some sketching done!

If you have any special requests or ideas, I'd be delighted to hear them!

Fun and quirky greeting cards from Penny Lindop

2008-11-01T13:17:00.008Z

I am Penny Lindop and run a business producing greeting cards and pictures with the rather obvious name of Penny Lindop Designs. I have a small part time team that help with the work and the ideas, and I work from home in a log cabin at the bottom of the garden.

This is my first posting to my first blog, so I thought I'd just introduce myself and some of what I enjoy doing. Among other things I'm known for my sheep cards, many of which can be seen on my website. All my designs have a handfinished element, adding to the fun and appeal. They make a lot of people smile, which is great. Shown above are two of my original designs which, amazingly, are still so popular.

When I started the business all my designs were of sheep - I had been heavily involved in hand spinning, weaving and dyeing previously so I guess that's where the sheep came from! A quick glance at my website will show you that the sheep have been joined by lots of different things. Sometimes it's hard to come up with something new, but then I get inspiration from talking to someone, or when I'm out walking the dogs, or simply because someone asks me for a particular theme or animal. Sometimes there simply aren't enough hours in the day to do what I'd like!

I use a lovely Italian paper for the cards, and alot of textured or creamy handmade papers for the pictures. I've always loved paper as well as textiles and colour. The envelope colours are chosen to compliment the card design, and as a result I have up to 20,000 envelopes sitting in my log cabin - I use 3 sizes, and have to buy in large quantities to get the better prices.