You'd think that with the physical shop closed I'd be having a nice rest!  Not so I'm afraid - this last few weeks have been manic, in a good way :)

I've been getting stuck into the online side of things and working hard on building up our online store so you can see as much of our range as possible - we're all doing our Christmas shopping a bit differently this year!

It's good to be busy, and I've managed to get so much more online now than we used to have, so I thought you'd like to see some of the new designers I've been working on.

Alanna Plekkenpol

Alanna's work is so cute and refreshing.  It reminds me of a holiday I had in Holland with mum quite a long time ago.  One of the highlights of the trip was a visit to the Delft Pottery - all gorgeous blue and white ceramics.

Alanna, though living in Wicklow, has a Dutch heritage and I think you can see that influence in her quirky modern take on this:

These gorgeous tiles all come ready to hang with a discreet hanging loop on the back or you can purchase a really lovely little stand so you can stand the tile up on your mantlepiece or wherever!

KaroArt

Another delight for me has been KaroArt Christmas decorations. I personally love the Love Birds and gave these to my daughter when she got engaged! Remember, these don't have to be Christmas decorations!  They are perfect all year round.   One of my daughters is a teacher, and I think these would make really lovely teachers' prezzies.  They all deserve a little treat this year - it's been hard!

Airy Fairy Designs

Then there's Airy Fairy Designs.  You'll have seen these gorgeous bags on our stand at Gifted in the RDS for the last couple of years.  Of course there's no Gifted this year, but we still have the gorgeous bags! 

We used to have them on a 'tree' stand and we sold so many at the RDS we call it the magic stand!  Hopefully the magic will still work this year on line. 

So over the last few weeks I've been sorting information and photos (I've taken some myself so they're not perfect - but I hope they'll give you a good enough view) and listing them all on line.  It takes a good while but it's lovely to work with such quality pieces.

What else is going on?

Other than that behind the scenes there's the usual bills to pay, records to keep, stock to manage, designers to look after, along with the packing and posting or delivering on-line orders. We're also delivering orders personally in the Dublin/ North Wicklow area - if we're delivering personally we are able to present your gifts in a beautiful gift bag like this (which we just couldn't do in the post!)

Thank you all so much for shopping with us - every sale is important to us. 

We're always happy to personalise things and often add messages to cards etc for customers, so if there's anything special you'd like us to do just let us know!

A little Christmas project!

I mentioned in my last blog post that I've taken up watercolour painting and one of the little things I've done is to make my Christmas gift tags. You could do this too - it's ever so easy and you don't have to be a great artist (clearly I'm not!) 

Here's one I've done- feel free to copy or make up your own designs.  It really only takes a few minutes and adds the personal touch to your gifts. If you do this please tell us in the comments and  put up some images so we can all enjoy!

So hang in there!

We need to stay focused now and hang in there for another couple of weeks.  Then we should be able to open our doors again!  We'll  be looking gorgeous for Christmas as always and looking forward to seeing you all again. Hopefully I'll have the baubles finished in time!