Spring is just around the corner!!

After a miserable rainy Easter, I managed to get down the beach today with a few of my friends and our kids. We went to a really fantastic local beach Church Cove at Gunwalloe. This is one of my favourite beaches as it is never too over populated and with the running channel of water and numerous rock pools its ideal for the little ones. The kids had a fantastic time paddling, building sandcastles and climbing rocks. Roll on summer!!

Thinking of Joining Etsy.............

I am thinking of joining Etsy. However I need to make seperate stock for Etsy as most of my stock is reserved either for website or retail. Iam going to look into this, maybe just put a few trial ones up there. http://www.etsy.com/.

I really like this little button and would look really cool on my blog.

Swing Tag Labels...

Amongst eveything else I have been rethinking my brand image and have designed new swing tags. The old ones consisted of a scrap of fabric combined with recycled cardboard stamped with 'donkey in the goatshed', but this took rather a long time to make cutting into valuable production time.

As recycing and reusing is very much the ethos of my business I was concerned that the swingtags should be of recycled content however this had proved to be a difficult issue to resolve. Finding coloured recycled card that is suitable for my printer has proven to be difficult so I have had to compromise my ethics in favour of a really nice buff card that the new design looks great on. This will do in the meantime but I will endevour to find some card that is more eco friendly.

Above are the two final designs. I settled on the one coloured design ( which should be in brown but something has gone wrong in uploading it blog!!!!!) as it takes less ink and has a better visual impact.

Latest news from the Goatshed........

Its been chaotic here in the goatshed. As a result of having my old kitchen ripped out my studio is full of boxes containg a new kitchen that will eventually be installed. Before that event happens I have got to wait for a plumber to turn up!!!

Anyway not to be beaten I have been clambering over boxes and managed to come up with some new designs for recycled handbags, some of which will be heading up to London. Jen Ruppert of ReVamp has organised with Cancer Research UK(CRUK) to head together a collection of recycled products by designers made from charity donations to CRUK. Some of these designs will be sold in the Marylebone shop. Donkey in the Goatshed will be participating in this new and exciting venture where a number of our recycled handbags will be sold.

Above are a few images of the new collection.