For those of you who have been following the saga over the last few years… ermmm… there have been some changes.

Following the really sill offer of £20,000 less than the asking price they offered £12,000 less as their final offer… errr, no, me thinks not accepted.  It then got interesting because we got an offer for the full asking price… great… you might be thinking… but err no.

A and I had had a long discussion about what we should be doing and we had decided that we definitely wanted to go down the buy to let route ourselves.  By the time the mortgage was sorted we should be debt free in 6 months, and still be on the property ladder.  Not only on the property ladder but in Aldershot which was one of the places in the country identified by Location Location Location as a good place to invest.

The long and the short of it is, that we declined the full price offer.  They then came back the following day saying they would offer more than the asking price… and we still said no.

Now… the only problem with all this is proving that I am who I say I am.  My passport has expires, my driving licence is in my maiden name and my wedding certificate is over 6 months old so doesn’t count.

So next weekend I have to get into London for 9.30… arrgggggg….. but at least it will all then be sorted… and the good news is that the letting agent already thinks they have someone to rent the place, how cool is that

See ya soon

Julie

I've had a eureka moment.....

...I mentioned earlier on in the week that I had been mulling over what my branding is and not getting very far with it. I was saying my peacock beads sell, the tree and aquarium beads have opened avenues to sell the beads, yet people know me for my flowers.

I really didnt know what to do because I'm so aware that having a recognisable brand is what gets you sales.

I was hunting around to make sure that the links to the website were working from other peoples sites as a large number of people come to the site via these links. On the UK Beaders website there is a link to lampwork suppliers and I was checking to see if my name had been added... and it was... but next to it was how Kitsch Kitty had percieved my work.... and now I see it, it is sooooo simple.

I create lampwork jewellery inspired by nature... now how easy and simple was that... lol

Now I can work out my branding and be happy. Thank you Kitsch Kitty

Julie

First of all I would like to say a big thank you to Caroline Hannon who yesterday nominated me for a you make my day award. Thank you... and err... now I have to go and network to find people I would like to say thank you to... I need to find some friends... lol. I will pass it forward to 5 people I just need to work out who they will be...

One of my regular mullings is about how to make my work better known... and ultimately get sales. In my own head I've moved from hobbiest to professional and I've been suprised by the change of mindset I need to have.

I would describe myself as a lampworker with ADHD... well may be the attention stuff... not so sure about the hyperactivity. As a hobbiest that means that I can make whatever I like when I like, I havent had to worry about selling.

Now as I think about selling I realise because I've tried so many different things its hard to see a brand, and at the end of the day its the brand that sells. For example when I think of Manda at Mango Beads I think of silver cores and well made organics, when I think of Caroline at Crafted Gems I think of bead sets which are great for jewellery, and when I think of Claire at Rowanberry Art Glass I think of fantastic focals....err... and loadsa tree beads.

So what is my brand... well its clear that its my peacock beads which sell the best by a long way, its my tree beads and aquarium beads which have opened doors to new avenues of selling but its my flower beads that people think of when they think of me.

So thats a style but what about a soul. I know that I would like to make jewellery and art beads that reflects my faith, that is honouring to God. So what does that mean... at the moment I'm not too sure... but watch this space and I'm sure it will make itself clear.

Thanx for reading

Julie

I've not had an Etsy shop going that long but I decided that it was worth giving the showcase option a go. Basically £3.50 for a days worth of advertising.

Apparently there are two advantages... you get more people to notice you so you become peoples favorite sellers and it might boost your sales. Well within 4 hours of my 24 hour period I had a sale and a handful of people who love me as a seller... how cool is that... I am now an etsy seller... lol

These are the beads that sold

See ya soon

Julie

For those of you who are not aware I'm going for the record on how long it takes to sell a flat... we're currently on 4 and a half years with 4 buyers pulling out at the last minute.   Quite an achievement I think.

I went back to the flat for the first time today since the non-paying lodgers moved out.   Oh my, its in a mess.   So I guess me and my paint roller will be getting to know each other... I sooooo don't like that job... but I need to cover when someone has drawn on the wall, someone has painted black board paint on the wall... and as for the random cupboard that were put up and removed... it looks like the wall has chicken pox.

And the question is... how do you forward important post to people, when you dont know thier address?   The pile of post in the flat was so high it is silly and from the look of the outside of the envelopes I think one of them has just got points on their driving licence and I guess a fine... but they wont know about it becuase the letters have gone to my flat... so the question is what do I do.   The evil part of me has one idea and the moral part of me says I need to find a way to forward it to them.

Anyway...we've dropped the price of the flat... the estates agents are now in a race with the finacial advisor.   The estate agent wins if they find a buyer before the buy to let mortgage comes through... but what ever way the estate agent wins if we let it out through them...

See ya soon... and lets hope this saga is coming to an end.

Julie

Notoriously I hate Valentines day.   I was the kid at school who the   girls played tricks on to give me Valentines cards to because they thought it would be funny to see the fat girl think that someone liked her.

But today has been something fantastic.   I hadn't remembered it was coming and had arranged for a financial adviser to meet us at hoome.   When I told A the date his face dropped and it was only then I realised my mistake.   He had been planning on how to treat me for a few weeks.

I nearly put pay to his plans again, as I was off sick yesterday.   You are going to work tomorrow he asked me.   Normally when I'm sick he wants me to make sure I take enough time off as I often go back too early.   I'm really glad I did go back because around lunchtime a fabulous bouquet of 12 red roses arrived, much envied by my collegues.

On getting home he had also prepared a romantic meal, with candles and soft music.   A lovely, lovely day.

Catch up with you soon

Julie

Appart from spending a lot of time in bed asleep today with some kinda bug, I'm convinced that my computer is out to make life as difficult as possible for me today.  Instead of having a programme called internet explorer, its more like internet freeze on one page, and there are some pages you just dont want to be stuck with.  Before any minds go wandering, it was disturbing to be on a page with an advert shouting out that what I really want to eat is takeaway... today I don't, I'm already feeling sick without greasy food.

It seems to have had a personal favorite today of freezing when I've been trying to put new items on the website.  It was very happy for me to put in the title, Pandora and Silver Core Beads, but beyond that it decided that I wasn't allowed any products... stoopid machine.

I've been getting regular error messages that Skype was the problem.  So having had enough, it was time to remove Skype.  Only to discover that apparently I dont have the admin clearance... but I'm the administrator... doh.   Unfortunately my techy DH was unable to help either, so I still have Skype and have no idea when the computer is next gonna freeze.

So hopefully see ya all soon

Julie

Re-vamping this website has taken far longer than I expected or planned.   Mainly because I wanted the software to to things which its not programmed to do... me, I have to be awkward hey.

As you'll see there are beads in each of the sections and I hope that Galaxy Frit will be up and running in the next few days.

Its been really interesting this revamping business because it's made me look at all the stuff I've had hoarding on my desk.   Needless to say there are loads of old beads and stuff, orphans and some of my earlier sets which have just been hanging around.   Over the next few weeks I'm going to go through these and probably add them to my Etsy shop http://www.juliemerrett.etsy.com

Thank you for your interest in my work, over the next few weeks I'll be showing you some of the ideas I've been working with and have great fun with.

Thank you for your interest.

Julie

I've now spent the last 2 days more or less permanently attached to this computer.   I had forgotten how much work goes in to setting up a new website, which is effectively what I've done.

My plan is that I will be able to complete the majority of the website today and then repost the items for sale tommorrow.   The plan is that there will be new beads listed on Monday afternoons from here on in. So don't forget to check out the new listings.

I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone while the site has been down/   Starting my website from scratch wouldn't have been my first choice but I couldn't see a long term solution to the problems.     My hope is that over the next few weeks, those posts which would benefit from coming from the old site will appear here so that information is not lost.

See you soon

Julie

For a while I have been using different software for the shop part of my website to the rest of the site.   Unfortunately the shop cart decided to stop working with pay pal which meant I was able to see who had been visiting, unfortuately they were unable to buy anything through the website.

So welcome to the new look juliemerrett.co.uk.   Hopefully it wont look too different, but should be more user friendly, and have a shopping cart that works.

Any comments would be most gratefully recieved.

I look forward to getting to know new faces and hope the changes wont   put off old friends.

Julie