slackness at blogging!

Well its a whole month and finally I am back blogging. Very strage this month has been. I have not done so many markets but have started to sell on Ebay - not my own products but ornaments. I suppose if it pays the bills............. It all began when I decided to sign up for dropshipping - dont do this its a rip off! - I paid my £25 and listed my items - followed the companies guidelines exactly, they say if they have less than 200 of something do not list for dropshipping so I chose things to list on ebay with more than 300 in stock. 3 days later I have sold my first ornament. Great thinks me. How exciting. Go to order from dropship company and they have removed from drop shipping list since have only 12 left and they keep them for their wholesale customers - after 3 days! So I ring them and politely ask what I can do. They assure me its most unusual and say that on this occassion only and because I am new to dropshipping they will sort it and send anyway. I have to email them the details. I am stressing. I decide they have 12 left and most of the other items I have listed are still available and obviously drop shipping doesnt work so I decide to buy everything I have already listed wholesale. Amazingly it comes the next day! And 3 days later the company have still not sorted out my dropship order despite telling me they will do so. Anyway so now I have the goods and I send onto the buyer. He gave me a really nice review too which is lovely. So I have loads of ornaments and am now selling em on ebay. Not what I intended to do when I quit my job but maybe it will generate the money I need to survive since my own company is not. Tho strangely every time I have a ebay order I am now also getting orders from my own website. The last 2 weekends I made more from the internet than at markets. Maybe this truly is the way to be free............

JUST A QUICKIE

Have no time this week to blog and now finally I sit down and Shaun of the Dead is on the box. I do love shaun of the dead. One week into website course holiday and have sorted nothing- we have 2 weeks off but a test / assessment when we return!. CS2 just not the same as dreamweaver and I cannot afford to buy dreamweaver. I need to do meta tags tho! Urgently. Its just not good for business not being SEO ( serach engine friendly for the uninitiated!)
Doing the first Mind body and spirit festival tomorrow. Exciting but may be a flop yet. Starting to get loads of sales calls and buying a new mobile so I can switch the work one off after 6:30 since I have had a call at 8pm every night for the last 4 days and its getting a bit much. I would really like to believe this means brackencraft will be a success but i cant quite do it. Believe that is! And what will I do when I get a huge order? I want it to happen but can I fullfill it? Ofcourse I can but I will not be able to do the markets. That would be great but then I do have regular customers now and it isnt just a case of letting them down. I really do enjoy the markets and currentlyt that how I make it work. Tho not getting up at 1am to be there for 2am which is Wellesbourne would be a good one. Its just too expensive to get a permanent pitch and to be honest we dont do every week cos I am now getting regular events. Back to the course- not going well. I just feel like the thick kid in the class! Maybe I am. Last year went amazing but this year just not as good. Maybe its the teacher but it could be me! Either way makes no difference in the end. I do hope I pass tho. Weird cos maybe thats the problem. Last year I wanted to build a website and didnt care about the qualification. Having done well last year I want to do well again so it matters what grade I get. Maybe I should just relax and have fun again.....................after all I already have a website that works and I will make it SEO eventually even if I have to buy CS4 to do it!!! Onward and upwards etc. I do hope tomorrow will be a good day. Otherwise my future is outside in the wind and the rain forever.............

vegan fairs

Vegan fairs are just wonderful. We had a stall at West Midlands Vegan fair and it was a great day. We had fun working which is always a good one. I dont think they will make me rich moneywise but just being there was great and knowing you can eat everything and you dont need to check the ingredients was just brilliant. We had chocolate cakes nd tea and coffee for breakfast, fish and chips for lunch and all sorts of munchies all day long. Great day. I would happilly do one every week. Sunday was ok. Castle Donnington market. We work next to some lovely people there so thats good but I do prefer the vegan fairs.
Today I need to get round to doing the books up to date. I keep putting it off - hence I am now blogging! Will need to get round to it soon cos have website design tonight and altho half term have loads of stuff to work thru so I will hopefully pass the assessment. Also in course of practicing intending to wow up my website a bit if I can!

lip balm kits

Well it looks like I may yet get the lip balm kits out in time for xmas. I spent the last few hours making the base. I have already written the instuctions so will need to get M to follow them and see if he can produce a half decent lip balm from them. Then I will need to buy some 5ml bottles for essential oils cos no way will people want to pay loads for the 10ml which wont be needed. Thats the falvouring. I am sill avoiding fragrance oils. May have to give in on that one but I really do not want to. I will only want a few 5ml bottles tho to trial this so it will bump the initial costs up. Still I do not want to buy eg. 150 bottles until I know if anyone will buy this. Its still just an experiment and an idea right now so I cannot afford to invest too much till I know if anyone will be interested oin buying it. Besides the fact I have nothing to invest! If I lose a few quids or rather make nothing on the trials fair enough. Just do not want to lose loads again. I need to find a wholesaler who sells packaging next. I realy need so kind of box or even tuperware to put the whole kit in. Have so far found everything too expensive. Ikea tupperwares looking the cheapest but cannot believe they really are the best option.There must be a similar cheaper option out there somewhere......

unfragranced moisturiser

Today at last I finally got round to making an unfragranced moisturiser. You would think it a logical first one to make but not for me. Anyway happy to say its very good. I made it really cos of customers asking for one. Hope it goes well. I havent done the labels yet but will do tomorrow cos it goes on sale on saturday. We did ok last weekend and it almost looks doable as my future work right now but I dare not be too hopeful. I have worked out I can survive on about 7k tho 10 would be much better. Less than this and I will starve to death! No idea if my current earnings are going to achieve anywhere near this tho. Come april 2010 I may well be out of business by the looks of it right now! Still onwards. Better to try and fail than spend your entire existance dreaming and never to ever go for it. Make it happen! I am certainly trying to do so. I had a second internet order which is encouraging and have learned ( yesterday at the website design course I am doing on monday evenings)to make templates for my website. That will save so much time. Right now I have to edit every page if I add anything new that needs a link. Means completely redoing my website tho. Still its another project...................
I made more apple wine which is now doing itself as it does and right now I am sitting drinking a quite acceptable glass of plum wine which is a nice rosey pink. Mmmmmm. maybe I should start selling country wines instead of soap!???

pickling, preserving and wine making

Well its harvest time and this year we are in the thick of it all. Its been loads of apple wine making, elder berry wine making, damson, etc and then more of each and now I am pickiling cucumbers. Arent they called gerkins? Or rather are pickled cucumbers the same thing as pickled gerkins? I will have to google. Off to Incredible Veggie Roadshow tomorrow since we have a stall. I always fancied going to one but never have done and now am working at one so probably wont really get to have a look round. Never mind. Maybe we will take some money and sort it all out. Last week took only £90 over 3 days. Not good for survival that! Finally have bought some cello bags tho which means I am back in production making bath bombs. My handss are sore. I have started to react to gloves. I get a sort of exema. I cannot spell this but its a nasty itchy sore skin complaint and it happens between my fingers when I wear gloves. they are not latex either. I used to get this when I worked in a lab at a universiy but it went away. probably cos I moved into office jobs. I actually moved cos they paid better than lab work but anyway I have nasty itchy skin again. Not alot I can do about it either. A hazard of chemistry I think.
Back to the harvest thing. I went foraging. At the top of our road is a tree with sweet chestnuts. they are rubbish tho and the chestnuts that have fallen so far are sort of flat and empty. Not at all like the ones yoiu buy in tesco. I need to look for another tree cos somewhere around there must be one worth scrumping.
I need to buy some more sugar too cos none left to make any more wine or pickles and we stil have a tree laden with apples and soon the frost will come. I had better repot and bring in doors the geraniums too I suppose. they are amazing. I bought some seeds from Aldi for 35p and it said to start them in a heated propogator I think in april. then repot on etc. But we have no space at the moment to use propgators so i started in a pot in teh garden instead and it was June. Anyway they are proper geraniums - as in pelargonium geraniums not wild english type and they have actually flowered so if I can manage not to murder them this winter ( I am not good with house plants!) I will have a go at making some post hanging baskets next summer. My dad gave us loads of hangoing baskets - without anything in - just the wire baskets, so i wil see if I can make them. My last attempt at this I think was about 8 years ago and I spent loads on plants to go in it and murdered nearly everything in the process of making the basket. I cannot get the lobelia or dangly type of plants to drip from the bottom. I just kill them when I put them in the holes! There must be a nack to this that no one has explained to me!
Oh and I have a customer on my webiste! Hey its happening!

for William died friday 31st August 2009 - my friend

William was a cockateil. A pretty amazing one. This is her sitting on the lap top a few months ago. She did love M! On May 28th 2000 william escaped when we were decorating. She dissapeared as cage birds who get out do, squarking with delight off into the sun!. I rang the RSPB and the RSPCA. I was told they would keep a look out but unless she turned up within a few hours that was that. Also they only looked within 5 miles of the house where they come from. And then it hailed! We lived on the Wirral then in a small town/village called Neston. I asked the neighbours if they had seen her - some had aviaries so it was a possibility they might see her. I was told to give up since that was that. You never find them.

I didnt give up. We lost her saturday about 11am. William however ( she laid eggs so was a girl but we didnt know that when we called her "Billy") was a free bird within the home. Despite stripping the wall paper and Shitting everywhere we still left her free! She could fly. She would "fall when the frost came"so said the RSPB if we ever heard of her again. I found the first real use for owning a computor and printer then (well other than writing your thesis/project!). I printed posters asking for info and put them in every shop within a 10 miles radius. Then on Monday I was on a flexi day and went into a shop in Thornton Hough. They said a lorry driver had had a cockateil land on his bonnet in the hail and he had taken her to a local couple who had aviaries. My heart lept but I coudnt belive this was real. I went and found the house. They were really nice. They called the cockateils out but no Billy. She was unusual - white faced so not average and not the same as theirs. Eventually a bird came out with no tail looking very sorry for itself. It was Billy. She hung on the bars of the aviary and looked at me. She knew me. I had found her. Despite all here she was alive. 8 nearly 9 miles from home. They told me to go home and get a cage. I cried all the way. I rang M and he thought I had found her dead cos I cried down the phone. He was at work in Coventry. But I told him she was ok! When I got back they had already caught her and put her in their cage which I took her home in and returned later.
The other 3 birds must have thought she stank. They kept away from her for 3 days. She was home tho and eventually all was well. She preened and ate and slept for 3 whole days. She never tried to leave again even when stupid mates leave the doors open which does happen. On Friday 31st August she had a series of very painful ( by the sound of it) strokes at about 11ish-am. I took her to the vets at 5:45pm and she had not moved since but had drunk water I dribbled down her beak. The vets say they have never know cockateils hve strokes. She has had fits but recovered within at most 30mins for about a year now tho. It may not be normal but thats how it is. She always go back up and flew round the room shitting as she went. She was about 14 so not that old but a reasonable age for a cockateil. Especially one who by its colouring is probably pretty inbred. I loved william. The vets sent us forget-me-nots. We will plant them in the spring when maybe they will survive. Our garden being pretty wild and uncultivated right now they would most likely die which would be sad. We planted a bush on her. Its of chinese origin which is bad. Looks like holly but supposed to get fragrant flowers on it. Also it wont disappear into our indigenous hedging. We will know where she is just like Rosie and Jim who also do not fit the hedging. So when we moved here we had 4 pretty old but beautiful cockateils. Now we have one. Benjy remails. Benjamima is also a girl - apparently Jim may have been too tho we always assumed him male but since he died we have been told he was probably not- by his behaviour, anyway 3 out of 4 definitely were girls. Billy laid eggs. And sat on them every xmas which was a pain. Laid em under cupboards. sofas all over the place till we lost patience ( not wanting to stand on/ sit on her!)and locked her in a cage. Oh and each bird had to have their own cage like seperate rooms else they had fights - no one else has problems like this so why us? We were inundated with cages! And they all lived 90% of their lives free!Billy tormented the dogs by landing on their heads and gripping with her claws. They used to wince cos it hurt. These dangerous dog hating dogs would never have hurt her and she knew it. She was there first and they wouldnt dare. She landed on them regularly poor lads. And on us. And in the middle of your dinner. She was a right pain really. She begged like the worst pidgeons you will find every time you ate toast, crumpets, chips or anythng she took a fancy to. Still she was my William. Benjy is doing ok now. She was devestated but now today she was so noisy. I made a business call -never again from now on will use mobile unless 0845etc. Wow did she shout! Embarrassing birdie. Still shes doing ok even if alone. The first week she was just moping but I suppose life just goes on and on regardless of you doesnt it. Making a point of talking to her is helping I think now shes the only one poor darling. Benjy is also a girl.- my beautiful darling. She is very like jim. She is the last one. I wont look to bring another bird home since it seems wrong however it all began because someone I knew never let their cockateil ( Rosie) out of the cage and then we had the others to keep her company. Benjy was a year younger than the others..........................