Freezing!!!

Just returned from a Pilgrimage to London to see Simon's Brothers production of Peter & The Wolf at The Royal Opera house with the Royal Ballet School. The weather has been thick snow & it was doubtful whether we would get there or back! Topped with our son having a bad case of flu. An endurance test for all. Now home to hibernate for Christmas.

We were delighted today to have an order from one of our favorite stores/catalogues 'Utility'.

Robots & Star Ships

Very excited to at last see our journals. 6 designs of which Robo is one. Just need to get them on the web site. It has been a hard task to get these made in the UK & compete with prices of those made in China.

 Just skimming through Iphoto, there are some great pics of Simon's studio & where our little Robot started his life.

Devonmade Christmas Market

We will both be munching mince pies & kissing under the mistletoe this Sunday at the gorgeous Oldway Mansions in Torquay. We hope a little Lovehart may bring colour & cheer to a few stockings this year.

Lovehart 2011 Trade Diary Dates

 We look forward to saying hello to our suppliers & meeting many new ones in 2011. Here is a list of of dates where you can find us starting with the NEC Spring Fair. See you there!

Lovehart Aprons and Tea Towels

Just getting the hang of creating a press release page. Here is my first attempt. At last we have all our tea towels & aprons & can sell them in earnest. Thank you to the lovely Anna & her Aga for modeling for me. The headless lady!!!

Coast cnt'd

Some pics taken by Penny Wincer, Andy Carter & myself, randomly chosen & in no order but give a flavour of the day for Coast magazine.... So many pics hard to know what to choose. Home is now been well & truly trashed by kids!!! Ahhh but I have the photos to remember how it can look!

Coast Magazine

We are having an interesting insight into the process of how an article is put together for Coast magazine. Great fortune to be sent lovely & great photographer Penny Wincer. A montage of a few sneeky fly on the wall shots including Penny & her assistant Heather eating ice creams at Dartmouth Castle Tea Rooms.

Exeter Living

We are very greatful to Claire Blake who wrote a piece about Lovehart for Exeter Living. This in turn has lead to an article in Coast magazine next March. With only 2 weeks too prepare to have our home & studios under the microscope I hope this will excuse my lack of blogging. It may be an interesting perspective to post the before & after pics of the Coast shoot. With children it is of course impossible to live like the pages of a magazine but for 24 hours at least we were tidy & I have the pics to prove it!! For now here is the Exeter Living article from last month!

Final Word on our Top Drawer Adventure

We have returned delighted with the response to our collections and a mountain of work & new challenges of the admin kind!!! We met some great people, both buyers & exhibitors. So many amazing shops in this country, we really are a nation of great shop keepers!!! Surely Napoleon meant that as a compliment not an insult!! I will finish this post tomorrow with the intention of mentioning the wonderful Archie Grand who was a delight and inspiration as a neighbor. Claire & John from History Store, who took us under their wing with helpful advice & an amazing example of how to get your stand together with no fuss. Others who mentored us nubies with invaluable advice were Hype Publishing, Takkoda,  Liz & Pip who we finally met & were even more helpful & Anne Viney at Art Press, (thank you Anne now poorer & wiser with Quickbooks to help us!!!)

Archie Grand

Takkoda

Top Drawer Set Up - AFTER

Our Blue Peter badges were not in vain!!! Thousand mets of double sided tape later we were ready to collapse with the walls of our stand & looking forward with excitement & anticipation to the start of the show. A year of our work together, we still have so many ideas we would like to work on, but for now we shall see how these go down....

Top Drawer Set Up - BEFORE

Arriving at 9am many people were already done & dusted the night before. Others, seasoned pro's, we later learned could put their stands together in the blink of an eye. In true Hart form we toiled & labored for about 10 hours with support form family, Simon's Papa & Brother. Hopefully with time we will speed up. A few technical glitches slowed us down.

Print & Pattern

So delighted to be mentioned on the  Print & Pattern blog. We love to follow this blog & after all the hard work & the many thousands of cards & products we are now busily packing, it is the BEST suprise to see this tonight. The show was fantastic & we met lots of lovely people both exhibiting & buying our work at the show. We have learnt so much & many people so generous with their time & knowledge. For now we are packing our selves but after a few more thousand I can see we may have to get an army of munchkins to help us!

At last we are off!! TOP DRAWER here we come...

No sooner has our stock arrived & taken over Simon's studio than we are off. The car is packed (to the roof) & only I am small enough to fit in the drivers seat with boards over my head!! Setting off about 4am in the morning & we have a Grandma coming to take care of the kids whilst we are at Top Drawer. Let's just hope it all stays up with velcro. Maybe we should leave the velcro for Grandma to restrain the kids.... There has to be something we have forgotten....Hope we have exciting news to report on our return...

Inspired Buys Totnes

 Bev at 'Inspired Buys on the Plains' Totnes contacted us regarding stocking our work. We paid a pit stop visit on Saturday & I have to say it is one of the most lovely shops I have been in a long time. Perhaps even better than Anthropologie (& I am a big fan) The shop is the epitome of our creative inspiration. Bev makes these amazing upcyled/recycled cake plate stands which I could not resist. It looks just fab with our sweetys & cards on it for Top Drawer. Hopefully we will get it to Top Drawer in 1 piece. If we do not take any orders on our ranges I am sure we will be swamped with requests for this plate stand!!!
Event the bottom has the cutest upside down cup & the top is a really useful tea cup. Not like any others I have seen & each one is different, making it very hard to choose..... Note back ground of pictures, no surface area is free from piles of cards & boxes being packaged!!!!
For Bevs plates contact:- 01803 847711

Thank you's

So only a few days to go & I have neglected the blog AGAIN!! I obviously need help. However this is a great opportunity to say thank you to a few of the kind people who have helped us in large & small ways to get to this point. Some may not even remember, however their recommendations have been gold dust. Our Oscar thank you moment! We have asked advice of many, these people were obviously the most confident with their work & generous in spirit to a new company starting out. It was a tough learning curve. Trying to manufacture in the UK in 2010, it has been  hard to find the best manufactures & suppliers & many people are very reluctant to share their sources. From the bottom of our 'Harts' Thank so much for your help!


Linda at Hot Paws & Trogg - When no one else would help us find an accessory manufacturer.
Simon & Caroline Drew - 11 years worth of advice & inspiration!
Kali at Square Card Company - For letting us pick her brains.
Owaboo - She has probably forgotten the generous advice she gave us at the NEC
Saj at Minty Designs - Always so generous with her sources & advice.
Anna Thomas & Anjeli Marsh - For support & always honest objective opinions.
Sian O'Donnell at Strawberry Card Company. Another South West company with fabulous work who has been so generous with advice & sources.
Mandy at Jam Tart- For help to find an accessory manufacturer.
Liz & Pip - For helping us with source to create bar codes.
Shirley Messam - For helping tomorrow with sewing!
Matt Prestage - For building our exhibition stand. (Not finished yet!)
SENDING YOU ALL.....

TOP DRAWER....

Well we have 36 days 11hours 4 mins left to be ready for Top Drawer & time to start revealing our endeavors to the big wide world. Tea towels & wraps nearly finished. We were thrilled to have a little feature on the Top Drawer web site for one of our products, 'BRAVO' above center.
Realized that I need to send press emails as RGB or the colours go awol. TOP DRAWER OLYMPIA 12th - 14th September. Pre Register for free entry to the show! ONWARDS & UPWARDS...let the night shift begin!

Garden Open

Delighted we were able to help the RLNI on Sunday & open our garden to over 100 keen gardeners (along with a dozen other Dartmouth gardens) & help raise £1400. It was the worst time for us to have to share our time with the garden in preparation these past few weeks, but a good excuse to keep it from turning into a wild jungle. Cleo the cat sneeks into every shot.  Note to self, must pick veg in the morning before courgettes turn into marrows!!

Gorgeous Dartmouth & Crab Fest

Nearly big enough to eat!!!

Ahoy Captain Harty

In between our work marathon to be ready for Top Drawer we had a little flurry of family & friends descend upon us. Kittys Godparents Emma Mawston (head of design at Liberty Fabric) & Mark Mawston (fantastic photographer) & my Brother. (Lovely Brother!!) We surfaced long enough to remember how lucky we are to live in this gorgeous place. We had fish & chips at the new 'Rock Fish' restaurant. Spot of crabbing on the Embankment while we waited for our table. Cooked you guessed.... fresh crab & lobster straight from the fishermans boat. Chugged up the river to Dittisham for a lovely lunch (More fish!!) at The Anchorstone Cafe (not to be missed)  after a spot more crabbing on the jetty. CRABTASTIC