Last week, I proofed the copy for the NOTHS Winter Gift Guide 2010 – and now, it’s just hit me that we’re in the last few weeks of preparation! Didn’t it just seem like 5 minutes ago that we were preparing for our Father’s Day feature in the Summer 2010 catalogue?

I know lots of my lovely fellow-NOTHS sellers are also in it and I’m getting excited to see find all our friends in the catalogue. I can’t wait for the Christmas orders to start flooding in (we’ve already had some, as early as August!).

How are everyone’s preparations going?

This is how I left my desk yesterday evening…approximately 200 Reindeer cards ready awaiting hand-cutting…

So, I had been planning to keep the shops open while I was away from the studio next week but dates have changed and I’ll now be away longer so have decided to set the shops to Holiday Mode.

It’s a hard decision as I’ve never closed the shops before but a week is a long time for customers to wait for their order to be dispatched. I’ll be making/packing/posting up until Saturday 4th September and will be away for the following week.

So, if you have events coming up and cards you’ve been planning on buying, please be aware that we’ll be unable to dispatch between 4th-11th September.

Busy busy week here! Not long left until my few days away and then once I get back to the studio, it’s not long then until the Winter Gift Guide is distributed!

Our Bestseller This Week: Plantable Christmas Reindeer Cards

Our Christmas orders are coming in already! We sold lots of little Reindeers and Family Reindeer Cards.  On a less-festive note, we’ve been selling lots of Birthday Butterflies too!

What We’ve Been Doing: We’ve been stocking up on Christmas cards this week and working on some cards for some lovely wholesale customers (more to follow about the special cards we’ve been making!)

Our Plans For Next Week: More Reindeers! And stocking up on our other cards ready for the start of the catalogue orders.

Shop Of The Week: The Green Gables www.thegreengables.co.uk

Gabrielle’s shop is gorgeous, full of stunning ethical products. My favourites have to be the paper heart bunting (see below!). It’s always lovely to meet handmade businesses that are run by people as nice as the products they make too

Hi Everyone!

Just wanted to give everyone a little notice concerning order dispatch dates in September. I’ll be away from the studio for a few days but I won’t be closing any of the shops. Cards can be purchased as usual but will be dispatched on my return.

If you have any Birthdays or Anniversaries coming up at the start of September and are planning to order a Ruby Wren Card, now is the time to do so Orders placed on and after Saturday 4th September will be despatched on my return the following weekend.

I always like blogging about the evolution of Ruby Wren as a small business, the daily challenges we face and plans we have. August is no exception when it comes to ‘challenges’. For a card business, August is quiet from Father’s Day until the run-up until Christmas, but, we have big plans for this Christmas!

Following the success of the Summer 2010 notonthehighstreet.com catalgoue, I immediately signed up for the Christmas Catalogue. Due to the volume of catalogues which will be distributed this winter, it was an expensive decision, but one I leaped at. At the time, it felt like Christmas was miles away and that I had plenty of time to prepare our Christmas range.

But, oh my, how quickly time has flown! With the first drop of the catalogue due at the very start of October, we only have 1 month left to prepare. It’s a daunting prospect. And, Ruby Wren will be taking a few days off in September, so that’s even less time left to prepare!

Is anyone else preparing for Christmas? How are your plans going?

I was really excited to receive an invitation to an Eco Enterprise Workshop on Thursday, hosted by Marks and Spencer. M&S are hugely successful with their Plan A campaign and they are a company which I have always admired for the way they do business, so I jumped at the opportunity to ‘learn from the best’. M&S are, in my opinion, one of Britains best businesses – something which I’ve believed for a long time. I remember at school, my Business Studies teacher using Marks and Spencer for case studies and good examples of “what you should do” and “how to be successful” in business, because she also believed that M&S is a national treasure in ‘Good Business’.

The workshop was hosted by Richard Gillies, Director of Plan A, CSR and Sustainable Business and was attended by five of the Prince’s Trust small businesses at the M&S Head Office in London. For those of you unaware, M&S’ Plan A begun in 2007 and featured 100 commitments concerning how they ran the company and it’s imact on the environment. The commitments fit into the following five pillars: Climate Change, Waste, Natural Resources, Fair Partner and Health and Well Being. As of March 2010, M&S announced that they had extended the original 100 commitments to 180 and added the pillars ‘Involve Customers in Plan A’ and ‘Make Plan A How We Do Business’.

M&S have already proved very successful with Plan A by reaching and achieving many of the commitments they set out with in 2007. Their goal is to become the world’s most sustainable retailer by 2015, carbon neutral and sending no waste to landfill by 2012. Impressive targets and I’m confident that given their previous success with Plan A they will succeed. If you want to learn more about Marks and Spencer’s Plan A and their commitments, they are doing all this very openly and in the public eye, so you can read all about it on the Plan A website: http://plana.marksandspencer.com.

The reason for my invitation was that as part of Plan A Fair Partner pillar, M&S works with many charities, organisations and community projects. They invited businesses from the Prince’s Trust Business Programme to learn about the good work that M&S are doing and how to apply green business practises to our own businesses. The five businesses that attended were all very varied with different products, sectors and business age. Ruby Wren Designs was the youngest compared to one (a business which provides recycling bins to offices and businesses) which began in 2001. Although we were all very different, we all agreed that we could make even small changes in our businesses to start making a difference.

Anyone familiar with Ruby Wren Designs knows what an eco-friendly business we are (all our products are made with 100% recycled and fair trade paper, packaged in biodegradable cellophane) so I’ve always felt that we were doing quite well for a very new small business. What inspired me most is something that Richard, the Director of Plan A, said about small changes – that if retailers start making it easy for customers to be more eco-friendly, it will escalate and others will follow. For example, he mentioned that all M&S clothing has been tested to wash at 30 degrees, so now customers are finding they can wash easily at 30degrees meaning washing powder and washing machine manufacturers are now having to follow suit to develop products that will also wash efficiently at 30. If we businesses are making small changes, such as demanding our office supplies are recycled, those other businesses are going to have to do their bit to provide us with that. Small changes will grow into big differences.

It was a very eye-opening and inspiring day. We hear a lot about how bad the current situation is and how bad it will get (the running out of oil and fossil fuels for example) but hearing the true reality of the planet’s future yesterday was incredibly scary. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so doomed about the state of the Earth. But, I believe, that if businesses starts thinking differently about the way they do business, and consumers think differently about their purchases and the companies which they are buying from, the small changes we make will soon add up and pave the way to making a difference. I think we all need to look at how we are living, what we are selling as a business and what we are buying as consumers, and start asking questions. How can we do things differently and what are the easy first things to change. We don’t all have the money to install solar panels, but we can all turn our appliances off standby…

Photo of M&S Waterside from www.e-architect.co.uk.

Ok, a little more than half way through 2010, but hasn’t time flown? Crazy to think that January was a whole 7 months ago! I remember blogging about the new website (and I still keep calling it ‘the new website’ because January seems like only last month to me!) and listing what I wanted to acheive in 2010.

Well, we’re now almost into August and I looked back at my blog post about New Year’s Resolutions to see how much I’d actually done. My goals were to improve my time-mangement, workspace, finances and health. A lot of you had similar aspirations when I asked back in January. So, how are you all doing?

With time-management, I’ve been keeping my computer switched off as much as possible – I’m sure my tweeting is noticably less also. Most of the big things are being done well in advance, such as planning/making for Christmas, but there are still the odd little jobs that I never seem to get done. I’m still proud that most my orders are dispatched on the same day that they’re placed, so I can’t be doing too badly!

My Workspace resolution is working out really well. At the start of the year I bought new storage (and then, even more storage) and everything is really organised. I have some amazing filing cabinet type units which keep small amounts of things I need each day…ready-folded and stamped card, packing envelopes, biodegradable cellophane etc. And everything else has been stored away in boxes or those fab sea-grass storage boxes that I love. Our garage is now turing into the ‘Ruby Wren Warehouse’  storing all my bulk-packaging materials…boxes of paper and envelope supplies are all piled up inside the house.

My resolution to be more organised with my finances is kind of ‘ok’. Unfortunately, I’ve had some work needed on my car but Business-wise, I’ve been shopping very smart. I’ve been buying in bulk, asking for discounts and making sure that I’ve got everything that I need before the last supplies run out. I’ve found a new packaging supplier which has made my life so much easier and credit accounts which make my cash flow much better.

The health resolution is probably the most successful so far this year. I’ve been eating well, getting lots of exercise and trying to get plenty of sleep (a difficult thing to do when the desire to get on top of orders is bigger than the desire to sleep).  Unfortunately, this has left me with clothes that are too big for me…a shopping trip will be on the horizon soon I’m sure. My weight has not really decreased and I’ve always had a healthy BMI, but I’ve noticed I’m much slimmer with more muscle and tone and I’m feeling much healthier. Considering what my health has been like over the last few years, I won’t divulge but I’m very proud of myself for being able to run like I never would have been able to this time last year. Thinking about doing a marathon is just being daft but I quite fancy doing some sort of run.

All in all, 2010 has had it’s ups and downs, but now 7 months in, I’m feeling quite content with where I am, right now. How about you guys?

Here in our little part of the world, Christmas has come early! The calendar of a Greeting Card business is always going to mean that we’ll be planning for special occasions months ahead of when you’ll be planning on buying cards for those occasions. Right now, I’m planning Christmas while the majority of the UK are probably thinking about summer holidays.

It seems a little surreal – while hand-cutting reindeers earlier, I found it hard not to hum ‘Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer’…and, in July, that might be considered a little bit strange to the outside world. But, I was so excited about my paper delivery this morning, I couldn’t wait to start on making for Christmas.

Ruby Wren has signed up for another of the Not On The High Street’s Catalogues. We’ll be featuring something special in the Winter and Christmas Gift Guides in October and November. After finding out how many cards we could expect to sell, it seems that starting work in July wasn’t soon enough! It’s a good job Ruby has amazing suppliers who got a huge batch of Christmas-themed goodies to me today so I can start making!

It’s really exciting to think that this is our first ‘proper’ Christmas. Last year, Ruby was still in the setting-up stages so I’m really excited to experience our ‘first’ Christmas.

It’s hard to believe how much things have developed over the last year. Last week I placed an order for a huge amount of paper – four times the amount of my last paper order. It just goes to show how things grow. I started off with a £10 paper order last year to make a few cards and kept reinvesting the profit. Now we’re investing in the Not On The High Street Gift Guides…and I’m sure other NOTHS partners will understand what a commitment that is. Little ideas do blossom

Here’s a quick snap of just part of my latest order…it didn’t stay packaged up for much longer after this was taken – I just couldn’t wait to get started!

Phew!!

Ruby Wren has just about finished with her Father’s Day orders for 2010. If you read previous blog posts or follow us on Twitter, you may have seen that we were in the notonthehighstreet.com Summer 2010 Catalogue.

It was amazing to be included and even more amazing to be making so many cards for customers (and their dads!). In the three weeks running up to Father’s Day, following the launch of the catalogue, I’ve not stopped hand cutting ‘Dad’ and ‘Daddy’ into Elephant Poo! What a brilliant response we had!

I’d like to thank everyone for their support over the last few weeks…despite the Summer Catalogue Campaign running until July, we featured our Father’s Day card so our work is about over for now that the ocassion is almost here. I was working upto 16hr days to keep up with demand, so I’ll be resting my very sore and blistered hands now that our orders are up-to-date and then getting started on Christmas! I already have some fab festive ideas and a few special things from our 2009 range will be coming back.

Wishing everyone and their Dads a great weekend! It’s really lovely to think that so many Dads will be receiving a special handmade Ruby card – it really means so much to me that so many people have chosen to send one of our cards, so heartwarming!

This week will be an exciting week for Ruby Wren Designs! We will be appearing in print for the first time – the notonthehighstreet.com Summer 2010 Catalogue! We’re so excited here at Ruby HQ!

Our first appearance features our handcut Father’s Day ‘Dad’ and ‘Daddy’ Cards! These are new for Spring/Summer 2010 and are feature our new handcut text effect. They’re quite painstaking to cut out so customers can be assured that they are giving something unique, which time has been spent making and a lot of love has been put into it. Unfortunately, this means a lot of work for Ruby Wren but we think it’s worthwhile!

You can see our cards in the ‘Finishing Touches’ section of the catalogue (page 39) next to the ordering instructions. Our friends at Coulson Macleod are also featured and you can check out their beautiful typography artwork on page 20.

Those clever people at NOTHS have also set up a virtual catalogue so you can view all those beautiful pages online here. To order your copy of the catalogue, which we fully recommend (full of gorgeous photos of gorgeous products!), please go to the order form here.

A little warning…receiving the catalogue and viewing all those goodies can have a negetive effect on your bank account