Almost there

The talented trio spent yesterday arranging the shop, and as I went by last night to see what they had done, I realised why I was an accountant, and Angeline, Rachel and Monique were doing the store layout! I was so impressed with how they had arranged the store!


We were lucky enough to get our hands on some synthetic grass, which has made the display so much nicer, and meant that the girls could make it look like the little birdies were on sitting in the grass...
There were some setbacks - not all of the gallery hangers turned up so we were unable to hang everything in the windows that we had hoped, however were able to hang these gorgeous Kareena Zerofos prints, that we are absolutely in love with!

So many goodies!

Well day 2 of the refit went well, not without a couple of hiccups, but the good news is that we should be open by lunch time today...

The first part of the day saw the boys having to install the gallery hanging system, and the display boards for all the frame corners, this is where a couple of the hiccups occured, with some of the brackets going on the wrong way, but nothing we could sort out...
We were so lucky during the day to meet all these wonderful people from Williamstown, who happened to be walking by and popped in to welcome us to the neighbourhood - what a great place to live, it really reaffirmed our feeling that Williamstown some how still manages to have that country town feeling, with all the amenities of the city...

The fun part of the day was then unloading all the stock, the team will be busy arranging these today, but here is a sneak peak of some of the stock that unwrapped yesterday...

These gorgeous plushies from Harper Grace took our breath away, we were so lucky that Harper Grace has made a range of plushies only for our store, thats right she is not selling them any where else, which was so sweet... Harper Grace has made some gorgeous monsters, who my neice saw and wouldn't let go of, each with different faces, some owls, and some sweet little monkies.
Susannah Tucker popped by on Sunday to deliver her photo blocks, again this was one of those products that you saw and they were just so much more gorgeous in real life, we have such a nice range of these that I think they may go like hot cakes!
The shop is located just next to a fish and chip shop, which everyone in Williamstown seems to know, and yesterday we found out why - the fish and chips were amazing, some how they didn't leave your mouth with that greasy feeling that you can get so often from fish and chips - if you pop by the shop make sure you visit the fish shop next door!

Painting, Painting oh and more painting...

Well yesterday at 9am we took over the new shop, a big thank you to the wonderful Michael who had been in the shop for all of his help in the transfer, it made getting the phone, power etc turned on really easy!

We eased into the day, with a fantastic breakfast at provisions over the road first, nothing like a stack of pancakes to kick start your day!

We then got cracking...

First to come down was all the shelving and mirrors that we didn't need any more, unfortunately with 2 broken mirrors we can now look forward to an interesting 14 years!

Then we had to get rid of the old signage and start to paint, Simon was in charge of turning the back wall into a gorgeous piece of chocolate colour...

While the shop was in pretty good nick, there were cream coloured walls that we had to transform into gallery white, and give the red wall a touch of paint.

Angeline and the girls were on hand to provide advise as to how we were going, while being safely tucked up in the backroom - surprising there were no disastors given that we had lots of open paint tins, wood floors and 3 kids under 4!

Joe and Tracey, the new additions to the Almond Tree Frame team, started off with the painting, then had to go and see Jersey Boys, as they had bought their tickets before we arranged hand over, and then headed back to do some more painting - now that's dedication! By the way the absolutely loved Jersey Boys, and highly recommend it!

So we finally got all the painting done yesterday, and today the team will be concentrating on getting the gallery hangers hung, and some stock installed - so tomorrow pictures will be a bit more exciting!

Here is the final picture of yesterdays results...

Dogs and Shops, what a week!

Well 1 day to go until we get the shop - here is what the space currently looks like


I will post again tomorrow to show you the work in progress...

Today was spent busily at our Melton shop framing everything, including some new paper forest designs that will only be available through the Williamstown store, and look absolutely gorgeous, with little country fences in the background.

I was also lucky enough to see the Mingus bags and purses that were delivered on thursday to the shop, they were absolutely devine, and I am struggling not to keep one of them for myself.

On the way up the the shop today, we say a sign that had Boarder Collie pups for sale... Simon and I have been speaking for about 18 months to get Coupy a little sister, and thought that the sign must be an omen, as Simon really had his heart set on a boarder collie... So after 10 hours of fitting frames, we thought we would just pop in for a look, and definately not buy one but think about it...

needless to say, we popped in and I immediately wanted to buy 10, but eventually settled on a gorgeous little girl with a black head and a white strip around her tummy... She is just 5 weeks old so I couldn't whisk her away, but I will pop up a photo as soon as we bring her home!

2 days and counting

Thats right, there is just 2 days until we get the keys for our new handmade gallery in Williamstown....

It really has been a whirlwind January, with Angeline and I swapping from panic to doing our happy dance every 5 mintues, is it no wonder our poor husbands can't keep up!

This week especially there have been a lot of happy dances, with all the gorgeous products we have selected arriving - it is so nice when as gorgeous as something is on the internet, it is even better in real life, and that is what we have been experiancing this week! Here is a sneak peak of some of the parcels that arrived this week....

aren't they gorgeous - I am going to find it hard to make sure I take all of them to the gallery, and not leave a couple behind for my house!

So we get the keys on Sunday, and will then spend the next 3-4 days fitting it out, and open our doors to the public on Wednedsday, this is the bit where we are a bit more nervous, as we have to hope the people of Williamstown love our idea as much as we do...

This week has also seen the start of our new part time staff who will be manning the new gallery, we have been thrilled to bits with the three people that we were lucky enough to find, that share our vision. When we were trying to find staff, this was the part that worried us the most, but we really must have luck on our side, as all three girls are absolutely fabulous, and fit perfectly to the image we were hoping to present for the shop...

Also this week, we were lucky enough to find out that we were accepted to the Bower Bird Bazaar, for those of you not from Adelaide you may not have heard of this event before, but it really is a sensation handmade market. On twice yearly there is three days of trade, with one day being a trade fair, and the other 2 general days for everyone to come and have a look. Once we have finished making all the stock for the new shop, we will then be onto our stock list for Bowerbird....

Wow looks like next year will be just as busy

For those readers who don't know, we actually started our arts business as a supplement to our shop - In 2008 we purchased a frame shop and gallery in Melbourne, which is how the 4 of us started in business together, we thought that we had all bases covered, the artist, the accountant, the IT guy and the manufacturer, but buy did we under estimate how much work goes into owning your own business!!!

Some 18 months on, and I think we have found our feet, so much so in fact that we are going to be opening our second shop!!!

We are just so excited, it is like it is Christmas morning here in the Almon, O'Day and Pawley households!!!

Stay tuned for more details, but we are already playing our swanky invitation only launch and many other great ideas!!!

Wow what a month we have had so far, we did our very first Finders Keepers market in Sydney and it truely was an event to be seen, shopping and wine should always go hand in hand I think!

Thankfully Simon came with me to Sydney to help man the store, which was very lucky as we were so busy that I don't think I would have survived if he hadn't been there. It was nice to see the new products that we have just launched be sold so quickly, with our new Alice in Wonderland frames selling out on the first day (stay tuned for some exciting news about a national magazine set to do a feature on these little designs!)

This was the first chance that we have had to introduce our products to Sydney and it was so nice to see how popular and well received they were. So many of our paper forest range run out of their editions, my personal favourite Murder has now sold out and has been discontinued...

Angeline has been frantically cutting out the new Anatomica designs, we didn't think that they would be as popular as they were, so I am very thankful that we got them finished in time to show, this owl design was a particular hit with only a couple left to go before it too is discontinued...

So for anyone that missed Finders Keepers, please make sure you get along to the next event - we managed to get all of our Christmas shopping done over the two days - not a small feat given our picky families! www.thefinderkeepers.com