May 2016
Its been a busy time for us, the longer days have given us a spring in our step! All the spring blooms have created a riot of colour that has been really inspiring. I keep looking at all the blossoms and shadows and thinking how they might translate into stationery colours or patterns - I was staring at a snail whilst digging in some plants and looking closely at its shell thinking hmmm how would that pattern repeat and then at the leaves on my purple wallflowers and admiring their spiky shapes, mulling over the same thoughts, deliberating in my mind what colours I’d use? Stationery on the brain.
It is also that time of year in England when the light is beautiful, Pimms is being sipped and all our famous events begin to start - Ascot, Wimbledon, Cricket, Goodwood, Polo… . And alongside all this there are weddings, marquees, bbq’s, picnics… so much outdoor fun to be had. There is nothing quite like England in the Summer. I’ve already kicked off the summer season with a bbq for a friend who was visiting from the USA - and as she was celebrating half a centenary in London I took untold pleasure being able to create a gift hamper made up of quintessentially English goodies in one of our Yateley Papers large boxes and then wrapped beautifully in one of our contrasting papers. It went down a treat. And it was lovely to give her something unique that I knew she’d not find anywhere else….yet!
We’ve been spending time introducing Yateley Papers to retailers and getting to grips with social media to get ourselves ‘out there’ in the market place. I must say Trudi and I have found this quite nerve wracking and we’ve had to give ourselves quite a talking to in our heads to pluck up the courage to be confident in striking forth to pitch our products. Trudi’s husband Guy has worked hard at building and developing our website and is now moments away from enabling our customers to buy from our online shop. Our e-commerce is days away! New products are making their way into our collection too so keep checking back. Tissue boxes, journals - there are all sorts in the pipeline and naturally we are already thinking Christmas, amongst other surprises there’s something rather skinny but gorgeous in store - yes scary right?! Our lampshades are now available to buy and people seem to really like them which is great and the orders for them are trickling in. Good lampshades are hard to come by aren’t they? Our calendar is filling with diary dates too and we’re excited to announce that we’ll be at Top Drawer at Kensington Olympia in September and looking forward to selling our things at the Summer Brocante at Cowdray House in Midhurst and at Barnes Fair in South West London in July.