Achieving your goals

When we first started our business (officially that is), we had a number of short and long term goals, some of these easier to achieve than others, and covered things from wanting to be featured in our favourite interior design magazines, to being stocked in our favourite stores to just producing work that makes people happy.

Lately we have been having a couple of months where everything has been going right, and things on our goal list have been being ticked off with ease.

A couple of our loyal followers saw our little squirel in some magazines lately, as well as a feature in House & Garden and some of our kids stuff in Comso Pregnancy. I must admit I always get a thrill when the magazines come out, and I am always down at the news agency on the day of release to see how the creations have come out!

For a little while now we have been stocked in Husk, this along with 2 other stores (we only have one to go, and we are in discussions with them at the moment!) was on our ultimate achievement list when we first started out. Carol and the team at Husk have kept us so busy lately, with requests for jumbo pieces, such as the one at the top, to our metamorphis range which we seem to have to restock all the time (not that we are complaining!). So when Carol contacted us recently to do a press release for our products in their gorgeous store, we were more than happy to be a part of it:

We have already had a some press contact us in relation to this release, and there should be a story coming out at Christmas in a magazine that was on our ultimate dream list that we never thought would happen!

We have a couple more exciting things happening over the next 6 weeks, so stay tuned, and keep working on your own goals!

Family Rules Posters

The phrase family rules to me automatically conjures up rules around making your bed, making sure your clothes are in the washing, and eating everything on your plate.

That is why I think I love this family rules poster so much, it covers much nicer rules, such as love one another, and always tell the Truth. I have one of these posters up in my office, and there are times when it just centres me and reminds me what is important during the day.

We had such a nice request for one poster to be personalised, that I think I am making the change permanent as it is a rule that I need to remember especially as the days seem to get busier and busier.

We had a lovely lady ask us to change the rule from Stay Happy, to start and end each day with a kiss. Which one do you prefer?

We also have a new poster, being the family wishes. This is the poster that we see the most emotion from, with 2 ladies at the last Mathildas market in Adelaide start crying as soon as they read the words. I really think the last line Hug me as though you will never grow up sums it all up - When was the last time you hugged your mum like that?

Birthdays at ATF

It has been a busy July already over at Almond Tree Frames, July is when our significant others have their birthdays, with Angeline's husband Chris, celebrating a big birthday on July 4th, while Simon had his on July 5th.

We have just been so busy with everything, that I almost completely forgot about poor Simon's birthday, and had to quickly run down the street to get something for him - unfortunately long gone are the days when I went to the Collingwood training (which for a Carlton supporter was a hard thing to do!) to get a jumper signed.

I had great intentions to make a fantastically colourful cake that Neivh and Shyla, oh and Simon of course, would love, here was my inspiration:

Instead we ended up with a sponge from the Cheesecake shop... Next year I promise to be more organised!

We have had a lot of incredibly exciting news lately, a number of well known magazines have approached us to do a story on our products, such as Marie Clare, Cosmo Pregnany and Inside Out, our metamorphis designs are taking designers fancy everywhere at the moment, and have been getting so much press (which we will never complain about!). We have just released the hummingbird, and feather design which sold as soon as we popped them in shops! Here is a sneak peak:

Shopping for little boys

How hard is it to shop for little boys?

Whenever I attend a market there are 100's of things that I could be my nieces, but when it comes to getting things for little finn, I find it a lot harder.

Well hopefully all my troubles are about to end, as a fantastic new website has been set up for all things boys! The incredibly talented Alana has been working on this for awhile, and I am loving the results!

http://www.boygerms.com.au/

This is a fantastic website, that features awesome goodies like the Animal Index, and toilet paper saver!

Thanks Alana for the lovely write up on our products!

Finders Keepers Brisbane

That's right, we have our next road trip organised!!! We are so fortunate to be selected as part of the Brisbane Finders Keepers event at the end of this month - eekk we better get cutting!

You may know that we did Finders Keepers last December in Sydney, and have been itching to get back to one of their fantastic markets...

Also sorry for the slowness in posting the new photos that we took at the Brunswick Street Gallery, I will be putting them up on the weekend. We just moved house and that has been keeping me plenty busy!

New Works

We have been busy designing some new works for the upcoming exhibition, eek it is only 10 days away! For those of you who can make it, the exhibition is at the Brunswick Street Gallery, and the gallery features 8 different exhibition areas, so there will be 8 different artists exhibiting while we are, including the talented Tabitha (whose prints we have in our gallery). The exhibition opens on the 21st May, and runs for 2 weeks, so if you get a chance to check it out, please pop by!

We have also been inundated with wholesale orders this week, we picked up a large new wholesale customer late in April, and dropped off their completed frames last Wednesday, to which they then sold out over the weekend, and have now placed another large order, particularly featuring the metamorphis, which I must admit are one of my favourite in our range (if only we could get time do finish some designs to hang in our own homes!)

Pregnancy

No calm down mum, I am not about to annouce you are becoming a grandmother on a blog, but I have discovered the perfect pregnancy journal for when the O'Day/Pawley baby does arrive.

This journal has no pre-printed information, so you don't need to fill out a checklist of how you are feeling, or if you happen to miss an entry it is no big deal!

You can write as often as you like, or as little, as the designer says it is your journey, it is your story, so you want a journal that can reflect that.

They are available in 4 different covers, and we will have all four in store.

Ever since I heard of the idea of writing a journal while you are pregnant, I have loved the concept, what a perfect gift to give to your child on the 18th or 21st, or perhaps even when they are expecting their first child. It is also a great chance for you to write down everything you are feeling so you can reflect on all the positivness when you are up at 3am for the 5th day in a row!

We will have these in store shortly, along with the matching bookmarks, so you can jot down names when you think of them.