Emma's Christmas Show Blog

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.