NEW BEGINNINGS

Happy New Year everyone

I hope you had a lovely Christmas.  The weather has been dreadful everywhere and it seems there is more heavy rain and wind still to come.  The bottom half of our garden has been underwater off and on for the last two weeks - we should be grateful  for this (yes, I know that sounds odd) as at least the garden slopes away from the back of our property rather than towards it.

Have you made lots of New year resolutions?  I decided a year or so ago not to make New Year's Resolutions because I rarely achieve them; this meant lots of disappointment so by not setting any, no disappointment!  Although I have not really made personal resolutions (apart from the permanent, written in stone one of trying to lose weight), I have made some business ones.  I intend investing more time into the wedding stationery side of my business; I really enjoy this part of handmade, but know I have not spent as much time on it as I could and should have.  I have booked wedding fairs, both in March which means I have time to plan and create new designs - but I know this is something I must begin working on immediately, rather than my usual Scarlett approach: tomorrow is another day!

I also want (hope) to start early on making season stock: Valentine's Day, Easter, Mother's day and dare I saw it, Christmas 2014.  I am really bad at leaving things to the last minute, and have always found this to work well - however, when it comes to making stock, that is just not possible, so this year I have to change and improve my stock control planning.

A new challenge, rather than a resolution, is that I have taken over a small event organising business.  About one year ago, the organiser of the Godalming Independent Markets (now known as Independent Markets) made the decision to move back to Australia with her family.  At the time I expressed interest in acquiring the business, but someone had beaten me to it.  Incredibly lucky for me, Anna Matthews, the new owner contacted me just before Christmas to ask if I was still interested in the business.  Anna has decided that with everything else going on in her life, she had to make the difficult decision to move away from this particular business venture.  I thought about it over Christmas, although in my heart-of-hearts I knew what the decision would be and I am the proud owner of Independent Markets.  

Anna has worked very hard during the last year to promote the image of the market, as well as the quality of what is sold at the events.  She is a great supporter of handmade work and has welcomed some brilliant designer/crafters as regular stallholders.  She has passed on to me some great plans/ideas she had to expand the markets into another local areas during the coming year, and I plan to follow through with these.  Exciting and challenging times ahead for me and I will keep everyone updated with news of future events in existing and new venues.

I haven't done much making during the Christmas break because of the above, but I did have an order from a friend for a black cat jute bag:

This week, as always, I am joining the Handmade Harbour linky party and really looking forward to catching up with everyone and  finding out what they have planned for 2014.  

Have a great week everyone - Milly will be here on Wednesday and I will be back next Sunday

Jill