No Batteries Required...

Today I read an article in Toy News that said that 44% of children play outside, this is an increase over the last 2 years. Whilst this is promising, in my opinion its still not enough!
Gone are the times when we as children used to disappear all day on our bikes with a bottle of pop and some sandwiches and only come home for tea. I know that society doesn't feel safe enough to let our children do that but I do feel as responsible parents we should encourage our children to play out doors whenever and weather permitting as much as possible.
After school this afternoon I commented to my hubby that whilst my son loves to play on his DS or Wii when its wet in the nice weather he actually needs nothing more than a stick and a stone as he will play outside making up games and digging, climbing and generally running around the garden, the cost of this ...nil, no initial cost, no electricity and no batteries required.

Your Votes are Needed, Pretty Please

This blog post is a bit of a begging post, Knot Just Jigs have been nominated in the Best Children's Party Supplier catagory in the "Whats on for Little Ones" Awards sponsered by Konfidence.
To get nominated you had to have 5 seperate nominations from customers which then gets you into the next round which is a public vote! This is where you guys, my friends, customers and supporters come in WE NEED YOUR VOTES !

Just click this  Whats on for Little ones link and scroll down to to the next to bottom catagory, its really easy to do. Thanking you so much in advance of you vote, we will be keeping our fingers and toes crossed!

30 Day Blog Challenge, can I do it ?

I can talk for England and I can probably come up with enough subjects to cover a 30 day challenge but have to be honest I get bored very easily. I really really need to get my bum in gear so I am going to take up the blogging 30 day challenge of April.

I know I should blog more not only to keep my friends and customers up to date with things but also its good for the seo of my website, something I have got to work very hard on now as I have had to start back at the beginning since my "Old" website is no longer, if you want a nosey at our new website (waiting for our designer to refurb) we can be still be found at www.knotjustjigs.co.uk.

I apologise in advance of my blog posts but in the name of seo here I go .....

scheduling, do you do it?

It feels like an absolute age since my last blog post, my apologies. I always have lots of good intentions of keeping it up to date, I even have a list of subject post I would love to write but sadly I never get around to it as I am always playing catch up with my website up-keep, orders and general family goings on. I have just found a "schedule" tab on my blogger template, so what I might try and do is dedicate a day a month writing all the things I have been planing and then schedule them to come out periodically! Being a total techie I am not sure if this will pan out but hey ho we an give it a go!
Do you schedule your blog posts, tweets, face book updates ? if so does it work well for you and what bits of advice would give ?

I just wanted to share some great blog images I came across whilst googling "blog images"

 

Craft Fairs and Rain :(

Its seems as though the past few Craft Fairs we have attended have all been spooked by the weather its either been rain, wind or even worse BOTH! On Sunday setting up at Hickling Country Fair it started to feel that we were on the set of the Addams family and we had a bit black cloud following us, that was until the damp wet camaraderie of the Craft marquee made us all smile....if you can't have the flying gymnasts and the marching band in the outside arena then what should we do ? bring it all inside! Customers had more or less finished their shopping in the craft tent so we cleared the aisles and set up "stage"

Our best sellers of the show were our traditional rag dolls and pop guns! it seems you only have to sell one and all the other children hear it and want one too !

Is that the time ?

Well its been a while since I blogged, I have added "write a blog article" to my to do list every week, I even added it to my New Years resolution list but sadly it has been pushed way down on my list.
A quick update about whats been happening since I last blogged, well the snow/weather made life pretty difficult for our packed diary of craft events during November and December, lots were cancelled including the prestigious Lincoln Christmas Market which left myself and a lot of stallholders in a difficult financial position. Our saving grace came in the form of a stand in Nottingham's Victoria Centre, expensive, hard work but a huge learning curve!
We have broken into craft fairs gently with one in Feb, which actually turned out to be great and the weather was positively Spring like and one last weekend which was OK but bitterly cold and very wet.
I have been sewing but sadly not as much as I would like but as our contract at the Victoria Centre is coming to an end I hope to concentrate on this a little more.
I have added some lovely photographs of our stand at Victoria Centre, I hope you like them as much as me, to say I am very proud of our achievement is an understatement!