Sunshine!

After a lovely relaxing weekend, its life back to normal at Ochre And Ocre. The empty hamper boxes arrived last week, so I am spending this week planning the perfect Christmas Hampers, calculating the costings, and writing the text. After years of working as a buyer, you would think I would be used to working a season or two in advance, but it does seem particularly surreal at the moment, given the gorgeous weather.
I've finally relented, and dragged my laptop with extension cable outside, along with the bulldog and her box. It is baking hot, the screen isn't that clear, but at least I can enjoy the weather, without feeling guilty!
The labels for our new hand wash and hand lotion are also nearly ready, so I will need to start bottling soon!
As you know I like to share my secrets with you when it comes to great online companies, and I have just come across a lovely website called; Sage, inspired by life. The site has a great mix of unique gifts and things you would want to buy for yourself, mainly sourced within the UK. I love their quirky "knitted" porcelain pots, as pictured above, as my friends know too well, I love nice ceramics, but that's because you can take a girl out of Wedgwood, but you can't take Wedgwood out of the girl!

Chilling Out

Image by ianmalcm via Flickr

I am really looking forward to this weekend! The last three have been tied up with Ochre & Ocre, from photoshoots to shows, life certainly hasn't been boring. But this weekend is my annual get together with three of my closest girlfriends. Glenys I've known from my pre school years, as we grew up on the same lane! Amy and Mary were best friends from school, and we've kept in touch ever since.
It is an annual event, and over the past few years we've got together once a year at a nice hotel in different places from the Cotswolds, to Dublin. But like everyone else we are tightening our belts and having our weekend at home, budget style!
We are having a few luxuries though - I am soooo looking forward to the Aveda treatment at Halcyon Beauty in Leamington Spa. It is a lovely little salon, run by two friends - it is intimate, relaxing and always welcoming. We are then going to be ladies who lunch somewhere in Leamington Spa, then returning here for a few glasses of vino, some simple Italian food, (with the finest table linens of course!), and some very cool chick flicks. The only issue is which one will we watch first: Dirty Dancing / My Best Friends Wedding / Bridget Jones.....

The Future of Retail

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Not sure if any of you watched the Money Programme last night with Mary Portas - you still have chance to catch it on iplayer.

For the past ten years, the British have shopped till they dropped. Now recession is threatening the nation's favourite pastime, and one of its biggest industries. It is the latest blow for many of Britain's beleaguered high streets.

Retail guru Mary Portas tried to discover why boom towns are becoming bust towns, and what can be done to stop the extraordinary number of shop closures around Britain. Can anything be done to keep tills ringing and high streets alive?

It was interesting if slightly depressing programme for someone involved in retail,as even the die hard shopaholic was cutting back on her spending.
You wonder what will happen to our High Streets - and closer to home for me - will sales start to pick up on online with our Organic and Natural Homewares?
For shops on a high street you can put on special events - pamper your customers and give them good sales advice. For a website based company, although you have the advantage of being open 24/7 - and no rent, you are relying on people finding your site online.

It has got me thinking about what is unique about our product range - and certainly from listening to 100's of potential customers at the shows over the last few weeks one of our key strengths is that we do good quality table cloths in XL sizes. (Our 230 x 350 cloth is huge!).
The other thing everyone said alot was how good the make up and fabric quality was -but that is a hard claim to make online when nobody can see your products. How I get this message across will be one of our biggest challenges.

I'm interested to know what you think?

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• Online sales set to double within two years (telegraph.co.uk)

Cheltenham Food festival

Life is slowly getting back to normal, after we spent 3 days over the weekend at the Cheltenham Food Festival, with Ochre & Ocre.
We had a really great reaction to our new Organic Italian Linen range, with people really understanding the beautiful finish.
It was a really nice show, and the other exhibitors were very friendly. Our friends from Riverford Organics were there with their great value, organic veg boxes. Whilst chatting with Marc, I sampled their Italian Organic white wine, and fresh strawberries, which were yummy.
It always suprises me how much work there is after a show - it took me several hours yesterday to pack away the stock and all our shelving etc. I also had to wash and iron all the display stock, as we were quite close to crepes stand, so everything had a foody smell about it!
Our new honey handwash and hand lotion is ready to go - I just need to pull together the labelling information. The organic essential oils smell divine, with fresh lemon, basil and bergamot.

Local Acclaim!

A quick post today, as we are off to the Cheltenham Food Festival.
Our plans for a mellow day setting up te stand, and then exploring Cheltenham went awry yesterday, when my beloved Mac decided to crash and I lost all my emails. A panicked call to the Apple helpline made the situation worse, when I was told to delete all the history, on the premise it would come back - it didn't.
I had to leave it whilst we went to set up - and then turned to my favourite computers expert Phillippe, from Blue Earth Solutions. I realised after chatting to him, I had neglected my housework, and managed to sink my mailbox by keeping all the large graphic files. A hard and stressful lesson to learn!
One good point yesterday was that we made the local rag - a very cheesy picture of Paul & I on the stand at The Good Food show appeared in yesterdays edition. Check out the pdf on our news section on the Ochre & Ocre website to see more.

Sitting Down!

After five days at the NEC - catching up in the office today is a welcome respite for my legs!
We had a great show - after the initial hiccup of a poorly located stand.
We moved the stand from The Countryfile area to a great spot next to Debbie and Andrews sausages! Unfortunately Paul was at a meeting Thursday night, so I had to set up the stand again by myself, although Darren, and a few of his friends from the show organisers office did help me to carry the stock over.
The new location was not great for our waistlines, (yummy sausage sandwiches for breakfast), but it did mean we had a constant flow of customers, and we handed out over 500 leaflets. My lovely friend Kim, from Lavender Ladies helped me on the Thursday and Friday, so it gave us time to talk about our new project as well. (Watch this space, more info coming soon!).
We did a bit of star spotting as well - James Martin wandered by several times, as well as Adam from Countryfile, and John Craven!
We had been warned that breaking down and getting out on the Sunday night was manic, so we had a great plan to drag all of our stand and stock to the car park, rather than queuing to get into the back door. We looked more like travelling gypsies, as we left the show - with everything piled high on our trolley - but it did mean we were home by 8.30pm Sunday night, which was a big bonus.
Adriano, our lovely Portugese supplier came to stay on Monday, and we had an interesting visit to John Lewis, where he could see a lot of his ranges being sold. We took him to a local pub on the Monday night, which was quite amusing, as it has been run by a Portugese family since 1972! Adriano had been in the UK for over a week, so it was a nice break for him to be able to chat to the staff in his own language.
One day to catch up in the office, and then we are off to Cheltenham tomorrow to set up for The Food Festival. I am looking forward to it, as it is only 3 days, and after the NEC, it will seem like a breeze!

Set up & raring to go!

Phew! We certainly were not going to fit anything else in the car this morning - it was full to the brim!
As you can see from the pics above, we are now set up ready for the Good food show which starts tomorrow. At the end of last week they had sold 78k tickets, so the expected amount is 115k people.
We have a great location on a corner between the Food Theatre stage and The Country File stage, just opposite one of the cafes.
Wish us luck!

Sunday Afternnon Photoshoot

Paul & I had an unusual afternoon on Sunday doing a spot of modelling for the photoshoot of our house. Although as usual Gert was the star turn, when she could be bothered to drag herself from her box.
I had laid the table with or Organic Ochre & Ocre table linen, as well as some jugs of our Herefordshire Homegrown flowers in the different rooms.
We were lucky with the weather and the rain held off so we were able to grab some pictures outside.
The photographer was David Giles, who has done loads of interesting interior pieces, check out his website. Pat Garratt was the stylist / free lance journalist, who had first made contact with me at The Country Living Fair last March.
Paul & I have built the house in the back garden of an old cottage, that we had bought at auction a few years ago. When we bought the plot it already had planning permission - so we were able to get going quite quickly with some small amends. I was actually in Hong Kong at the time of the auction. I remember sitting in my room, watching HK harbour at about 3 in the morning, nervously waiting for the phonecall from Paul to find out where we were going to live next! He was bidding on 2 plots that evening, so it was a really nail biting time waiting to see which one, (if any!), we got.
We moved in last August, after just over a year building it - still work to be done at the front, but it is a lovely home.
Fingers crossed they are able to sell our house and story to a magazine in the near future - we will keep you posted.
Don't forget to come and see us at The Good food show if you are at the NEC this week!

Dressing Up

I suddenly realised yesterday I'd better find something appropriate to wear for the photoshoot tomorrow - so did a quick scout around my favourite websites at lunchtime, and came across a really nice range by Caro.
Described as dressing up for winding down, the edited range has some nicely cut pieces, with simple wood block prints. The ethics behind the company aren't bad either.
Working with a small factory in India, Caro has been able to build a good relationship with her team of tailors and has been keen to make sure that good working conditions are maintained. On the ground floor, a breakfast and after school club exists for local children and is funded through charitable donations. The workforce in this unit has grown as Caro has become more established and the small business has provided more employment opportunities in the area.
It is small businesses like this, that have more chance of changing peoples lives, than larger firms, who work with the bigger factories.
Anyway don't just take my word for it, check out their website, www.carolondon.co.uk

Travel Blog - Mr & Mrs Smith Boutique & Luxury Hotels

Travel Blog - Mr & Mrs Smith Boutique & Luxury Hotels

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Yet another photoshoot!

It's strange how things always seem to happen at once. I've spent the last few days trying to finish off the tickets and point of sale for the Good Food show next week.
Marc from Riverford Organics dropped me a note Tuesday night to say that they want to go ahead with the link up with their veg boxes, both in Gloucestershire and Warwickshire, which is fantastic news. I had a late night designing the leaflet we are going to use, so that Riverford can approve it.
Another call yesterday from a freelance journalist, who had come to see our house a few months ago -to possibly feature in a home mag, and she wanted to bring a photographer here on Tuesday.
Unfortunately that is our day to set up at the NEC, so we've agreed that they will come here Sunday instead.
I know my friends will say I have Monica like tendencies most of the time anyway - (I am a Virgo after all!), but even I know it is slightly crazy to iron pillowcases. I've been up since 6 this morning, cleaning windows, the oven,washing the floors...... and I've still got the garden to tackle! Plus organise the stock ready for the show - I just hope the new Organic Linen range gets here in time, now I that I have sent the press releases out!
We've had a lot of interest already for our Homegrown flowers, and were featured on Sheerluxe, Buy it today, as well as the Little Green Blog.
Fingers crossed the weather stays sunny for Sunday....

The Perfect Photoshoot

We had a brilliant time doing the pics last week, and the weather was glorious. Being Wales it was still windy, so we had to use strategically placed objects to weight the cloths down, to stop them blowing away.
I picked the flowers up from Charlie on Thursday morning, and headed straight to Peter's studio so we could do some inside pics. Peter (Joyce), is a professional photographer, I was lucky to have him photograph my wedding. I have know his daughter Glenys since primary school, so it is lovely to still be in touch.
After doing our inside pics, Paul & I headed up to Hay Bluff to do some scenic pics. Hay Festival was on, so Hay itself was quite busy. We certainly got some strange looks from the passing walkers up on the hill! We also did quite a few pics around my parents farm, it's funny how you view your home differently when you are trying to shoot product.
The new Organic Linen range does look fab - it has a really nice handle and drape, and the small stitching detail makes it quite special. It is always a relief when you see the finished samples and they are what you were hoping for! They worked really well combined with the Organic Cotton colours. I'm just waiting for the main delivery, then it will be available to order on the site.
We took the "props" with us to Aberaeron, and managed to get some nice shots overlooking Mwnt Beach.
After all the hardwork of the photoshoot we made the most of our weekend at The Harbourmaster. As always the staff there were really friendly, and the food excellent. We had the old Harbourmaster's room on the very top floor, with a dual aspect over the coast and the harbour. With the sound of the waves and the cooling sea breeze it was the perfect end to a busy week.
The flowers are now available to order online!!