Another step forward...

There are some parts of the business that I love, and there are some parts that I feel I'm constantly chasing my tail with, forever. Yep, you guessed it, the website. Whenever I talk to anyone in business about web sites I'm constantly met with the comment "they're great but they just constantly need updating!". It's true, no sooner have you uploaded your latest additions than you're thinking about how you're going to change it again!

So, at last we have made a huge change to ours, we've added a "click and buy" system, it's been long enough in the making, but I'm actually quite pleased with it. It's no great shake, loads of sites have it, we've just been extremely slow in getting round to doing it. The desire has always been there, but time is never on our side! Me being me, I was never going to be happy with using the standard Paypal buttons on offer, so I messed around for a while until I got something I was happy with, simple, but rather good looking, I think so anyway.

I say "we" as it's pretty much all of Gregg's hard work, I provide photos, text and design direction and he does the rest, without him, I wouldn't even have a website. For that I am extremely grateful. Aren't husbands wonderful things..... ;)

Have a look and let me know what you think, all feed back is greatly appreciated.

Happy Friday for tomorrow, I'm painting the studio door, making up a couple of orders for new shops that are opening and hopefully a little bit of gardening too. I might give you a sneeky peak of that door if you're lucky.

L x

The pottery range

Seeing as all you eager beavers are desperate to get your hands on our lovely new pottery range, I thought I'd give you all a little treat this morning and put it up for sale on the blog today. It'll be a couple of days before Gregg and I can sit down together and put it on the website, plus I'd like to get some better photos of it taken before I do. So here it is.....

Mugs approx. 7.5cm high. £10 each.

Heart design all the way around the top of the mug and a little heart inside the mug too.

Little jug approx. 9cm high. £12 each.

Heart design all the way around the top of the jug and a little heart inside it too.

Tea plate approx. 20cm dia. £12 each.

Heart design all the way around the edge of the plate.

Bowl approx. 7cm high. £12 each.

Heart design all the way round the top of the bowl, plus either one, two or three hearts inside the bowl too.

T-light holder/vase or whatever else you fancy using it for! (Comes with a t-light in it)

Approx. 6cm high. £7.50 each

Heart design all the way around the top.

Each piece of pottery is hand thrown on a potters wheel, the little heart is imprinted into the clay, the hearts are then hand painted and it is glazed. Due to this, no two pieces are ever the same and all have a very rustic, organic feel and look to them.

Not suitable for the dishwasher I'm afraid!

If you would like to enquire/order any of the above pottery please drop me an e-mail at info@primrosehillinteriors.com and we can take it from there. The above prices do not include postage. We've not got a huge amount of stock left so it'll be on a first come first served basis and then I'll have to take orders. As Diana makes it all herself it will be next week before she can get started on any new stock!

I'm now off out shopping as I completely forgot that it's Gregg's birthday tomorrow, oops! I shall have to make him an extra large birthday cake tonight I think! If it's a success I'll post the recipe tomorrow.

Bye for now,

L xx

Maintaining a website

We've had the website for three years now, and as much as I love it, it's really hard work and I never really feel as if I'm on top of it. Because of the nature of what I do, I'm always creating and making new products, especially with new fabrics etc as you never know what lovely little gems your going to find when you're out for a rummage in the shops! New products just never seem to sit around for long enough in order for me to get some nice photos, either that or the weather is crap and I can't get outside to take the damn pictures!

I am soooo lucky that I don't have to pay someone a fortune to "do" the website for me, thankfully I have a very patient husband who has quite happily taught himself how to do it for me, if it wasn't for him I'd have no web site at all! We are always debating over the whole "click & buy" scenario too, but to be honest, I'm quite happy with the set up as it is - if I had orders coming in left, right and centre I wouldn't be able to cope as I never seem to have a massive pile of stock - it's generally all for a shop or for stock for a fair!

We spent last night getting rid of the terrribly out of date Christmas web site and making it a bit more spring like - but as usual while I was sitting updating all the text, I'm busy gabbering away to Gregg about how I want to change it before we do the Country Living Fair?!!

I am totally in awe of all the ladies out there who manage to create such beautiful crafts and maintain a web site too, how do they find the time? You should have a look at them, there's Cherry, Samantha and Tracey for starters and Donna, Fiona and Clare are busy working on theirs too, all very exciting.

So ladies, I'd like to pick your brains. I am very much of the opinion that because I am a very small rural business I get away with not being a fancy, slick set up, I don't do credit cards, it's payment by cheque or Paypal and I don't have a brochure (lots of people asked for them over the Christmas spell). I like to think that our lifestyle is very much a part of the business and the business is very much a part of our lifestyle - all very organic - if you see what I mean? Your thoughts on this would be very much appreciated, and thank you to everyone who comments on the site, it really does mean so much to me that people take the time to say their bit.

Thanks,

L x