Behind the scenes - July

This month, running my small business has mostly involved taking a break! I closed the shop for three weeks and had two full weeks off work. This can be hard to do as I always worry that I will annoy customers and I'm obviously losing out on sales, but it was so worth it. June had been such a busy month and I was pretty exhausted. I was reaching the point where I really didn't want to make yet another travel journal; I don't want making up orders to become a chore, I'm keen to ensure that I continue to love crafting and am glad to create products for customers. After a refreshing break I'm back with renewed enthusiasm and a lot more energy!

And my lovely customers haven't forgotten me - as soon as I reopened the shop I started getting sales again. I'm hoping August will be a bit quieter than June though so that I can get some prep done for Christmas!

In the little bit of working time I had in July I have been designing another new personalised journal which I hope I can share with you soon. I also ordered 750m of double sided tape - there's a photo below if you want to see what this looks like! It's unbelievable how much tape I get through.

Before I went away I sent out the monthly greetings card subscriptions. I put together these little bundles of three cards every month and I enjoy designing new cards, many of which are exclusively for the subscriptions. If you fancy getting your hands on a regular delivery of stationery you can sign up here.

On the blog I posted the third in my series of nursery rhyme Folksy Fridays with a collection of interesting sheepy items and came up with 10 reasons you should send happy mail.

Here's the month in pictures.

Behind the scenes - June

Wow, it's been a busy month! Wedding season is in full swing and I have been making a lot of wedding cards and journals for honeymoon adventures. It's been my second best month ever for sales, coming second only to last November's Christmas rush. I am looking forward to having some time off in July to recover!

I try to add at least one new product to the shop each month and June saw the addition of a personalised wedding guest book. This has been at the design stage for quite a while as I've tweaked different things and practiced a new book binding technique to create a square spine and allow for more pages. I'm thrilled with the finished product and hope you like it too. In fact, there may be another book in this size coming soon... (see a little sneaky peek in the pictures below!).

On the blog I finished the series on making money from selling handmade products, and you can see part 3 here. And the lovely peeps at Folksy started up Folksy Friday again, so how could I resist joining in with a bit of online window shopping. Check out my twinkle twinkle little star collection and my favourite old macdonald items!

Exciting purchases this month include 1400 blank round stickers that I am planning on jazzing up to make my parcels look a bit more exciting. I might add a few to the shop too.

There hasn't really been time for anything else, it's been make make make interspersed with regular trips to the post office.

Behind the scenes - May

How is it the end of May already?! It's kind of flown by in a crazy whirl of double sided tape backing (that stuff gets everywhere!) and lots and lots of maps. Here's what I've been up to.

I've mostly been making up lots of honeymoon journals. These new journals are really popular and I've been cutting lots of heart shapes out of my vintage atlas collection. So many lucky brides and grooms are off to America this summer!

There are two new sets of notecards in the shop. Both come in a pack of four presented in a nice new kraft card folder tied up with bakers twine. Choose from pretty butterflies or vintage maps.

At the beginning of the month I set up my new spreadsheets for the year as I follow the tax year from April - March. I have to make sure I keep track of all orders and expenses. Every month I total everything up and it's great to see how much profit I've made. It's also encouraging looking back on that month last year and seeing how many more orders I've had. I also track where sales are coming from so that I can see which of my shops are performing well.

I've had so many orders for journals that I nearly ran out of the paper I make them from. So I put in a order from the lovely people at the Exotic Paper Company for another 800 sheets of their wonderful rhino poo paper. It's 100% recycled and made in the UK. I love it.

Lots of sales also means that I started running low on packaging. I buy board backed envelopes in bulk which makes them much cheaper and means I don't have to place an order very often (though it does give me the problem of where to store them all!). I've also just bought some postage boxes that I'm planning on using for some new products coming soon - before I can add any new designs to the shop I have to work out how I'm going to package them to ensure they get delivered safely.

And here on the blog I've started a new mini series about how to make more money from selling handmade. I occasionally like to share what I've been learning in the hope that it helps others who are following along a similar path. Part 1 and part 2 are up already, part 3 is coming soon. Please do share them with anyone who may be interested.

So, here's a round up of the month in pictures:

Behind the scenes - April

I'm quite enjoying writing these behind the scenes posts each month. It's really helpful for me to look back and see what I've been up to and how much I've achieved. I hope you enjoy them too!

April has been a short working month for me because I took some time off over Easter. Some was planned holiday time and some was because I wasn't feeling too well. So I kept the shop shut a little longer than planned but I think the extra rest did me good.

I've been making quite a few of these new honeymoon journals that I added to my shop last month. I can never quite predict which items will be really popular but these journals seem to have gone down well so far with customers. So I've stocked up on some more atlases ready to cut out lots of hearts for the front covers.

There's a new range of cards in the shop, including a birthday card, new baby card and a set of thank you cards. You can see pictures below. I had fun designing these and choosing the colour combos - though if you're not sure about my choices you can pick your own colours!

April is the month for doing a stock take and completing my accounts for the end of the tax year. Thankfully it's all pretty straightforward. My husband is an accountant so he sorts out all the numbers and I just count things like envelopes and sheets of card to work out how much stock I have left. It's all quite boring until he does his calculations and tells me how much profit I've made for the year. I love that number as it shows me in real terms that I actually have a successful business that is making money!

I also ordered a massive stack of card from Papermill Direct (it's all made in a mill in the Lake District), updated my newsletter sign up so it's a little more friendly and tidied up my craft room (turns out I do have a floor!).

Here's the month in pictures:

Behind the scenes - March

After a relatively quiet January and February the orders are starting to build up again. I can definitely tell that wedding season is beginning! So I have mostly been making up orders and doing trips to the post office.

I sold my 50th travel journal with Australia on the front. That's a lot of people taking my journals to Australia! And I sold my 100th wedding card. Over half have been Bruges design. I love to think of happy brides and grooms receiving a card I have made.

Since my travel journals are so popular I thought I'd introduce a new one, designed especially for giving as a wedding gift. The new honeymoon journal has a map heart with any location and personalised text underneath.

As well as making making making, I did find time for a few other things. I revamped my newsletter, moving to a new fortnightly email. The plan is to have two concise emails rather than one long newsletter with everything in. I'm hoping that one can be about new products added to the shop that month, and one can focus on wider stationery or handmade news. If you're interested, you can sign up here!

I also created some new packaging for my notebooks and journals. I'd been thinking about how to update it for a while, as a simple paper band was looking a bit boring. I now use a label tied on with orange ribbon, and I'm really pleased with it so far.

And I've been shopping again! I found an amazing atlas on ebay. It's still sitting on the chair in my workroom as I'm a little scared to cut it up. But I keep telling myself that it will look beautiful made into journals and be so much more loved than a dusty old atlas kept in someone's loft. I bought some more glue too. I feel like I say that every month - I use a lot of glue!

I'm taking a break over the Easter weekend so my shops are shut for a few days, but they'll be open again on Tuesday 7 April.

Behind the scenes - February

If you missed the first behind the scenes post last month you can see what I got up to in January here. February has been similarly quiet for sales, as expected for this time of year. It's still busier than last year though and I love it when I can see progress each year. I've been using the extra time to continue building up a stock of notebooks ready for personalising, which will mean I can handle more orders when the shop gets busier as part of the making is already done.

I enjoy not having quite so many orders to do as it also gives me time to be creative and design new products which is one of my favourite parts of my job. Afterall, it's really why I started running say it, as I liked making cards and stationery. There's a new wedding card in the shop made from a gorgeous copper vinyl. It's personalised with the couple's names as this seems to be a really popular option for wedding cards.

Of course, to get a new card in the shop involves far more than just creating a design and making up a sample. I have to think about the numbers and work out if the design will be profitable, taking into account the time it takes to make and the cost of the materials. And I spend a while drafting a product description, thinking hard about the key words customers will use when searching for the item. Then I have to take a million photos and go through them all hoping to find 3-5 that are usable, usually after more than a little editing. Taking photos is probably my least favourite part of running say it. I know a lot of creative peeps really enjoy it, but it drives me up the wall! It seems to take forever and there's never enough light to get them nice and bright. This month I built myself a new backdrop and started to play around with how to get more light onto the object without casting shadows. You can see my new photography set up here (it really is very basic!).

I've started working on a few more new designs too. I try to add at least one new product or range of products to my shop each month, to keep it looking fresh. But I know that in the busy months when I have loads of orders to get to the post office I won't have time to sit down and play around with new designs. So my plan is to make several new products now and get them ready for the shop, but hold off listing so that I still have something new to show later in the year. There are a couple of sneak previews below though!

And finally, I've been doing some shopping! One of the trickiest parts of running say it is ensuring I have the right levels of stock of all my supplies. I don't want to order loads of one particular thing and waste money on it if I never use it all up. But equally, I don't want to run out of crucial supplies when I have orders waiting to be made. One thing I always keep an eye out for is vintage maps and atlases suitable for making into map notebooks. I found a couple of really nice ones on Ebay this month so was excited about that. And I bought some slightly more boring supplies too, like glue and thread.

Behind the scenes - January

I thought you might like to see what I get up to during the month and what my job running my little shop looks like. So at the end of each month I plan to do a round up on the blog. It's helpful for me too to look back and see how much has happened just in a few weeks. Here's what I've achieved so far in 2015.

January starts off as a pretty quiet month for sales, so I use the time to catch up on admin after the crazy Christmas rush. My stock and sales spreadsheet is up to date, my finances are done and my tax return is submitted. Not very exciting but it needs to be done.

I also use the quieter months to prep stock. Most of my orders are personalised so I can't make up too much in advance but I can prep all the different parts I use regularly. So I've made up a stack of notebook inserts, travel journal back covers and wedding card blanks all ready to be personalised.

I've added a new range of cards to my shop made from some lovely kraft card. And I've started designing some new notebooks too.

The blog is ready for the new year and I made myself a snazzy social media and blog planner using a printable calendar from Miss Tiina. My aim this year is to be a bit more organised and schedule posts in advance rather than doing everything last minute. We'll see how it goes!

And I made the decision to retire some of my older designs to freshen up my shop a bit and make space for something new. I always find it hard to do this as I feel sad that I won't get to make these any more. If you'd like to grab yourself a bargain I'm selling off the remaining stock at less than half price.