The most stressful day

I am posting this image of a lovely calming hydrangea heart to compensate for having the MOST STRESSFUL DAY.

This morning was fine - not really my sort of thing but there you go. Katie wanted to spend her holiday money - £13.68 - so we went into Glasgow and she went into a frenzy in Claire's Accessories where they had a special deal where you could get10 sale items for £5.

We now have a very happy 6 year old with lots of glittery bits in her hair.

Then I got back here to find that the buttons on my website were not all working properly - aaaarggggh - lots of individual orders instead of nicely grouped ones. I emailed everyone to confirm their orders and refund their multiple postages and thought "Aha, it is a problem with the shopping baskets - I can fix that"

So I redid all the shopping basket buttons on the website, very tedious work, - loaded it all up and found that now NOTHING worked.

Hmmmm. I was not a happy bunny. I ate a lot of chocolate (73% cocoa - allowed), I stomped around, I phoned the Stirling Enterprise IT man (who was out). In the end it turned out that I had bookmarked paypal and they had subsequently changed their site so none of my buttons matched their baskets. Therefore nothing connected and you just got error messages.

Now I have redone it all again and it looks to be working. I think. Of course I have managed to b****r up all the spacing on the pages in my panic but that is for another day. I have put a note up about contacting me if anything doesn't work.

See pride comes before a fall. How professional I must look.

I am now off to pack up these baskets and calm down so that they can be sent off with love! After the postal strike that is.

Updating the website

This afternoon has been drizzly so I have finally put down my hoe and got around to updating some things on the website. I have put up a few more of my Mum's ever popular chicken paintings - these cost about £2.00 to pack and post, and they are ideal for chicken lovers. She is busy working on paintings for a series of exhibitions in East Lothian so I suspect that these are going to be all I can manage to prise of her for the next month or so.

This photo is of Treela, an Isla Brown and our cheekiest chicken. Today I found her in our bathroom, perched on the side of the bath. Neither cats no dogs bother her at all when she is in the house.

I also finished the felted/embroidered cushions and put together some kits.

I have loved making these cushions - they are the ideal work to do in the evenings either outside watching the sunset or inside watching the t.v. The cushions have turned out even better than I thought they would - I was determined not to produce anything that looked like anybody else's, I wanted to make something that looked vintage but not derivative. I hope that I have succeeded. I am not going to be able to produce many though so they are strictly limited editions.

Up at last . . .

I feel like I have been trailling this website for ages - but now it is properly live - at www.snapdragongarden.co.uk.

There are still some kinks to sort out but it should work -let me know by e-mail if something doesn't work - snapdragonjane@yahoo.co.uk.

I have been looking at it for too long today so I can no longer see it rationally.

Feedback would be great - in theory I should be able to change things!

I didn't expect it to be so small. . .

That is usually my reaction to things that I buy by mail order. I know that measurements are always included and it is my fault but everything somehow seems a bit more skimpy in my house than it did in the photos.

I have been thinking about this today as it was one of my web sessions this afternoon and I spent it installing the paypall buttons on the site. Suddenly it looked real.

I haven't made the site live yet as there are doubtless typos and formats to be sorted out but technically I could run it via the web and buy things myself. (My life isn't quite dull enough for that yet - I love receiving parcels but posting them to myself might be going a bit far) Day for lift off will be March 5th.

I am - as the title of this entry suggests- rather worried about mail order. I am used to people handing the things they buy, personally choosing everything. I chat to them about what will suit them best.

Everyone who has bought from me via the web, having seen things on the blog and then e-mailed me, has given me lovely feedback. For which I am very grateful. I shall have to get used to selling without seeing the whites of the customers eyes.

The red and white handles in the photo are from some french style wire baskets that I have been painting. The baskets are a lovely shape and very useful for everything from vegetable collecting to loo roll storage, but the handles are a matt brown and make the whole thing look rather dull. I copied this red and white design from the swimsuit of a 1920s lady in a painting of Deauville. I've also done a more subtle duck egg blue version.

New logo

For the past six months or so I have felt that Snapdragon needed a proper logo - something that could be (in theory) printed on everything from labels to lorries (world domination here we come!).

In the past I have relied on printing things out as I need them and, as I am a really disorganised person, I have tended to begin anew each time. This meant that I had a very changeable image - I didn't even stick to one font - and this is really an attempt to become more professional in outlook and to grow the business.

The logo has been designed for me by Kate Watt, a local graphic designer who is responsible for the distinctive graphic look of Park Life Magazine.

We initally fiddled about with a Snapdragon image - but although it is a good "snappy" name which people remember easily it turned out to be a very weak shape for a logo so we have gone for the much more sparky dahlia.

Now all I need to do is get around to tying up the many many loose ends of the website and get some publicity material printed up in time for the Country Living Scottish Fair in March.

Camera Advice please

The priority over the next month is to get the website properly up and running. To this end, Christmas profits are going to be directed towards buying a digital SLR camera.

Now I don't know where to start - I need something relatively lightweight, easy to use, high quality and good at closeups (so that I can edit out all the junk round the edges).

Please can someone pass on their advice and recommendations.