Saturday, September 18, 2010

Been a while





I know, it's been a while since we've blogged (bad Karin!) but for those of you who are following us on facebook you'll see that we've been busy. We've started accepting custom orders, have uploaded stock which is for sale and shared Steve's newest creations 'Pixie Doors' with the world. (I must admit I love the Pixie doors so much I almost couldn't bring myself to share them!)

Here are some photos of the Pixie Doors! (Thanks to Anabelle for posing to show scale)

Sunday, August 22, 2010

captured on film


Last night our daughter left out house Fairies a small cup of milk and a tea bag. We set up a camera and caught this Fairy peeking out it's door. It also left Anabelle a small note which said: 'Dear Anabelle. The tea bag and milk you left us was wonderful. Love the Fairies. PS - We also like bread and honey.'

Anabelle was very pleased...

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Saturday, July 31, 2010

Starting a story.. part 1


Hi there. Today we decided that we would use our blog to share the lessons we are learning through this journey to business. Not only is journaling therapeutic, but maybe our story will be of use to some of our readers.

A bit of background. Where did imagination doors come from? Well the first idea was for a little fairy garden party. Steve set up some small pieces of wood to look like a picnic table and chairs. When our daughters came home that day they were thrilled to hear that fairies were living in our garden. Steve then came up with the idea to make a wee door and our daughters loved it. We made one for a friend and then another and then another. Based on the feedback and requests for doors, we decided to just give it a go and see if we could start a small home business.
We started this blog, then the facebook group, contacted a local paper and the interest in the doors has been steadily growing. We have 66 followers on facebook. We are actively learning what it takes to get a business off the ground and we thought we could use this blog to share what we are learning. So armed with a book or two, the internet and some very generous and helpful friends we are fumbling our way towards a proper little business.

Today's lesson: Pricing.
The hardest thing to work out is what to price the doors for. Sure we can project the overheads and other costs, add in labour but then there is also the question of what people will pay. It might not be what we'll need to charge. I've tried a facebook marketing survey but it didn't work very well. I'll be trying again once I've identified a better programme to use. But the lesson today was thanks to Jake who suggested we do a quick internet search for pricing formulas. (I love the internet). Within minutes I found some formulas which will help us with setting costs. We still need to go back over our total projected costs (overhead, administration time, etc) but this will definitely be helpful a bit later down the road. In a nutshell the way you price is (labour + materials) x2 for wholesale. wholesalex2 for retail. This sounds like a lot, but clearly there is a danger that crafty people will undersell their products. I would like to avoid that for obvious reasons. There is still so much to think about and make decisions about. How best to market the doors, where to sell them, how to sell them....

So stay tuned for more lessons learned by Karin and Steve, fumbling towards business....

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Saturday, July 24, 2010

A little bird told me...


this one will appear in Titahi Bay somewhere..