Changes ahead

March and April have come and gone since I last wrote anything here. A blur of wind, rain and chills.
But forget all that, we are off to sunnier climes very soon.
One of these beautiful old houses looking out over the sea at Antibes on the French Riviera is going to be our home for a week, along with our extended family, including the youngest member who is already getting into the part with his sun hat and cool shades. It's been less than a year since we were there last year but I can't wait. Love it.

And then when we come home we have a lot of interesting work challenges ahead as major changes are going to made to our little cottage in the form of some serious building work - the kind where some people would consider moving out for a few months while the builders move in. Except we won't just be living amongst it, we'll be trying to work in the midst of it too.
More about that later.

Not too long to go until Gardening Scotland rolls round again too. That's our first big event of the year - it seems such a long time since Christmas.

Covering Scotland

I'm quite proud of this. I was intending to update the list of stockists on our website, which meant laboriously typing out each name and address - and there are rather a lot now - when I thought I could maybe make a map showing where they all are.
Google's great. One quick question how I could do it, and there it was. Very easy.
Not only do I have all the shops, galleries and garden centres which stock our cards on the map but you can click on them to see their address, opening hours, website etc. Very clever Google.
This pic is just a screen shot. If you want the interactive map just click here
http://www.embroideredoriginals.co.uk/stockists-in-scotland-c-175.html?zenid=982e988877a55c53175171367ef1c021
Have a go and see if there is a stockist near you. ( Sorry if you are in England, no shops there yet. On the other hand if you are in San Francisco, Toronto or Vancouver then you're in luck! Contact me for details!)

I've Been Updating THe Website!!!

Hooray - I've finally found a spare hour or two to put our new card designs on to the website. There are LOADS of them - Scottish birthday, Engagement, Mother's Day, Wedding and more to come.

Here are just some....

Post Valentine's Day

Good morning from sunny Fife. Phew! That's all I can say. Since the beginning of the year we've been drowning in a sea of tartan hearts - tiny ones, middle sized, long ones, fat ones - most, thankfully, cut out for us by our laser cutter and all destined to grace the front of our Valentine cards.
We wore out one ink jet printer and used up all our red fabric paint.
Scottish Valentine cards found their way to US Canada Australia Finland Ireland to name but a few and my late nights stretched to a record breaking 3.45am.
But that's it for another year. I hope we managed to add to the romantic Scots and expats' valentine experience!
As for us - a posh meal(at home), nice bottle of wine, decadent pud, box of chocs and a set of bellows comprised our Valentine's evening. Whoa - what? Bellows? Don't ask....
So now our sights are set on Mother's Day. It's early this year, March 10th so better get on.

Adding some Summer colour

It has been amazingly Spring like the past day or two - so much so that as soon as the Christmas tree came down I replaced it with a big vase of tulips. Wishful thinking maybe.
So I thought I'd share a bit of summer in the beautiful floral designs produced by Laura Mysak, my talented daughter.
You can see a whole collection of her work here
http://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/lauram

Happy New Year

With the very best of wishes for a happy and healthy 2013 to you all from all here at Embroidered Originals.
We are enjoying a few days of happy family down time with a visit from a special little honorary Scot in his Mitchell tartan kilt.
A bracing walk along the beach yesterday to see the last sunset of the old year from the pier at Lower Largo, after a basket of chips and a pint in the Crusoe Hotel.