Back from our trip to the Alps now and caught up on all the outstanding orders that came through whilst I was away.  The "Cucumelle" holiday promotion was very popular and I had a manic time last week getting back up to speed! 

Anyway, now back in control and thought I would introduce you to a potential future artist for Little Crab Designs - my daughter!

Jasmine now has her own website - www.jasmineseager.com - where she can show her latest pieces of art.  She is hoping to do an art scholarship to her senior school in a couple of years and I am really proud of her and the art she is producing.  Do go have a look at the gallery - my current favourite is the gazelle!

It dawned on me this week that Little Crab Designs has just passed the five year mark!  When I look back at how it all started, and the journey I have been on to get where we are today... I feel very proud.

It all started with a small stall at the children's school Christmas Fair with the Tom and Jasmine canvas blocks on display and NO stock - just lots of interest and people pre-ordering.  From there - a year's worth of various fairs/events, the introduction of our textile prints with the still ever popular Hotchpotch Sealife and Hotchpotch Farm collections - lots of hard work - and lots of mistakes made! 

Then we moved onto the internet, deciding this was where I really wanted to concentrate our efforts.  For a year though we had a nice looking web store but it wasn't really visible so we had very little traffic.  Then with much help from Sussex Enterprise, I worked out how to get it seen and get more visitors to the site and the orders started to drip through.  I still remember those first few orders - away on our annual ski trip - and checking my email in an apres-ski bar only to find I had three orders - BIG excitement! 

So since then, the website has gone from strength to strength, our sales grown year on year and here we are - about to enter 2012 - and 5 years have gone - phew! ... best get on with the next 5!

Having begun to offer our our unisex collections in plain white distressed frames back in October, we have now added this possibility to our boy's ranges of pictures - Driving me Spotty, Boys Toys and Dotty about Dinosaurs.  You just have to select "white frame" from the drop down "options" box under each picture. 

Sometimes people don't want the blue or green frames because they might already have a blue boy's bedroom say and don't feel the blue frame will stand out enough - so being able to have them framed in plain white, irons out this problem.  As with all our pictures though - please don't hesitate to get in touch if something is not quite as you would want it - we will endeavour to meet your demands if we can!

Well things are starting to hot up on the Christmas order books which is keeping us nice and busy, but I did find time last week to enter a competiton on Facebook - never dreaming I would win - as I NEVER win ANYTHING - but guess what... I only bloomin' did... and when this gorgeous little package arrived on Saturday from Nalu Beads  I was absolutely thrilled! 

I already have some of these gorgeous beads, all named after various wave breaks in the UK and around the world, but I really wanted some more and the best bit for the prizewinners was that we could choose exactly which beads we wanted to the value of £50. 

So if you like the look of these, do make sure you go check out their website -  Nalu Beads - they would make a lovely Christmas present for a girlfriend or put them on your own Christmas wishlist ;-) 

I would also like to thank the team at Nalu Beads for reminding me how well Facebook works as a business promotion tool and seeing the kind of response they got to their competition has prompted me to make my first New Year's Resolution for 2012 - make more of an effort to grow Little Crab Designs social media presence!!

Having been told by the powers that be (my husband - mr retail himself!!) - that this is the week that Christmas shoppers start to get busy on the net, I got the decorations out...

Over the past few months several customers have asked for the Hotchpotch Sealife or Hotchpotch Farm pictures to be framed in plain white frames as they are not sure if they are decorating the nursery for a new baby boy or a new baby girl! 

Whilst we do offer these unisex prints in a green frame as an option to the blue or antique white with a hint of pink, we do appreciate that sometimes green might not work with someone's nursery decor, and plain white is just more versatile... so with that in mind we have now added the option to have plain white distressed frames on our Hotchpotch Sealife, Hotchpotch Farm, Circus Spotty and Garden Animals collections, which are all suitable pictures for both boys and girls.

We have just improved our free delivery offer to allow customers buying 4 or more pictures from any of our framed picture collections to benefit from it.

At the time of  the original change in the postage structure on the website back in the summer, we had overlooked that some of our collections, namely Gorgeous Gingham, Boys Toys, Beautiful Butterflies, Driving Me Spotty, Dotty about Dinosaurs and Circus Spotty only have 4 pictures in the set and that if you buy all 4 this totals £66.00.  With our original free delivery offer standing at purchases over £70, many of our customers buying from these collections could not benefit from it. 

We have now rectified this issue so that all you lovely people buying a full set of 4 of any of these collections get your just rewards!  I probably shouldn't mention it... but in the internet shopping world of retail, in a couple of weeks people WILL be doing their Christmas shopping... so hopefully this offer will entice a few more people to buy Little Crab Designs pictures for little people's walls this year :)

Having taken a bit of a back seat in the last year, our children's canvas prints have seen a recent surge in popularity over the past few months. 

Our canvas printers have recently upgraded their machinery and in doing so, changed the stock they now print on.  The result being that we think they look even better than before.  With girls and boys specific designs as well as our lovely stripy sea and stripy farm ranges that are suitable for both, these striking pictures make great choices for older children or a larger nursery or bedroom. 

As they work best when there are several of them on the wall  - to encourage you to get maximum impact out of them, if you buy three or more you benefit from FREE postage too!

Very excited yesterday to see that we have gone over the 100 mark on our facebook page for likers!  I have to say that this has a lot to do with my very nice friend Melissa who is starting out her own new venture - and unlike me - is much better at doing the whole facebook thing - she got her 100 likers in five minutes - and then very kindly helped me to tip our number over the 100 mark too :)

Melissa is the brains behind Brownie'licious - where they make all things "Brownie".  I personally have sampled the brownies themselves (delicious warmed up with ice cream!) and the fantastic "Brownie Pops" (Brownie lollies with sprinkles and icing on top) - which my kids absolutely LOVED!  They can also do fantastic Brownie Stack Wedding Cakes - which if had been around when I got married -would definitely have been my choice!  And there are lots of other ideas in the pipeline such as brownie wedding favours, different flavour brownies such as with fresh raspberries, mint, orange etc. and brownie party bag fillers.

I wish her every success with her venture - and urge you to go check out her facebook page and become a liker so that you can keep up to date with when the website goes live - if your a girl and love chocoloate (and lets face it - most girls do!!) you NEED Brownie'licious in your life!  And if you need any more reason to visit her page - she is running a competition to the end of September where you can win yourself a jar of Brownies.... need I say more?!

After our first order for Switzerland last week we have had another order from a shop near Southport - Cherubs of Churchtown.  Opening in October, Lesley is getting organised and making sure she will be well stocked, so has placed an order with us that includes some of our canvas prints and  full sets from our boys and girls picture collections.  We wish her every success with her new venture!

Exciting week this week... our first order from our new friends in Switzerland!  New online baby boutique "Hopscotch" is opening very soon, so we are busy getting together their first shipment of pictures.  It was interesting to see which designs they chose and they have gone for a good mix to get them started, to include Hotchpotch Sealife, Boys Toys, Gorgeous Gingham and Garden Animals.

This large order, coupled with a sudden August surge in sales on the website, that is unusual for this time of year (I thought everyone was on holiday?!), meant that Little Crab Designs ran out of stock for the first time EVER!!  Not a panic situation -  and only for a day or two - but it is the first time that our stock has been run right down to the bottom! 

This week sees the update of our Hotchpotch Farm range.  Having been on the site for over 3 years - endless print runs had started to take their toll and the originals were looking a tad tatty!  So we have (or should I say Sarah has :)) given them a fresh new look - even more adorable than the first edition don't you think?

At last!... in between managing children on school holidays, going on holiday ourselves and the general chaos that is behind the scenes at Little Crab Designs this summer - we bring to you the all new "Gorgeous Gingham" girls collection of pictures.  Inspired by Sarah's daughter Boe - they are all her favourite things!  Totally girly, very pink - they will be adorable in any little girl's bedroom (or big girls for that matter - my 10 year old is asking for them in her bedroom :))

Very exciting news this week - Little Crab Designs nursery art will soon be available in Switzerland!  Hopscotch - a new online boutique opening in Switzerland, will be stocking some of our pictures later in the year when they are up and running.    The idea is the brainchild of two sisters living there, who are keen to fill a gap in the market for quality children's products, particularly targetting the large expat community there.  They will be offering toddlers clothes, toys, pamper bits for mums and nursery art - namely "Little Crab Designs" art!  Can't wait to find out which of our designs they will be trialling first!

Having had a clearout on the site of some of our older designs, things on the girls nursery pictures front have been particularly sparse but do not despair... Sarah has been working on a new range and they are currently winging their way to me as I write. 

Very pink, very girly and very gorgeous - they have been inspired by her daughter, Boe.  They are all her favourite things!

Little sneaky snapshot below to give you a taster (taken on a mobile so pls excuse the quality!) - hopefully should get them up on the site for sale in August sometime.

We have added a new collection to the website - Circus Spotty!  They can be found in the Jungle/Safari Animal Nursery Pictures section and comprise of giraffe, lion, elephant and sea lion - all performing clever tricks in a circus styled setting.  Great for boys and girls as they can be framed in antique white with a hint of pink, green or blue so do go take a look - they will look adorable in any new baby's nursery!

We have made some amendments to our postage calculations we hope you are going to like!  Always a tricky one as sadly Royal Mail put their prices up a fair bit each April - and as a small business who can't get a "bulk" deal with them - it can be very hard to offer competitive postage... but we have had a look at the figures over the last year - and projected postage costs for this year and have come up with a change in structure which should hopefully reward those customers who are buying several pictures as opposed to penalising them.

So the new postage rates are as follows:

Orders up to £14 in value will be charged £2.50 postage

Orders from £14.01 to £70.00 will be charged £3.95 postage

Orders over the value of £70 will get FREE POSTAGE!!

We have so many customers who are decorating their first baby's nursery and buy 4-6 pictures, so this way they will get a bit of a reward for doing so! 

Happy Shopping :)

We have now turned our attentions to the Hotchpotch Sealife collection.  These hugely popular designs have had a makeover.  Still the same style and simliar types of fabric used, just a little less tired!

 

Due to us updating some of our ranges over the coming months, we have some real bargains on our SALE page at the moment.  As we run down our stock of first edition prints across the various collections, we are inevitably left with odd ones here and there so we will be putting them onto our sale page and selling them at fantastic prices. 

Still the same quality, and still framed in the same hand-painted way, I listed a set of three first edition Boys Toys prints yesterday and within 3 hours they were gone!  We are also discontinuing a couple of our design ranges that have been on the website for a long time (it was time for a real spring clean!) - so do go take a look as I have a feeling these won't be round for long!

Kids finally went back to school  (after SIX weeks off due to them changing schools and having two sets of holidays!) and I can get on with the task of updating some of our designs which have been around for a while. 

First to receive a facelift is the "Boys Toys" range.  These four pictures have been a huge success so I really hope these refreshed and updated versions are as appealing as the original ones were... time will tell I guess!

I was dead chuffed to be included in Kate Garraway's blog feature last week about mumpreneurs!  Much as I hate the term - "mumpreneur" - it was great to be included in her line up of mums working for themselves and of course, being associated with a household celebrity mum to boot! 

Check this out!  We decided we needed to update the Little Crab Designs logo as after four years and the type of art we sell on here being textile in the main, the original watercolour logo is a bit out of context with the rest of the site so we have come up with this new one.  Just need to work out how to get this looking good on the website now...!

I wanted to introduce you to  - home to some of the most adorable baby hats I have seen.

I was first introduced to this website when it won the coveted "Mr Site website of the month" status.  I always like to have a nose at these winners to see what other fellow Mr Siters are up to, but this one really caught my eye because of it's simple clean design and product range.  It made me wish my "growing up fast" gang were babies again just so I could buy one!

Hatsmybaby does what it says on the tin - they just concentrate on baby hats.  This means they can focus on seeking out the cutest and funkiest hats out there and bring them to you - all in one place.  I think my favourite has to be the Little Shrimp hat as seen here - but do go visit the shop to check out all the different ones they have.

Well the sun has come out and I have been busy photographing new pictures ready to upload onto the website.  Lots of changes afoot at Little Crab Designs at the moment - updating our hotchpotch range, updating our logo, new designs to add on etc etc. 

Aside from this I have been working in the background on raising the company profile.  We are now listed on The Online Shopping Town - a great website with lots of nice shops all in one place to browse through.  We feel very priviliged to have been approached by them for inclusion and you can find us on the Art Prints & Posters, Children's Furniture and New Baby Gifts streets.

I am also very excited to have been contacted by a well known TV celebrity this week to feature in an article on their website about "mumpreneurs" - watch this space for how this develops over the next week or so!

Little Crab Designs has been included in the Mumsjustlove retail directory.  We feel really privileged to be included in this fabulous resource of quality baby online shops so do go check it out – there’s some great sites on here.  We have also been featured in their blog in an article about seaside themed rooms for children. 

Thank you Mumsjustlove!

Also - quick update on Collect+ - both customers we trialled it with last week received their parcels safe and sound... so a delivery system Little Crab Designs will be using in the future for sure.

We have trialled a new shipping/delivery method this week.  Royal Mail prices keep going up - and as a small business we don't have access to preferential postage rates so can sometimes pay up to £9.00 for sending out a large order when we only charge £4.95 postage. 

At a time when VAT has gone up too, we are conscious of wanting to keep our picture prices affordable in today's economic climate.  Enter - Collect+.  This concept is great - you input all the postage details, print off the tracking label and pay for it online, then take it to you nearest linked in cornershop - in my case at the end of the road!  Delivery is quoted as 3-5 days and the recipient then has to sign for the package. 

I am waiting to hear feedback from the two orders I sent this week using this service to see if it's really going to work for us - but with Collect+ charging a flat rate for parcels up to 5kg, it means we can keep our prices down and our postage charge to a minimum.

It's worth checking out the website anyway as many online retailers are  now offering this service to their customers for their shopping, where instead of waiting in for a parcel delivery or trekking to your local depot to collect your order - you can arrange to pick it up from your local corner shop - genius!

As you may or may not be aware, we print all our pictures from the original artwork every time.  Whilst this always produces excellent results, it does mean that after countless trips to the printers, the originals can get a little tired! 

Our Hotchpotch Sealife and Hotchpotch Farm collections were our first textile designs and have been on the website for over three years now, so we have decided to try and give them a facelift.  I say "try" because as these designs remain our bestsellers today, we want to make sure we come up with something every bit as gorgeous as the current ones are. 

Sarah is in the process of doing new sets of each.  She will be keeping very close to the original designs in style and look, so that we don't stray too far from what our customers like and I am awaiting first proofs as I write.   I can't wait to see what she has come up with!

At last... I am feeling SO proud of myself.  I have put the gorgeous new range of Garden Animal Pictures on the website.  I've only been trying to do this since November... ah well - the best laid plans and all that!  I hope they have been worth the wait :)

Well another year is here already - and there seems to be no pausing on the production line here at Little Crab Designs. The run up to Christmas was fantastic - best December to date in terms of sales, then I just managed to squeeze in a quick snowboarding holiday at the beginning of January before coming back to an unexpected but welcome flurry of orders. 

I must also mention the Mummy Grapevine competition finished last week and the lucky winner was Wendy Mcdonald, who has chosen a Driving Me Spotty Truck picture in  a blue frame to go in her son's bedroom.  Congratulations to Wendy!

It's all systems go here at Little Crab Designs - the production line is in constant flow as the Christmas orders build.

Very excited to see today that The Mummy Grapevine - a fantastic new blog covering "all things mummy related" has posted a review of Little Crab Designs.  I think it is so well written, I wish I could employ Rebecca to write all the copy for my website!  Go check it out - there is a competition on there to win a Little Crab Designs picture as well, so well worth the visit!

Couldn't resist putting a sneaky peak on here - they are just SO gorgeous!!! - Just need this wind and rain to go away so I can photograph them properly to put them on the website so you can buy them!!!

Well I am back from holiday and suffering massively from the post holiday blues - particularly when it is so horrid outside today!  Had a fantastic time - check out this video on you tube to see a very clever little boy (can't help being very proud!!) learning to kiteboard - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6rvoj3p4vk. 

But of course the party had to end - and now it's back to work - and to cheer me up, 6 brand new designs arrived on my doorstep from Sarah this week.  They are absolutely gorgeous - my kids already asking for them in their rooms (and they are 7 and 9!).  There's a mouse, a hedgehog, a bunny, a bird, an owl and a tortoise.  Just need to work out a name to give the set now.  Not so easy - because I am thinking they are woodland animals... but then a tortoise isn't really, they are not farm animals... so what am I going to call them?... 

Just in the process of getting them ready to photograph (if it ever stops blowing a gale and raining!) so I can get them up on the website ready for the run up to Christmas.  Which reminds me - I have also realised that really, I should get myself into gear with thinking about making my site look "Christmassy" and coming up with a Christmas special offer for my lovely shoppers...  I forget that in "serious retail businesses" Christmas begins in November (or even before) and NOT the week before the kids break up in a mad panic!!!!

Found a great new website this last week - Kiddiebase - a one stop shop for all things kiddie related - lots of different products all "under one roof" so to speak - easy to browse through as they are clearly categorised.  I have listed some boys and girls pictures on there in the art section.  They are having a huge awareness push this week including a feature in the Guardian baby supplement and exhibiting at the London Baby Show at Earls Court so here's hoping for a flurry of sales from it! 

I have been thinking how we can get the Little Crab Designs facebook page fan base up.  It's only been live a week and we already have over 50 fans which is great - but we would love to get to the magic 100 mark.  The catch though, is that we want these to be genuine fans. 

I have seen on various forums recently - shameless fan swapping going on  - and  whilst I have no issue with others who want to do this, to be honest - I just don't really feel comfortable with it, as I don't want to just "like" pages for the sake of getting ours and other people's numbers up.  I want to "like" them because I genuinely do like them.  In the same way as I want people to like Little Crab Designs, because they genuinely do like it - (hope this is making sense?!?) 

Anyway - I have decided that for all you lovely people visiting our website - and who took the time to click on the link that bought you here - if you become a fan on our facebook page - when you place an order with us - put a note in the order instructions, or send us a quick email - anna@littlecrab.co.uk - telling us your facebook name - and we will refund you 10% of your order (not inc. postage) as a thank you.  Happy Shopping!

Yippee! Little Crab Designs gift vouchers are now a real live option on the website - very exciting!  You can have them for any amount you want and they are delivered by email so great for those uncles and aunts who have left the gift giving to the last minute (I know about those, as my children have them!!).  Please spread the word - a great idea for the dreaded "C" word that is fast approaching us...

My autumn brain seems to have finally got back into gear after the long summer holidays - obviously takes a bit longer the older you get!!  Anyway - after my earlier lightbulb moment in the week about gift vouchers (which incidentally is moving along nicely - I think I can make it work), I then delved into the world of Google Adwords - as I had been advised this was a good way of finding out a lot about my audience and what kind of words they use to find my website, in a relatively short space of time.

However along this journey, I got somewhat distracted by a discussion on mumsclub (I told you before this website was a mine of information for the wannabe internet entrepreneur!!) about facebook - and learnt that I had made an error setting up a facebook group for Little Crab Designs and would be better setting up an individual business page instead.  So I have had a crash course in how to do this, learnt how to do far more things on facebook than I knew how to do last week (thanks chloesmummy :)) and now have a nice shiny new facebook url - www.facebook.com/littlecrabdesigns.  So please come along and bring your friends and follow the developments (and the chaos!) at Little Crab Designs.  Phew... - must get back to the Google Adwords now!

I came up with a brainwave over the weekend which I am very excited about.  I was thinking about how an increasing number of people have been ordering pictures as a gift for christenings, birthdays, new born babies etc and had been contemplating how I might spend some vouchers that I was given for my birthday, when I had a light bulb moment and thought "Aha! - why can't I offer gift vouchers on my site?" 

In the case of newborn gifts, my customers often don't know what sex the baby is going to be, or in the case of a christening gift - they might not be exactly sure of the wall decor of the baby's room in question, so - why not offer gift vouchers so that people can buy a lovely gift for their friends and family where the mummies and daddies can choose the pictures to go with their nursery decoration, or in the case of the older child - they could choose their own wall art.  Genius!  However, being a small business with constraints on my website capabilities, it is not quite as simple as I would like it to be so I need to work out a few of the housekeeping issues.  I do think it's a wonderful idea though and I am going to work very hard to try and get it into practice over the next few weeks - particularly as I would like it to be available in the run up to Christmas.  So watch this space!

I've done it... only a week since I said I would do it - and I have... and I am feeling SOO proud of myself.  See, here is the proof - Little Crab Designs on Facebook.  Once I actually sat down and did it - it really wasn't that tricky...however now I have to put some effort in to make it interesting and keep it updated...best get to it!

Phew!... that's it - the summer holidays are officially over - the kids went back this morning... and it's so quiet around here!  And now it's back to work properly for me and back to doing all those things I've been meaning to do for ages.  First on the hitlist - setting up a facebook page for Little Crab Designs.  And now I have written it down here - I really have to do it don't I?! 

My business adviser told me to do it over 12 months ago, friends have been nagging me for ages to sort it out but somehow I just don't seem to have gotten round to it.  So this is going to be my first project for September - watch this space!

So... I want to tell you about my friend's new website that is just up and running.  When I am not working on the website, making pictures, running round the kids, exercising the dogs etc etc I can be found on the beach at Littlehampton or East Preston, kitesurfing.  I absolutely love it - in fact it's a bit of an addiction for both me and my husband and we are constantly juggling things so we can get that all important time in on the water.  Anyone that does a wind related sport knows exactly what I am talking about and those that don't ... just think we're weird!! 

Anyway, the guy I have to thank for getting me into this great sport is Jason Higgins, who currently teaches out of his van in Littlehampton, West Sussex (affectionately known by the locals as LA baby, LA!!).  He is a fantastic teacher, very patient and calm, and I recommend anyone thinking about trying this sport, having lessons with him. 

This week he has launched his brand new website www.finkyinc.com and very soon he will be setting up a permanent kiteschool/shop right on the beach.  It's a great looking site, easy to navigate, with clear, concise information about what they offer, so if you know of anyone who might be interested in lessons make sure you pass on the Finkyinc details.  My son is very proud of himself, as he actually features on the site in the taster sessions section - "mummy I'm famous, mummy I'm famous"!

See you on the water!

Gosh it's hard getting back into the swing of things when you've had a great holiday isn't it?  Our little oasis of paradise in an otherwise crowded french coastline lived up to expectation yet again and we had a fantastic two weeks - eat, sleep, surf, repeat, eat, sleep, surf, repeat!  Love to tell you we did the chateau thing, a bit of culture to please our parents - but no... we had great conditions and both kids now catching the "blue water" as Tom puts it! - Next year I'm guessing they'll be leaving us for dust!

Got back to a stack of orders to send out - so plenty to keep me occupied as I reminisce about warm water, waves and moules frites!!

Ok - so my holiday is almost upon me - yippee! - but I do understand that this might be very inconvenient for people who were hoping to order pictures over the next couple of weeks.  So, to try and make up for it a little bit, if you place an order over the next couple of weeks I will give you a 10% discount.


What you need to do is place your order online as normal, then send me an email to anna@littlecrab.co.uk - giving me your unique transaction i.d. number (you should receive a copy of this once you have placed your order) and the July offer password - which is "Plage des Casernes" - one of my favourite beaches in France.  When I get back from holiday on Monday 2 August and process your order, I will refund you back the 10% (excluding postage).  Sorry I can't offer a slicker way of doing this, but as a small business with website constraints, I am unable to do promotional codes and take the discount off at the time of order.  This offer will run on all orders received from now, up to and including Monday 2 August.

Wow! - what a month June has been.  I have been thrilled with the increase in sales on the website over the last three months - but June has surpassed all my expectations and became my best EVER month for business since I started three years ago. 

In website terms - the thing I am most excited about, is that the reason for this increase appears to be that all my SEO work (for those not in the know of such terminology - this is all the work you do in the background to make sure your website is found by the people you want it to be found by!) seems to have paid off, as I am getting much better quality traffic - i.e. the right customers who actually want to buy!

So after all this hard work, I am  very much looking forward to my upcoming family surf trip in a couple of weeks.  I feel I have definitely earned a break!!

The emergency budget this week was not such good news for Little Crab Designs.  Like everyone else I had an inkling that VAT was going to go up - but it doesn't dull the pain at all when it actually happens!!

As a non-VAT registered, small business who operates on very tight margins - every little rise in costs really affects me.  This increase means I have to pay more for prints, canvas, frames, delivery of all supplies etc etc - and although an extra 2.5% doesn't sound a whole lot - when you add it onto the cost of everything that goes into producing a picture - it does become significant to the business.  I really don't want to have to put my prices up - the website is really flying at the moment - sales are going up and up - and I have had some fantastic feedback from customers. 

Over the past couple of weeks in particular, people have been writing me some lovely emails.  It's so nice when people take the time to write to you saying how pleased they are with their pictures, or how friends were delighted etc etc.  It makes me feel very happy and proud that I am doing a good job and offering a valued service.  So, somehow or other, I need to find a way to swallow the extra costs without having to pass it onto my customers.  I have six months... better get my thinking cap on!

Well - my little darling was NOT my little darling last week.  We fell out... MAJORLY!   As you can see here, she looks as innocent and gorgeous as could be - happy with her chew...

Our latest range in our boy's nursery pictures section has been added to the website - Dotty About Dinosaurs.  We hope you like them! 

Aren't these just gorgeous!!

I have had a bit of a result this past week with the website.  For ages I have known that with all the images I have on the site - the download time is a bit slow.  I had been asking around - on forums and stuff how to speed it up - how to reduce the size of the images but not lose the quality - but had never quite seemed to work out exactly how to do it. 

Anyway it all came together when the monthly newsletter from Mr Site (my website host) stated that Google would now be taking download time into consideration for search engine rankings, so thinking I had better get my a**e into gear and sort it out once and for all, I combined the information they gave on how to do it, with advice I had received from Sadie at Glassraven Web Design a while back on the Mums Club Forum (she is an active poster on there and always willing to offer tips and advice).  Anyway, I managed to apply it to my site and with a bit of trial and error, reduce the size of all my images considerably, whilst not losing any of the quality.  The result being - I have lowered the amount of my allocated webspace by 61% (freeing up loads more space for new designs - coming shortly!!) and when you click on my homepage and other key pages now, it is virtually instant as opposed to taking several seconds to fully load.  Have a go yourself - www.littlecrab.co.uk - I would love any feedback as you can only test it so much yourself.

Well it's been a few weeks since the last entry - but that's not because I am slacking! Quite the opposite in fact.  Despite being heavily distracted by the new love of my life...

OK - well it's been a couple of weeks since my last posting... what can I say?  I've been busy!  Firstly I had to go visit the mountains for a week - it's a hard life!

A welcome distraction this week from the stresses of  website worries  - I went to see my new baby!  No... not the human kind - we are getting a puppy, and I went to see the litter, currently 5 weeks old.  Absolutely gorgeous - as you can see.

We will be getting it in a couple of weeks - so I took the children to Pets At Home to get a few bits and pieces as they are so excited - BIG MISTAKE!  £60 later - this puppy has more toys than the average 6 month old baby has!  I was amazed at what you can buy for puppies these days and had to run round after the kids taking stuff out of the trolley as quickly as they were putting it in!  My husband's remark when we got home with our booty was, "I couldn't understand why Pets At Home just sold for £900 million but now I know why - because they have customers like you!!"

Oh my goodness - I think I have gained a million grey hairs this week!  Those of you who have been following my blog will know that last week I was complaining of the anticlimax of my website hosting company's recent upgrade. 

Little did I know then, that the anticlimax of the new features not working would turn out to be the least of my worries this week, when my website lost much of its formatting, all by itself, the shopping cart stopped working, all by itself, the pages changed their layout - all by themselves - and whilst this nightmare was going on and I was tearing my hair out trying to fix it - the website hosting company's forum was going  crazy with the chatter of unhappy customers suffering a multitude of problems  arising out of the supposed upgrade.   At first the company were trying to appease everyone saying things like "please bear with us, we are working through the issues as fast as we can" etc etc but then on Sumday and Monday, the technical support team went AWOL for 48 hours - no response on the phone, email, forum  -  Nada! 

Mass panic ensued, as people jumped to conclusions and started speculating whether the company was going under and would it recover from what had been a disastrous upgrade.  Anyway  - to cut a long story short - this morning - I ventured to look at my website again, praying for divine intervention or something - and lo and behold - everything is back to normal - everything seems to be working again - and  forum chatter seems to have calmed down - the tech support guys are back online and seem to be ironing out the bugs in the upgrade and  rectifying the situation .  Phew!

What all this did show me though, was that I am very dependent on this company for my website.  It has prompted me to back up my site and make a contigency plan  in the event that this happens again  or - even worse - my website goes down for good.  I guess I could say that although the whole experience has been very stressful (facing the prospect that three years hard work was about to go down the drain was not good for my sanity), it has helped me to recognise a weakness in my business which has now been strengthened. 

Shop news - we have just added some new offers onto our Special Offers page so do go take a look.  You can buy two Hotchpotch Beach prints in ivory mounts for the price of one - £10 plus post and packing at £2.50.  A total bargain, as we were selling these pictures framed for £17.50 each.  Hurry though - when they're gone - they're gone!

My week started out full of anticipation for the eargerly awaited upgrade being launched by my website design company.  I could'nt wait for the new features that I was going to be able to add to my website, the benefits I would be able to bring to my customers by being able to improve upon areas of the site I was not entirely happy with etc etc.

They said it would be available on Monday 1st March.  Monday went by - no new features available.  Tuesday went by - no new features available - but a message on the forum to say they were staggering the roll out as it was such a massive upgrade they didn't want to crash the server. 

Wednesday came round and low and behold when I logged into my administration area, I could see some new buttons and tools.  I only went and had a look to see what was on there when all of a sudden, my website changed all by itself.  Fonts changed, menus disappeared, pages were all over the place!  What had I done?   Fighting back the panic, I had a quick look on the forum to discover there was a lot of angry chatter from other people finding the same problem - and all sorts of bugs in the new upgrade causing all sorts of problems for everyone.  After finding an answer as to how to resolve what had happened with my site - I quickly republished my site and got it back to normal, thank goodness. 

However, after that little drama, I have now made the decision not to go near the adminstration area, or make any changes to anything for a few weeks until all the little niggles and bugs have been ironed out and it is safe for me to dip my toe in the water again!!  So sorry folks - had hoped to be able to bring you an improved shopping experience this week, but at this point I just daren't take the risk - especially when I have just had the most fantastic month of sales ever!

On a more positive and exciting note - with spring in the air and the weather improving - we have just started work on a new set of designs so watch this space for more details shortly!

Well this has been quite a testing week so far.  The orders are still piling in so I am chasing my tail keeping on top of them (all good of course).  Then yesterday I tried to update some stock information on the website - and add a privacy policy (after my useful seminar on legal issues a few weeks ago where it was pointed out to me that I should have one!)  Anyway mid-working on this, I went to upload the new information  and the website crashed - coming up with some complicated error message...needless to say all changes were lost! 

I tried several times, getting more and more frustrated each time as I wasted more and more time setting up new stuff that kept getting lost in cyberspace.  I then contacted technical help who said it was just a temporary error and would resolve itself (very helpful!!).  I then realised that my existing website - i.e. what was on the web prior to me trying to make the changes - had gone offline too!!!  When customers would have tried clicking on my website yesterday they would have got a  "page unavailable" message - how professional is that!  And it stayed this way all of yesterday - despite me contacting technical support again and trying to log onto my administration page over and over, every half an hour. 

In the end I gave up, deciding  I was wasting my energy - then of course this morning - ready to do battle with technical support and  demand they sort it out straight away -  "lost revenue, lost customers, inconvenience, not good enough etc etc" it only went and worked fine this morning.   And then I got an email saying "we apologise for the inconvenience - we had a small problem with one of our servers - it should be working fine now" !!!  Nice! 

So I  was then on the backfoot today, redoing all the stuff I had tried to do yesterday but couldn't  and was trying to crack on with this, when I started getting weird messages from people - emails, texts and even phone calls, asking me why I had sent them an email pointing them to a viagra site!!!  Luckily this was from my personal email account - so hopefully none of my customers would have been affected - but if you were - I am SO sorry -  I spent an hour on live chat with a tech support guy trying to sort it out - apparently my contacts folder had been compromised and all of my contacts had been sent this email that looked like it was coming from me (nice when one of the people who rings me up is my mother in law thinking I have started a new business!!!).  Anyway an hour later his conclusion of the situation was to say "monitor your account for the next two days and if the problem persists contact us again"  You can imagine how pleased I was with that response having wasted another hour of my life resolving nothing, especially after the day before... I HATE computers!!!

Well I  know I have not updated the blog for a couple of weeks but that is because I have been SO busy!  Orders are coming in thick and fast - the  new range of boys pictures - Driving Me Spotty  - have already sold out on the first print run and no sooner do I get a frame order in than I am having to re-order again! 

Not that I am complaining or anything - it's great - just means I have had no time to do anything apart from fulfill orders the last couple of weeks.  With the kids on half-term this week, time management has been even more crucial than ever and painting frames interspersed with flipping pancakes this evening has truly put my multi-tasking skills to the test!

 

Congratulations to Caroline Rossall - winner of the  Little Crab Designs January competition to win 2 brand new design boys prints.   We had a great response with some really lovely ideas for naming the new range, so choosing one was quite tricky - but in the end we went with Caroline's idea of "Driving me Spotty".  Fun, in keeping with the style of other range names we have, and short enough to fit on the menu bar!! - we thought this was brilliant.  Well done to Caroline - her prints will be winging their way to her very soon.  To the rest of you who sent in an entry - thank you so much for making the effort - and the Driving me Spotty range will be in the boys nursery pictures section on the website, ready to buy by the end of this week/beginning next so do check back soon.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been spending quite a lot of my time scouting round the net on various  forums, websites for mums, websites for  wahms - (work at home mums) etc - looking for advice, ways to promote the website, ideas for SEO (search engine optimisation), PR opportunities etc.  There are some truly great resources for business mums out there - where you can find other like-minded people to chat to, bounce ideas off and  give you that much needed support network when you are self-employed and don't have an office full of people to whinge to when things aren't going quite right!!  So I thought I would mention a couple of sites here that I find particularly helpful - for those of you who might be reading my blog and either already have a small business working from home, or are thinking about starting something. 

The first one I will mention is mum's club.co.uk - I actually came across this one towards the latter part of last year - but I am finding it increasingly useful - particularly the mum's club forums  - where I try to go and check out what's being talked about at least 3 or 4 times a week - it really is a mine of information.  Another site I have come across - which I actually found through mum's club - was familyfriendlyworking.co.uk - which is a blog with some great articles, reviews and lots of inspirational stories about other businesss mumpreneurs.  And the most recent site I found, which is relatively new but I think will become better and better as more and more people find it and make use of it, is the work at home mum directory.  So do go check these out - I am sure you will find them as valuable as I do.

Well - at last... the kids went back to school today!   Much as I love 'em, and love the snow - it was becoming a bit of a 'mare not being able to get on with stuff I wanted to do to the website or get back to work properly after the Christmas holidays.  I have to say though...  I was dead jealous when I dropped them off this morning - I could see why the school had been unable to open, with the "foot deep" white blanket over the playground and rather wished I could have stayed to go out with the children at breaktime...  But of course - I had to get my adult, "work head" back on (7 days tabogganing on the trot is really not acceptable for a grown up self-employed  business woman!!)

So I am pleased to report that I got knuckled down and have had a very productive day.  Sorted out latest orders - check.  Ordered more prints - check.  Ordered more frames - check.  Written a plan of attack for the rest of January - check.  Added new Beautiful Butterflies designs to the website - check.  I am feeling MOST proud of myself!! 

I have also added a link to Yummy Mummy Week on the links page on the website as I think this a great event to get involved with.  If you don't know what it's all about - Yummy Mummy Week is CLIC Sargent's fun-packed fundraising event for mums of all ages.

There are lots of ways to get involved and have a great time with family and friends. And you’ll be helping children with cancer at the same time.  As Yummy Mummy Week is five this year, they have come up with five fabulous ways to get involved to be a Yummy Mummy!

o        Eat Yummy – dinner parties, cheese and wine nights, coffee mornings and BBQs

o        Dress Yummy – ‘dress pink days’ at work, pyjama parties, clothes swaps and fashion shows

o        Feel Yummy – pampering nights and girlie nights in

o        Party Yummy – balls, house parties, garden parties and nights on the town

o        Go Yummy – welly walks, swims, cycles, jogs, – do something active for Yummy Mummy Week

For more information and to register please visit  www.yummymummy.org.uk  or call 08451 206 658.

Oh yes - and lastly... have had some great entries for the competition launched last week to win two of our latest boys prints but there is still plenty of time to enter (closing date 31/1/10) - so get your thinking caps on and submit an entry - you never know - IT COULD BE YOU!!!

Phew! - what a busy day I have had.   With Christmas over (and too much eaten...again!), and at last some clear sunny days, I figured I just had to get down to the job of reshooting photos for the website showing the new frame design.   After a couple of days of painting and sanding (gosh sanding in freezing temperatures is  a really nasty job!)  today was photo day!  Having packed the kids off to a friend for the morning as they are still on holiday, I set off down to the beach only to find that actually the frost had not burnt off, the breakwaters were all wet and I couldn't use my usual "studio" for taking  photos after all!   What to do?... I  needed to redo the photos as so many of them were now out of date with the old frames, that it called for some ingenuity on my behalf to come up with an alternative plan.   Half an hour later, I had set up a little photo backdrop in the garden by the kid's beachhut/playhouse and I was David Baily for the morning!  I was super organised and photographed  the new designs too - ready for putting onto the website in the next couple of weeks.

This brings me on to tell you about the competition Little Crab Designs is running until the end of January.  If you have been reading my blog, you will know I got some new designs from Sarah Howell (my friend and Isle of Wight artist) just before Christmas - some gorgeous butterfly pictures (see blog entry for photo).  I also got a new set of pictures for boys from her, but am having a dilemma as to what name to give the range (currently nicknamed "boys toys two"!).

Well, the Christmas orders are all done and sent out, and the website has suddenly gone very quiet in the last couple of days -  well timed now my children are at home for the holidays.  Thought I would just pen a quick blog entry to wish everyone a Happy Christmas and to thank all my customers  for shopping on my website this year - and a special thank you for all those who took time to write - or even phone in one case, and  thank me for their pictures.  I have had some really  thoughtful  and kind comments over the  past year and it means so much to me when I know people are really happy with their purchase!

I hope you all have a  lovely Christmas and  enjoy spending time with your families over the Christmas - I know I am really looking forward to some "down" time.  I shall be back in the New Year with renewed energy (though  you can place orders over the holiday period - they just won't get posted til w/c 4th Jan)  and I have lots of exciting things planned for 2010:  New ranges - you have seen a sneak preview of one in my last blog entry, but I have a new boys range coming online too;  I am going to be running a competition  in January so check back soon in the New Year for details on that;  Updated photographs, more streamlining of the website,  offering one off originals etc etc etc.  These are all things in the pipeline for 2010.  It's going to be a busy year... so best be off to eat too much, drink too much, and chill out for a couple of weeks before the  madness begins again!! (wouldn't have it any other way :))

Well - how excited were we in my house this morning when we woke up to a blanket of  white! This is what my children got up to before breakfast ...

I think he's very cute too!! - and then we went tabogganing with some friends which was brilliant - we got a really icy track going.  I can't remember the last time we had snow  this early on - before Christmas.  Here's hoping we get a repeat next Friday!!

Now back to work matters - my day got even better as the post had arrived when we got back from our morning's entertainment and Sarah - (Isle of Wight artist who supplies me with many of the designs for the website) had sent me some gorgeous new pictures - beautiful butterflies! - What do you think?... (just a quick snapshot photo here I know) - I shall get them up onto the website and available to buy in the New Year - but I think they are just gorgeous and my daughter and her friend adored them.  They also remind me that Sarah is way better than me at creating pictures and that I really should just stick to the marketing and sales side of things!!  Would love to hear your comments on them.

A pretty crazy week for me with the rush of Christmas orders (not that I am complaining:)!) combined with end of term school madness - nativity plays and carol concerts,  my daughter's birthday and of course my own Christmas shopping to do! 

An observation I made this week when analysing data from online orders - there seem to be  a lot of boys being born at the moment!!  Having sold mostly pictures in white/pink frames over the summer and early autumn - the last couple of months have definitely been "blue" frame time - and the  Boys Toys range have been hugely popular.  They are flying out the door as quickly as they come in on the print run!

You still have plenty of time to shop for Christmas presents  -  and in fact, as a way to see who is reading my blog (find out if I am interesting or not!?!),  if you quote this  phrase "the hopeless camel" when you place your order up until 25th December, I will send your pictures out with free delivery (I will refund you the postage costs when I receive your order).   Why the hopeless camel?... - it's the title of my son's nativity play next week!!  

I went to  the children' s school Christmas Fair last weekend - and bought my daughter this gorgeous fleece poncho.  The lady selling them was just starting out - and she told me her website really was just a page - she was wondering whether to invest in a proper site or not - but after an hour or so at the fair where she had sold nothing - a couple of the girls bought one - and then their friends saw them and bought one - and then their friends saw them... and so it went on - and in the end she sold LOADS!!!  I really hope she feels more confident now about investing some money in her fledgling business.  I think she has a great product - really gorgeous and totally practical - I don't know about anyone else - but my daughter  refuses to wear a coat - so this is perfect as is easy to throw on - and being fleece  - easy to wash and dry in minutes.  Do go and look at her website - www.cozypo.com - it is basic - but I think they would make fantastic Christmas presents for  little girls - I just wish I had seen them before I had shopped for my two neices!

Well this has been a slightly testing week!  Went along to collect some frames from my supplier on Monday, only to find that the profile of the small frame I use for a lot of my pictures - namely Hotchpotch Farm, Hotchpotch Sealife, Boys Toys, Vintage Spotty Farm, and Country Kitsch has changed!  And the warning I received that this was going to happen...NONE! 

Of course he couldn't see the problem this might cause me - "price is the same - it's still a pine frame, just been updated a bit" - (in fact I even think I prefer it to the old style... however this is not the point!)  The point is - ALL my photos on the website show the old style profile and now, with immediate effect, all orders will be fulfilled using this new profile.  The dilemma is - that I will now need to update a huge amount of photos on the website to show the new style frame!  Urghhhhh!!!  This is a major amount of work... not to mention a fair cost involved.  The other issue is it is now winter - and if anyone else has noticed - it has been blowing a gale, and raining daily for the past month - not an ideal setting for a photo shoot on the beach right now!!!

So my husband and I sat down with the frames last night and decided that for now - the only option is to put a note on the website pages of those pictures it affects and stick some photos on here to show you how they have changed and then just check with customers as they order, that they are aware of the change.  At least this is what I am going to do in the short term... in the longer term I have a major amount of work to do on updating the website!

(new profile on left)

 

This last week has been a busy one!  Christmas orders starting to stack up and even getting some from across the pond which is nice as I really don't market to the States at the moment.  I have also been busy getting around the net sourcing possible PR  and link opportunities for the website. 

I came across one site that has been particularly helpful called www.mumsclub.co.uk.  It's  a business club for "mumpreneurs" and I urge any mums reading this who runs a small business from home, or are thinking of starting one up to take a look as there is some great stuff on here - not to mention the forums where you can chat with other like minded mums and get some feedback on your ideas etc.  I am really looking forward to making full use of this support network over the coming months.

Well, here we are... today is the day for starting my blog!   I have been thinking about it for a while - and equally putting it off for a while - wondering what to write, not wanting to bore people etc etc, but my business adviser assures me it's a great idea - so here goes...

I won't be posting every day, that's for sure, as I am busy working mum of two (one of the things that was putting me off doing it in the first place was finding the time!).  I am going to use my blog to tell you about new projects on the go and to keep you up to date of what goes on behind the scenes at Little Crab Designs. 

Current dilemma?... am considering whether to take the plunge and trial selling my products on amazon.  Firstly - are my products the right kind of thing to sell on amazon? - have had a look and there are some nursery art sellers on there - not too many either, which could be a good thing as not too much competition yet.  However, they take a pretty hefty commission which is what is putting me off - but obviously as a big hitter on the web - might my sales increase by so much that I could take the hit on the bottom line... there again...I am a one person operation at the moment... and if  sales suddenly increased 100%, would I be able to cope with the ramped up production necessary?... What to do, what to do?  If anybody has any thoughts on this one I would appreciate your comments. 

I was very pleased this weekend to get the reassurance that my Little Crab Designs pictures have longevity.  My "soon to be" 9 year old daughter has just had her bedroom re-done.  Gone are her days of pink, purple, princesses and fairies etc - now it's all about  "the fashion" mummy!  She wants a "room like a proper grown up girl" these days - and when we were putting things up on the walls and deciding which pictures she wanted, she made my day by saying she DEFINITELY wanted her Jasmine canvas pictures back up  - (see photos below). 

I was so pleased to get one of my biggest critic's endorsement!!  Plus it does show me that although I currently market the pictures as nursery art, actually they work equally well for older children too  - particularly the canvas art and my son, age 6 - still wants his Tom pictures up on the wall when we redo his room too.