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Okay. I am a bit excited (and a bit nervous) to announce that after many hours of work, my online store RED INSTEAD handmade has reopened for business:

Yes, we have a new logo and a new look. The site has been completely overhauled, loads of new handcrafted items and all new photos of everything. I would LOVE you to have a look. There’s lots to see.

There are fabulous new paper mobiles, lots of great blank greeting cards, some nifty new tees and lots of wall art. Coming soon will be my handpainted ceramics and some great new jewellery.

This is the year of change and progress and happiness so Happy 2007 to you all. To help celebrate please use this coupon code MAKEOVER to receive 10% off your total order (must be $30 or more) from now right up until the end of February. Use the coupon as often as you like (once per order) and save yourself a bundle!

Thanks very much for your continued support and I hope you will join me in celebrating a fabulous new year for us all.

I know. It’s been a little while since I updated. In fact I haven’t posted to this blog ALL YEAR. Speaking of which, when we were little, my dad loved New Year’s Day. He got to say things like “Jenny, you stink! You haven’t had a shower ALL YEAR!” or before breakfast “I haven’t eaten ALL YEAR!”

Anyway really it’s only been a couple of weeks since my last post, but here I am with a quick update. Not a lot to say except that it is stinking hot and the fans are being put to good use. It’s still school holidays so every day I have a houseful of kids who aren’t allowed to go out into the sun and heat. After dinner every night, the two little ones strip off and run around the yard in the cool of the evening. They love to stand still and yell “I’m a tree! Water me!” when we water the garden - water restrictions permitting. We’ve even taken to showering with a bucket at our feet and tipping that water onto the garden.

Speaking of the weather, when we were away over Christmas / New Year, there was a massive hailstorm here in Canberra. It was almost a shame to miss it as it sounds so dramatic and exciting (and scary). I was living in Surry Hills, Sydney when the huge hailstorm hit about 8 (?) years ago so at least I know what I missed. Someone sent us some photos of the hail here - this is a pic of the carpark at the local shops in the next suburb:

Apparently that car and a few others were stuck fast in the ice as all the hailstones froze around it after falling. We saw photos in the local paper (mum kept them for me while we are away) that showed people shovelling huge massive piles of ice. Amazing stuff.

Back to the school holiday fun. Jack has been playing a game nearly every single day where he sits at a little table and calls out “toys for sale” or “super toy kmart open for business” etc. Then one of us has to go and sit down and buy a toy that is on sale. He always makes sure to tell us, “it’s just a game, okay, remember - you don’t really get to keep it, okay remember, alright?”

In the photo above, you can see head cashier Shopkeeper Jack. Please notice the (toy) mobile phone, calculator borrowed from dad, (play) money tray and cash box. His most loyal customer is little sister Emma.

Sometimes she “forgets” that she didn’t really buy the toys though and runs off with them laughing to taunt Jack. Also notice in the photo above that Jack has used paper and sticky tape to make one of those scrolling things they use to move your items along at the grocery store. Toys get placed on here by the customer and then Shopkeeper Jack slides them along the scrolling thing and puts the sale through.

How good is all that? I love it!

Big news is that Emma is now toilet trained - she is still in night nappies but totally fine with toileting during the day. It was very quick and easy really and she loves wearing big girl’s undies. Well done Emma!

Sam, 14, is of course a bored teenager with nothing to do in the holidays except bug me for ideas, none of which he likes. When not bored and boring, he has been playing too much PlayStation and still writing his movie. Yep, that’s right. He even has the merchandising tie-ins all worked out. He is also still busy teaching himself Japanese. Did I mention he has Aspergers?

And what have I been up to? Working on some bag orders, hanging out with the kids, sweltering in the heat, tidying up messes, and most exciting of all - a huge makeover of my shop sites. I have got the Red Instead site offline at the moment while I work like a crazy person behind the scenes. I decided to do a major redesign, upgrade my shopping cart program to the newest version. I use and totally recommend ZenCart - it rocks! And it’s even free! I also thought it was high time to rethink my product lines… and basically change everything. It has been a lot of work but it will be worth it.

I think that I have got the shop design and implementation all sorted and now I am rephotographing some products and working on other new lines. I am very excited about all this and of course, you will hear about it here once it is all finished and open for business again. Once it is all done, I will give this blog a bit of a mini-makeover to match.

So busy busy busy… off to do a bit more.