Meet the Staff

By now most of you will know all about my Dragons, Lorna & Lena, but it is time to meet my Creative Team.  Yes, believe it or not there is a small team behind the items created by Glitterwitch. When I say small, that is a little clue - please say a big Hello to Pearl & Purl

Pearl & Purl (yes I get confused as well!) are little Spiral Witches who love helping me create new items to make. They like to sit on top of the radio and sing along to the music while they work. Generally they keep out of the way of the dragons, who are much bigger than them, and just whisper among themselves. They are very polite and well behaved and I would like to say a big thank you to Cathy from Spiral Rose who recruited them for me.

Talking of the dragons, there was a bit of an incident last night. I thought they had calmed down after the excitement of the new bead delivery, but I was awoken in the night by a noise. Imagine the scene, all is dark and  there is a rustling sound followed by some squeaky singing and then giggles. When I turned on the light - this is what I found

and this is what they were singing, to the tune of Strangers in the Night:-

Beaders in the night, exchanging glances,
Tricky in this light, what are the chances
It turns out all right, before this night is through
Do bead do bead do la la la la la

What can I say - those Dragons are incorrigible!

Despite all their mischief, Lorna, the Marketing Dragon has come up with a new idea. Each month, she is going to invite a Guest Blogger to write for you - we are all very excited about this. The first one will be next week so remember to pop back to see who it is.

So I will leave you with the challenge to guess who will be writing our Blog next week, Lorna is being very secretive about it.

Embrace Uniqueness

There are thousands of small craft businesses around these days but all are very unique. I don't just mean we sell different things, I mean in the way we run them. Some are run by a small team but many, like mine, are just managed by one person who wears lots of different hats.

We all bring our own unique thoughts and ideas into what we do and the world of crafts is a great place to experiment with them. Values instilled into us as children suddenly become an essential part of what we do. Experiences through life shape how we react to problems and surprises.  Wow that all sounds a bit deep - let me tell you what I mean:-

My Dad was in the army, and although we lost him when I was still quite young, he has left me with a sense of discipline and organisation. Even though there is only me to run Glitterwitch, I have everything documented and filed very neatly in matching ring binders on the shelves in my office.  All my beads are stored in neat little boxes, labelled and arranged on the shelves in numerical order of the stock number.  Is that all a bit over the top?  Well, my thoughts are that when my business really takes off (any day now) I will be ready ! I could take on someone to help me and they would know what to do right away.

I am sure you all have your own quirky way of doing things - which is great! We love "different", life would be very boring if we were all the same. So we must all embrace our uniqueness and keep the craft world interesting and exciting.

On a different note, the longest day is now behind us and so, (in my eyes anyway) we are on the countdown to Christmas. There will be items going on the website each week to help you with your Christmas Crafting - see there I go again, being organised in advance!

http://www.glitterwitch.co.uk/epages/BT3783.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/BT3783/Categories/Christmas_Crafting/Christmas_Washi_Tape

I will leave you with my favourite Christmas quote:
When you stop believing in Santa, you get underwear for Christmas!

Hobby or Obsession

Most of us have a hobby of some kind, and I guess for a lot of you reading this, it is some sort of crafting. But when does a hobby turn into something more - like an obsession?

Obsession: an idea or thought that continually preoccupies or intrudes on a person's mind.

Hmm, does it mean that I have a knitting obsession if I look at a field of sheep and think - he looks like a pair of socks and she would make a nice shawl? What about the fact that I give directions to people based on where wool shops are, a bit like men do with pubs! Ok, ok, so I may be a little bit obsessed with knitting and yarns of all kinds, but my stash is confined to one room, oops sorry, one house!

So, is your crafting an obsession, and if so, is it a bad thing?  I don't think it is a bad thing, after all, no one gets hurt by it (unless they get run over by a another delivery arriving), and it keeps me out of trouble - well sort of - but that's a story for another day!

Now you remember my dragons, Lorna & Lena, well they have been complaining about not having enough space to play in my office (when their work is finished of course). So Lorna has organised a sale on the website and wants to encourage you to buy lots so that she can clear a bit more space.

http://www.glitterwitch.co.uk/epages/BT3783.sf/en_GB/?ObjectPath=/Shops/BT3783/Categories/SALE

Pop over and have a look and then tell all your friends. Believe me, there is nothing worse than a sulking dragon!

I will leave you with this acronym - if you have an obsession, it might apply to you. SABLE
Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy

One Man Band ........

We have all heard the expression One Man Band, meaning someone who plays multiple musical instruments at the same time. I have always thought this was amazing especially as men are not known for multi-tasking are they?

 But if you look the term up in a dictionary its second meaning is "An organisation where one person does everything" Ah, now that I do understand, being a "One Woman Business" I often feel like the picture above. Or maybe it should be a juggler trying to keep all the balls in the air at the same time. There seems to be so many of those little balls and each one so important in their own right. Well I think one of my balls has dropped - pardon the expression! I have been so busy concentrating on VAT, ordering Christmas stock, making shawls, networking on social media ....... crikey I am worn out just reading the list! Anyway visits to my website are down as I need to link it to all the social media activities and I haven't got a clue how to do it. I am creative person not a web designer, how can I be expected to know how to do this?

Heyho, no good moaning about it - just have to knuckle down and learn! This time last year I didn't know how to "tweet" or "pin" and now I am up there with the best of them gathering followers as I go. Right off to read "the Idiots Guide to Running a Website" - if only there was one of those haha.

I shall leave you with this thought: Money can't buy happiness, but it can buy craft supplies and that is pretty close!

Oh and if you want to help the figures and visit my website: www.glitterwitch.co.uk

Discount in foreign parts!

Well here we are in June, another month and another challenge. This months challenge will be my first VAT return which is due at the end of the month. Am I worried - well, how hard can it be?

Exciting news this week is that one of my shawls is featured in this months Craftseller magazine. They just emailed me out of the blue and said they had seen it on Folksy and could they use it in one of their articles. Tough decision?  Well the problem was, I was in Switzerland at the time with no access to the photos they wanted me to send them. Luckily for me I returned home the evening before their deadline. Anyway here is the shawl

While in Switzerland I popped into a wool shop (are you surprised) and spent a happy half hour wandering round looking (and prodding) all the lovely yarn. The owner had limited English and my German is even more limited, but the language of wool came through for us. When she came to add up my purchases on the till she said" it is no good - too much money, I shall give you 10% discount\" How very kind of her I thought. She then looked at the total again and said "Oh still too much another 10%".  Eventually she gave me the till receipt so that I could pay. Although grateful for the discount, I was a little curious about it and so I asked her. "Oh dear" she said "I am sorry for you as lots of wool shops in England are closing down - so I give you discount to cheer you up"  What a lovely lady !

Time to go now, so I shall leave you with this thought - My Husband said if I buy any more wool he will leave me. Shame, I shall miss him!