What a great day! The sun was shining and we had friends and family from Christchurch to Oamaru come and join us for our first craft day and a BBQ lunch. We had 26 ladies attend the crop and then a whole lot of friends and family joined us for lunch.



Kaisercraft generously gave us prize packs and so we had fun with a card-making competition. Everyone got a pack with card, ribbon, flowers and a stamp. They weren't allowed to add any other materials but they were allowed to use tools. The winning card was Lynley's! She didn't believe me when I told her...!





It really was a lovely day and thanks to all of you who made it so special. Many thanks to the people who helped out and for the great catering from Shirley (Shirley's Pantry Pleasant Point). She makes an amazing carrot and date cake and she even took all the dirty dishes away...!

It's been busy and frantic but we did it! Yesterday Artfull Crafts opened it's new shop at 24 Latter Street, Timaru.

It was a most wonderful day. It started with lovely group of ladies bring morning tea, flowers and cards and then people rolled through the doors all day. I got more flowers and more cards!! I felt like it was a really special day - and it was!

We've been working long hours to paint and decorate and then the weekend saw a huge effort put in. Thanks to the friends who popped by and helped out.

Here are the photos of the work in progress:

Today we start to move the shop from the house to 24 Latter Street. It's looking fantastic and I'm really excited (REALLY!). Last night Sherri came (again) and helped out and we had a painting party in the room that will be our lounge and kitchen. We had lots of paint left over from other DIY projects - so this room got the lovely deep orange/red. Funnily enough we painted out all the orange in the shop rooms and painted them pink...!



Now I get to tell you our cool carpet story. We only saw the place 2 weeks ago - and things happened very quickly! By this week Tuesday I realised I'd better get the carpet sorted out... I went to 3 places and got quotes. They all came that day to do the quotes (I love doing business in this town!). At the end of the day all the quotes were twice what we had wanted to spend. I decided that maybe we couldn't afford to lay carpet in the classroom but instead we'll have a huge carpet mat that went right to the edges. That way we'd save some pennies!

I rang a friend that day as he worked at a flooring place. He was out of town but said he'd get back to me the next day. He rang at 8:30am and said they had some brand new carpet that had just been uplifted from a property and it was high quality Feltex carpet in the grey tones. We jumped in the car, saw it, bought it (at a low price) and then they said they could have it laid by Friday (today!) I couldn't believe it!

But the story gets better. At 12pm I get a phone call asking if they could lay it that day - in 45 minutes time!! I jumped in the car with the trailer, went to Graham's work where we had been given free underlay, went to the shop, emptied the room, laid the underlay in time for the carpet to go down...

So here's the classroom before and after the paint and carpet. Of course it will look even better once we get the furniture and some curtains!

Well, it's been a busy week. It always is busy - but this time we managed to squeeze in the new shop removations as well! On Saturday we had a lot of fun when our friends and their children came to help. I love these photos of the 3-year old and 5-year twins helping us out...

YOU GUESSED IT - We're moving into a real shop!


28 Latter Street, Timaru


Well I don't want to spoil the surprise by posting a whole lot of photos ... but maybe just one or two. Especially since my lovely husband has put a few on his Facebook account!

This is the new shop being painted ... yip that's bright pink and a lovely dark grey colour.


Every evening we head down and do a bit more work on the place. It's looking great. And to be honest, if I weasn't heading to Christchurch on Saturday I would probably just move in this weekend. So we'll move on Labour Weekend - and we will be labouring hard! We'll be open for business on Tuesday the 27th. It's so exciting - can't you tell?!

What's amazing is that I started this as a hobby, then it turned into a Trade Me business, then a website business, then a home-based shop and now we're moving into a real shop. I never really intended this! I just decided to take it as far as it would go... so here we are. Some people plan their businesses - but I'm just stumbling around trying to make it work! I feel very blessed to have a wonderful husband who is really excited for me, great workers (Juanita and Vicki) and fabulous crafty people who support us. Not to mention all the friends and family who have encouraged us to "Give it a go!"

To be honest, winning the major Kaisercraft prize earlier this year is also a big factor in giving the business a boost along. THANKS KAISERCRAFT!

So, we'll have an opening party on Saturday the 31st - details coming soon... I'm sure we can muster up a bit of fun in this quiet town...

No more surprises then...

Yes we've found somewhere to move too. It's very exciting. We've decided to set up a 'real' shop in Timaru. The business has been growing and growing - now it's in 2 bedrooms, the dining and room, study and most of the lounge. It's sort of out of control. And we get pretty good foot-traffic too. So we've taken the plunge and found a very cool building near the city centre. It's got a 1 bedroom bedsit at the back - so yip - we're going to try apartment living for a while. Here's a look at what condition the 'lounge' is in at the moment...

But we love DIY and so this one is no problem. A bit of paint, carpet and a new kitchenette and we'll be right!

Mmm... Hilary wants more information about the teaser...

Paint under the fingernails.
Tired arms and legs.

That will do for today...

Okay - so on my website email I said that I had TWO lots of exciting news to share. Here's the first part of it...

KAISERCRAFT Q2 PRODUCTS ARE NOW AVAILABLE FOR SALE ON THE WEBSITE!!

Stunning papers, embellishments, stamps, rub ons, projects etc.

That's pretty exciting for us. It's been 5 weeks since we went to the launch party in Melbourne and saw the wonderful goodies. And now we get to share them with you! The boxes arrived this morning (I woke up at 6am and checked the doorstep for them... then I started getting worried when they hadn't arrived by 7:30am... but by 7:40am they were there). We spent the day putting the goods on the shelves, packing up the pre-orders and then selling the goods to the Timaru public. Then the rest of the day was doing all the final touches on the website. It takes a lot of work to manage a big website like ours - but we like to make sure it looks good and is easy to use. We love having the coordinating products with the Kaisercraft Collections but that's time consuming!

Then we had to 'pop out' and take my parents to look at the second surprise... more on that later.

And finally we drew the winners for the competitions, made the website live and sent out the email blast to the people who receive the weekly update from the website ...

CONGRATUALTIONS wazzasgirl! You have won the Lilac Ave paper collection. Be sure to e-mail your address to us...

CONGRATULATIONS to Raewyn G for winning the pre-order prize - the Advent Calendar. It's FABULOUS! I'm just not sure when I'll have time to decorate mine ... that's because this new exciting thing I'm talking about is going to be time-consuming....

Perhaps I'll just pop this little photo up for a teaser and tell you about it all another day...

Mmm tired now - it's been a long day.

Well we are home! And no rest for the holiday makers... Yesterday was the official launch date for the new Kaisercraft Q2 products - but we were on a plane coming home. So today we got up early (no time for jet lag around here) and got busy on the website.

We have made the Full Collections available for pre-order at this stage. The goods have left Aussie and on their way over here - but I don't expect them to leave customs until later next week. At that point we'll release the individual items and the Beyond the page Projects (which you REALLY must see!). Here's the Star Wreath that I know will be a hit! It's about 30cm across.SPECIAL DEAL: For each Full Collection you pre-order you'll go in the draw to win an Advent Calendar ($39 value). This is the most amazing project. I can't wait to get my hands on one!