#nofrillsfriday 04 - a week of meetings and making

This week has been 50/50 between meetings and making.  We started the week off meeting some local makers who are part of our Etsy Team - Birmingham Originals - and as it was the first time we'd all met we made sure there was lots of coffee, tea and pastries.  Yum!  One maker also brought along her whippet puppy who was BEAUTIFUL albeit a little unsure of Louis who was terribly overexcited by everything.

We spent our time plotting what we want to do for our Etsy Craft Party which will be happening on June 6th 2015 - location TBC, which was part of what our meeting was about!  Lots of ideas, enthusiasm, suggestions and more ideas.  Excitingness! 

The remainder of the week has seen us doing a lot of frantic design work for a secret project which we can't yet reveal (but will be shouting about as soon as we can!) and taking the opportunity to add to our existing range...

Dogs in progress! All drawn up ready for digitisation and laser action! #folksywip #illustration #madeinbrum #jq

A photo posted by Ada & Kirsty (@frillyind) on

Louis is often looked after by our lovely friend Chloe, who has a sometimes-grumpy Beagle called Cassie, and an always-happy-to-see-you Bassett Hound called Molly.  Louis gets along with them both fabulously, and they proved to be perfect inspiration to begin developing our Frilly Menagerie range. [coming soon to an online shop near you soon.. eg. on here, as soon as they're photographed properly!]

Test! Our first one! #seamansayings #necklace #nautical #refusetosink #handmade #folksywip

A video posted by Ada & Kirsty (@frillyind) on

We also played around with the proper beginnings of our Frilly Feminists line which we plan on launching at the Bust Craftacular in London in May.  We've got a wonky Hermione hidden away upstairs, but before we get round to fixing her, Kirsty began work on a Joseph Gordon Levitt (renowned feminist!) and a Ryan Gosling (Hey Girl..) that just kind of looks a bit chunky in the neck region. We can't work out why, or how to fix him (if at all?!) just yet - but we know there's something not quite right about him.  He's a definite work-in-progress.   JGL is spot on though, and we're loving his dapper striped tie!

Kirsty also decided to expand her Instagramming to include a short video which is likely to make you feel slightly nauseous - especially if you're a passenger in a moving vehicle when you watch it.  SO.  MUCH.  SWAYING.  These will become additions to our Seaman Sayings BEFORE we do the Spring Market at the Bond in Birmingham.  Deadlines ahoy!

Other fun-ness this week:

  • Adrienne & Lee had a night off from looking after Louis and went to see Cirque Eloize do Cirkopolis at Birmingham Hippodrome which they both agreed was amazing. (Adrienne now wants a Cyr Wheel (despite being mostly unable to balance on a regular bicycle..) and Lee is convinced the world has no need for jugglers.)
  • Kirsty has her oldest bestest friend visiting from NYC so there has been much geeky chat (Miranda runs Clutter Magazine - who we <3!) and catching up as it's been awhile since they last hung out.
  • We finally managed to track down Karlos G Tailor so we could discuss UNIFORMS!  Shan't say any more about them, but they're going to be AMAZING!
  • And to round the week off, we briefly met Fly - a hand-painted signs guy with an amazing portfolio who we're going to get to paint our front door.  This is possibly the most exciting thing this week, though it's been a pretty exciting week overall anyway! 

#nofrillsfriday 02 - 'moving on up' (sung in a Heather Small style)

This week has been a real mixed bag.  We've had some super awesome Frilly Industries news, but we've not been able to act upon it yet as we've had a number of We are Frilly deadlines all colliding at once.  Fortunately, Louis has been providing us with ample licks and snorkles (he snuffles like a pig!) and has kept us entertained and reasonably destressed via his sun-dial antics shifting himself across the studio floor as the sun moves around the room.

Sun worshipper 02 #bostonterrier @frillyind #frillyindustries

"Sun worshipper 02 #bostonterrier @frillyind #frillyindustries"

Sun worshipper 01 #bostonterrier @frillyind #frillyindustries

"Sun worshipper 01 #bostonterrier @frillyind #frillyindustries"

SO: what's the news?

Firstly, we found ourselves featured on Folksy which was a lovely surprise (which they then tweeted and facebooked and all sorts!) and has led to a lot of interest coming from their direction! Thankyou Folksy for the vote of confidence!

Secondly, we've been accepted as a 'Partner' for notonthehighstreet! 'Partner' is a posh way of saying we can sell our laser cut loveliness through them to a wide range of people.  We LOVE NOTHS - their branding, and their curated range of artists and makers.  We're hoping we'll fill a little Frilly shaped niche with them - but we won't be able to get started with all of that until next week at the earliest.  It's most exciting of all as they claim to only accept 5% of those who apply to sell with them - so it feels like a nice bit of validation that we're heading in the right direction.

We've been tinkering with our packaging a little bit - we've kept prices as low as we can, whilst still sending items out in beautiful packaging.. we've sourced some boxes locally in the Jewellery Quarter (handy!) which are thin enough to be posted Royal Mail 'large letter' (instead of 'small package' - which makes a big difference, despite no difference in weight!) - so we've been figuring out which items fit in which box.. as well as playing with NEW WAX COLOURS - in case you forgot:

Exciting post from @backtozeroco for @frillyind makes working on a Saturday less hateful! #packaging #wax

A photo posted by Adrienne Frances (@adafrilly) on

We've applied to sell at a number of markets across the year - we're still waiting to hear back from some of them, but the next one in the calendar is in April which feels like it's rapidly rapidly RAPIDLY approaching - we're talking to Karlus G Tailor (our local badass tailor!) to make some custom Frilly stuff for us in time for the market.. photos will be forthcoming! 

And lastly we've managed to make SOME time this week to play with Bertha.  As well as fulfilling orders trickling through, we finished up a couple of custom orders (including a hot young Michael Caine, which may or may not appear in the shop in the future.. keep your eyes peeled!) and have been finishing off some custom boxes we designed for a We are Frilly project where we've been working with The Lace Guild in Stourbridge.:

Laser cutting boxes for our lace-inspired geocache trail @Thelaceguild @we_are_frilly @frillyind

A photo posted by Adrienne Frances (@adafrilly) on

The box designs were made from photographs of lace from their collection which we vectorised enabling us to engrave their delicate patterns into box lids.  These boxes will be used for our geocache trail around Stourbridge as part of a bigger project we've been working on with the Guild - you can find out lots more about that over at the Load of Bobbins project site!

Ok - shushing now.  It's the end of what feels like an incredibly long week for us.  If you want to see what kind of weird, fun, shiny, odd things inspire us - then go and follow us on Facebook as we post a lot of links throughout the week to different blogs and sites we've stumbled on that we've found interesting.  And now, time for an episode of Community and then BED!