Littlemummy.Com

……………………………………
Don’t forget to sign up for the VIP list (right-hand column), £75 of Blurb vouchers coming up.

We had a lovely day yesterday, we decorated our christmas tree, matching colours have given way to an eclectic mix of decorations since Erin came along. This is the first year she’s shown an interest in the christmas tree and was surprisingly helpful.

Afterwards we went out for some lunch and then headed for the Winter Wonderland in Edinburgh. We saw the ice skaters, had a ride on the teacups, and bought some decorations and candles. The day was rounded of with sweets for Erin, donuts and chocolate sauce for me and belgian waffle for my husband (it was his birthday too). I’m well and truly in the christmas spirit now

I can’t bring myself to mention the ‘c’ phrase, which relates to money and the economy. We’re all suffering, even the rich folks are losing equity, shame. We have to find ways to cut the proverbial cloth, and if you don’t fancy partaking in Britain’s favourite thrifty pastime, a clothes swapping party is a fair alternative.

We held our own ’swap party’ a couple of weeks ago. A few family members, a couple (read half dozen) bottles of cheap plonk, and some knock down party food from the other dirty word (Tesco) plus a few binliners of, ahem, quality garments (open to interpretation) and you’re good to go.

There are a few different styles you can adopt.

The Catwalk Stylee

Clothes are presented and guests try on outfits, the rest of the group can provide feedback and whoever suits the clothes best get to keep them.

The Boot Sale Stylee

Clothes are thrown onto tables in no particular fashion, distribution is a free-for-all, biting and kicking is discouraged.

The Auction Stylee

The owner presents each item in turn, describing its merits. Guests are invited to ‘bid’ on items, this can be done with vouchers or simply presenting a good enough reason why they are deserving of the item.

Ours was a huge success, I bagged a pile of, actually, very good quality clothes for the winter and saved myself perhaps a couple of hundred pounds. A few drinks, a bit of girly chat, all in all a very pleasant eveining of thrifty entertainment.

I was born, and spent my early childhood in Swansea (South Wales). On a recent visit I visited two places I’ve never been before.

Swansea, Mumbles and the Gower is enjoying huge amounts of regeneration at the moment, the old Morfa Stadiwm (where I use to train) has been replaced by the shiny Liberty Stadium, home to the Ospreys and The Swans. SA1 is a swanky new dockside development akin to our own Leith area in Edinburgh, and the leisure centre which was closed because of asbetos has been replaced by LC2.

The shape and structure of LC2 is much the same as before with, almost complete glass at the pool end displaying the huge flumes and enticing everyone in. Here’s a video of of the building of LC2.

The LC2 has plenty of facilities including an indoor surfing ride, a climbing wall and kids play area. We visited the pool, which was a lot of fun, our favourites were the rubber ring flume and the dark flume which is very slim and pitch black!

Our second never-before-visited-place was the Gower Heritage Centre, it reminded me a lot of East Links which we visited this time last year, and thoroughly enjoyed. Our entrance was free as we went with family who had an annual family pass which was shockingly good value at £25! The centre includes local heritage attractions including a world war exhibit, woolen mill and traditional cider making. There was a picnic area, cafe, toy tractors to play on, an excellent play park, animals (including ducks, rabbits and guinea pigs) as well as a free puppet show. For a small fee there are various craft workshops as well as pottery (which we enjoyed, only £2.50). The heritage centre has a really authentic and friendly feel to it, a real asset to the area. We’ll definitely go back.

There’s a lot of chitter chatter around the blogosphere about thanksgiving, giving thanks to family, friends, god etc…

Well I’ve caught the bug and I wanted to highlight a group of women who have been raising money for good causes in their local area for twelve years. The Baywood Belles is a good old-fashioned concert party based in Swansea, they entertain by singing, dancing and doing sketches at nursing homes as well as holding full blown concerts to raise money for their specially chosen good causes. Don’t get me wrong this isn’t just a charity thing these ladies have a crazy time together, you only need to see some of their shows to see they’re having a blast. They have drunken annual trips away and a rumour has it a reasonable portion of their rehearsal time is spent gossiping!

They’ve worked really hard over the past year, fundraising, finding a new rehearsal venue as well as producung their best sketches yet - chitty chitty bang bang and ‘bellesque’. They’ve featured in their local media and have become like celebs on the nursing home scene! AND they now have an online presence, their website has just launched and looks amazing, there are loads of pictures as well as a short piece on each member. Please go and check it out, and please sign the guestbook, they deserve the support, Christmas can be a lonely time for the elderly but one afternoon’s entertainment from the Baywood Belle’s is enough to cheer anyone up.

Thanks Baywood Belles - we need more of you

I’m chilling back this afternoon, I bought a couple of final christmas presents online and bought the christmas paraphernalia (extra decorations, wrapping paper, ribbon, tags..). I’m hoping that I can now relax(!) and enjoy December, wrapping, decorating and doing crafts

Before I head off to dig the christmas tree out, I wanted to give you one little christmas present idea. My sister in law bought me Snow Flower and the Secret Fan a while back, it sat in my draw getting dusty, you know, one of those things you mean to get round too but never quite get there. I don’t know what made me pick it up, I guess I was just in a reading mood. It didn’t take me long to become completely absorbed by the story of Snow Flower, her childhood in a patriarchal household in rural China, born a girl she was considered worthless until a twist fate sent her on a path to fortune and privilege. This is a fictional novel but provides a rich and accurate picture of how life was, it covers foot-binding as well as the ancient women’s writing Nu Shu. I read the whole novel in two days and it brought tears to my eyes, more than once. I’d highly recommend you read this, or buy it for someone close to you this christmas (I recommend doing both!)

This is one of the best books I’ve ever read, I had that sinking feeling when it was finished.

Has anyonelse read Snowflower and the Secret Fan?

Today I realised something simple which may change my blogging in the future.

Over the past two and a half years I have continually failed to leverage every opportunity. If you want to blog for more than just fun you need to make the most of every post, every opportunity, every email…

Read the rest…

A few weeks ago I was sent a couple of bottles of ‘Mile High’ to test, and yes, the name raised a few smiles in our highly childish household.

Mile High was originally formulated for air pilots and flight attendants (hence the name) but was so popular it has now been released for the rest of us. It is recommended for use “after a long flight, a tiring and difficult week in work or a night-shift”

“a tiring and difficult week”

Excellent! Plenty of opportunity for me to test run it then.

It just so happened that the week it arrived I was working until 11pm and then we were travelling directly to Wales. About a third of the way through the journey I grabbed the bottle (feeling quite pleased that my ‘freebie juice’ was gonna save me a fair few pennies at the services, well, have you not heard of the credit crunch?, of course you have, we’ve all heard of the bloody credit crunch…sorry…that’s a seperate rant…back to Mile High), so I grabbed a bottle and read the back, “red grape and cherry”, love cherries and grapes, should be fine, “aloe vera and ginger”, hmmm for a facial and a stir fry yeah, but a drink? I took a swig.

I’m disappointed to say that I didn’t like it. It was a strong and unusual taste, I wanted to try more to see if it had the desired ‘pepping up’ effect, but I couldn’t, I REALLY wasn’t keen on the flavour. I offered it to my husband, he likes powerade, lucozade and all manner of other ades, he would surely enjoy some mile high (hee hee), nope, he didn’t like it either, nor my relatives, although one said they weren’t as offended and described it as an “acquired taste”.

Thanks for the opportunity Mile High, but I’m afraid this one wasn’t for us. Although I loved the packaging and the fancy metal business card, very swanky

Fiona has kindly offered to share her experiences launching and expanding her business Wallstory Murals

Q1. Give a brief description of your business and how you came up with the name.

I design, illustrate and produce Paint By Number Children’s Mural Designs for parents to paint themselves. I don’t know how I thought of the name, I think it just came to me. Murals are on the wall, and they tell a story as simple as that. It had a nice ring to it too

Q2. How did you come up with the idea behind Wallstory Murals?

I am a graphic designer by trade, and I worked in the design and advertising industry for many years. After 11 years of trying for a baby, my son Callan came along thanks to IVF. Two years later Briony came into the picture- thankfully quite naturally (saving us a fortune)
After waiting such a long time for a baby, I wanted to spend every minute that I could with him so I decided to give up work. I have an intense need to be creative, and as they kids got a little less demanding, I began painting murals for friends as an outlet for my creativity. This progressed to a small mural painting business that kept me creatively satisfied for a few years.
During this time I realized that most people are not lucky enough to be able to afford the luxury of a professional mural artist to a paint mural for their children room, so I started looking at what DIY mural products there were available to help keen DIY parents. This led me to create my first website ‘Murals For Kids Rooms’ where I found ideas and resources for creating children’s murals and children’s wall art.

I cut my website teeth on this site, and when we moved to France, I needed something I could work on at home to earn some money. It was a natural step from an information site to a webstore. I created a DIY mural shop ‘The Magic Mural Factory’ which sells all manner of DIY mural products from Sticker Murals to Cloud Painting Kits and Paint By Number Murals.
My suppliers are all USA based as are the majority of my buyers. This shop also gave me an idea of what was popular and what sold the best. I found that my biggest sellers were the paint by number murals, and as I couldn’t find anything similar in the UK I decided to produce my own range of paint by number murals designs for the UK market.
Wallstory Murals was born.

Q3. Did you have any start-up costs, if so how did you raise the finance?

Start up costs were minimal as I do all the designing, illustrating, website design and management. It was just my time rather than any money that was required. As the orders come in I put the money back into the business by printing up extra murals for stock.

Q4. Do you employ staff or do you do all the work yourself?

At the moment I do just about everything myself but I do employ a lovely lady in the USA where the murals are printed. She does all my packing and shipping. I will shortly be using UK based printers to produce the designs and will then have to find another reliable packer and shipper person to help me there.

Q5. How many hours a week do you spend on your business?

Every minute I can find is spent on Wallstory Murals. I juggle the kids, housework and everything else that goes with being a mother. This means that I sometimes work late at night when the kids are in bed and the house is quiet and peaceful. I’m not a good morning person otherwise I’d be up at the crack of dawn working before everyone got up.

Q6. How do you manage your childcare?

As I work from my little office at home, I am always here for the kids, so it’s not a problem. They are now 11 years old and 9 years old, so they are getting a lot more independent and can even make me a cup of tea. My husband is very supportive and will take the kids out or off shopping when I need extra time.

Q7. What strengths do you think it takes to run a successful business?

You have to be like a little terrier dog. Never let go, keep at it pulling, pushing, shaking, growling determined to get that bone even when the other dog is much bigger than you you just have to keep trying. If you don’t have much money then you have to be even more determined. Learn to do everything yourself, and when a bit of money comes in, you can start to delegate and get some help in. I’m still at the push, pull, shake, growl stage and I’m not letting go until I can pay someone to help me.

Q8. What have been your most successful marketing strategies?

It’s still early days for my own paint by number mural designs, so my website has been my sole marketing platform. This has taken up all of my time and has been an enormous and frustrating learning curve, but I am getting there. I didn’t have any spare cash to pay for expensive ‘pay per click’ advertising on Google, but I have still managed to get my sites on page one on the listings for DIY children’s murals and other specific search phrases. There are other harder search terms that I’m working on, and that’s an ongoing battle and a much bigger bone.

I am in the process of marketing my designs to various child product related catalogue distributers in the UK and that will be the first non website marketing I do. A small local marketing company have taken on this challenge to market and distribute the designs for me, so I’m crossing all my finger for some results from that.

I plan to save some of my profits to exhibit at baby and décor related shows in the future, but I will definitely need more money and help there. I’ll be looking for other people who have done this form of marketing and see what information I can glean from them

Q9. And finally, do you have any advice for parents considering starting their own business.

I’d say do it, but be passionate about your idea. You need to live, sleep and breathe your work. Don’t underestimate the work you will need to do. Start small. If you have very young children, start it as a hobby, test the waters and see if there is a niche for you to fill.
Work on it an hour here and there as that is probably all you’re going to get until they are a bit older. Learn all you can about accounting, tax , marketing and the internet. Find out and what help is available to you through local business links to get you started. As you children get older, you will then have a good grounding to start really pushing your idea.
Start writing a blog. Blogging is a great way to ‘meet’ other like minded people. It’s also an excellent way to get onto the internet as blogs are easy to learn to use and have great visibility in google searches. Comment on other peoples blogs, make friends with others who have been doing it for a while, and you’ll be surprised at how willing people are to share their knowledge for free.
Enjoy what you do. Make you hobby your business, and when the kids are at school you are free to really get your teeth into your business.

I would be the first to admit that I am guilty of not sticking to my own rule, but try and stop working when the kids get home. Be strict about your ‘knock off’ time and make time for them. It’s very tempting to keep working when your office is at home and you love what you do. Pretend you work in an office and have to catch a train home. Be there for your children. That is after all why we want to work from home.

Please go and visit my site Wallstory Murals and please feel free to comment and find children’s mural ideas on my blog.
If you need some more ideas for children’s murals please visit my site or other website

Hello loyal subscribers,

I’ve been receiving increasing offers of freebies, voucher codes etc… I know, it’s a hard life
I’ve decided to set up a VIP list to give away prizes, promote products and publicise voucher codes. Become a VIP by visiting the site and completing the sign up form in the right hand column, your details will not be passed on and you can unsubscribe anytime, you know, if for some strange reason you didn’t want freebies anymore?! Simple, no catch. Get on the VIP list now :), takes me back to my clubbing days saying that hee hee…