Coming Soon

New toys!

I have been off for a while, planning and organising. Now The Boss is also self-employed, making Boutonnerie work properly is even more important. There has been a site revamp and some resorting. Still some work to do, but I'm getting there.

There is also a whole bundle of new stock coming in the next week. My Lovely Babysitter is arriving tonight to take care of Little Button for me for a couple of weeks so I shall be hard at work.

So...
Felt packs to accompany the felt squares
New vintage buttons
A whole new section for Embroidery
and a fair few haberdashery basics.

On top of all this, I've been making. My first experiments with polymer clay didn't work that well - they looked pretty but were simply not robust enough. The second days work went better:







They all still need sanding and finishing, a task not helped by Little Button being firmly convinced they are sweeties!

When the weather warms up, I can start prepping the alder and there may even be some fruit wood toggles coming too, once I get around to doing the pruning!

So, do come by and visit - I'm having so much fun with Boutonnerie! For now, I'm off to sort the stockroom and find somewhere for the Lovely Babysitter to sleep. As she, and the button, says, life is...

Just because...

...they're pretty!

A Bagful of Promise

The Boss has been fulltime self-employed for exactly one month now and though he does frequently drive me up the wall (and get underfoot more than the dog + Little Button combined) I have to say it is the best decision he ever made. We still havne't quite worked out a perfect routine of work and childcare yet, but we are getting there. more importantly, we both feel we now have enough time to plan ahead, explore new ideas and experiment, rather than just Red Queening it and hoping for the best.

So, I went exploring. Really, the best thing about self-employment is the opportunity to wander at will through pretty websites and getting to call it 'research'.

And look what I found:



and




and



Aren't they gorgeous?

I have great plans for these. There is some work to be done before I'm ready to offer up the final pieces in Overspill and Boutonnerie but I have to say, when this bagful arrived on the doorstep, I couldn't wait to get going!

Nix on ix

It's not so long ago that I was singing the praises of my (now ex) webhosts. I recommended them, I was delighted with them, I really thought they were the bees knees!
They started off small, had reasonable rates + top notch customer service. Then they grew.

And then I got a strange message from google saying my WP blog was blacklisted becuase of malware. huh? I spent 2 days working through the database trying to find the offending post. Customer Service at IX managed to tell me there was a problem, but nothing more. Never did find the problem and I had to abandon the blog.

A few weeks ago I found that boutonnerie.com had stopped appearing on google. ok, so we're small and new and were unlikely to be at the top of the rankings, but even googling for the name brought up nothing.

Then I couldn't log in to the admin section.

Then everything disappeared.

Then IX gave me a series of completely useless instructions and restored my files from a backup made 2 days after the database got wiped.

Then I found a new host.

While in the process of moving, the site on IX was hacked.

Then I moved even faster into the embrace (well, reasonable terms + topnotch customer service) of my new host.

So, if you are wondering where we've been, we've been moving. But I think we are settled now and I hope you'll drop by and see us!

Help!

I have it. For the next 2 months I have a babysitter and I can't tell you what a relief it is. Or how much I'm managing to get done in those 2 hours a day!

Boutonnerie is almost fully stocked now with all the pieces I have to hand. There is a new Maker Page, I have a new trade account opened.

And I might even have time to blog!

Maker Page - Alison

I've been so caught up inbuying new buttons, commissioning new buttons, photographing new buttons etc, this poor blog hasn't had all the attention it need. Poor lonely blog.

And so here is the first of the Maker Pages. There are 4 more to come and with luck there will be many more in the future...


Alison of AliBaliJewellery

Alison makes handcrafted silver jewellery from her home studio in Edinburgh. I was delighted when she agreed to make a set of exclusive pure silver buttons for Boutonnerie.

In her own words...
I have a pretty serious day job and I started making silver jewellery as a means to de-stress at the end of a busy day.I've always been what you would describe as 'artistic', doing a short stint at art school in the early 90's. I make jewellery that I would like to wear. I love colour and texture and that comes through frequently in my designs. It was my love of texture which inspired me to use precious metal clay, you can achieve textures with this material that would be pretty impossible with traditional silver smithing.


Precious metal clay is worked with whilst wet. At this stage you roll it, imprint it, shape it, and work out any textures that are required. It is left to dry before being reworked and sanded.



It is then fired, using either a kiln or a torch. The fine silver particles in the clay bind together to form fine silver (99% pure) which can then be polished to the desired finish.





The finished pieces are all on the Silver Button Page.

Introducing Linda

A new maker for Boutonnerie .

Linda, of LeafGreenHandmade, has been hard at work making sewing rolls for me to stock. Not only are these the ultimate gift for the new or disorganised seamstress (sorry - I refuse to use the word sewer!) but some feature handmade buttons, some are made from fabric samples that would otherwise have been tossed if I'd not rescued them. The ultimate in sustainability!

Linda's Maker Page is here and the sewing rolls are gradually being added here

Victory is mine!

The first of the Maker Pages is complete!

I still have a way to go, but each handmade listing will have a link to the Maker Page of the Maker, as well as a page of extra photos. Komposer is my friend.

http://boutonnerie.com/catalog/alison.html

The page is still fairly basic, there is soem tweaking and beautifying to be done, but having got over this first hurdle with only a couple of scrapes (no broken legs, no barked shins) I'm really feeling quite proud.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow...

It does seem, some days, as if this entire project is moving at a petty pace, but like a swan, while there may be calm serenity on the surface there is a great deal going on underneath.

Honest!

The commercial listings are almost finished bar some last-minute stocktaking to see how many of what I really have and this weekend we venture back into html.

I haven't done much coding for a long while and even past experience was pretty basic, so the next few days should be...interesting. If on Monday morning I am greyfaced, white haired and gibbering then you'll know the coding won!

Generally, I like using OSCommerce for Boutonnerie. It is easy to use from the back-end and it is a familiar format for those who I hope are my target market. True, I can't add frills, flash, bells and whistles but then, even if I could, I probably wouldn't. The one thing about this format that does irritate me is that each listing has only one photo.
So, as I'm moving on now to the handmade pieces, not only do I need to write a Maker Page for each person but each handmade listing is going to need another page of pics. I have elegant silver buttons, I have fabulous polymer clay buttons, I have sewing rolls and I have more buttons coming. Simply not possible to show them in all their glory with a single 100x80 photo.

And just as a sneak peak for what is coming next week:

Eye of the storm

Amidst the weeks chaos I did get a couple of straight hours to work on the site. Ribbons are now up, as are felt squares. The squares I scannned as we were having a typical Derbyshire spring day (wet, blutery, lights on in the house at midday) and I though I'd get more accurate colours.

Hm.

The colours are accurate. Better than the camera would have given...but...resizing and cropping has led to some odd effects. Essentially, any stray fibre - and felt is never completely one colour - has pixillated itself like nobodys business! Hence the colourwarp.

The plan (stop laughing at the back. I always have a Plan. Whether or not life conforms is another matter) is to get the commercial items finished this week. I have the first of the handmade buttons here (and being treasured), the first of the handmade sewing items. I have 3 different makers lined up to produce buttons in different materials - but I want to give them all sufficient limelight. I also need to give people sufficient time to make.

So, once the commercial items are listed then we start on the handmades and the Maker Pages. If you are making for me, be assured I will be in touch soon asking all sorts of inconvenient questions!

On the plus side

We are now indexed by google, we have the sitemaps sorted, the handmade sewing rolls are here and are perfect! The plan is to fill them up - needles, pins, thimble, tapemeasure etc as they would be a real treat for a new seamstress or as a gift. They are wonderfully well made and really beautiful.

Also by the same post came the first of the handmade buttons. The photos I saw of them before they arrived were amazing, but now they are here, I don't want to let them go! They will be the most expensive buttons on the site, but at handcrafted, pure silver...they are worth every penny!

And today I have contacted 2 new makers both of whom I'm delighted to say are happy to help stock www.Boutonnerie.com We are still working out the details but I'm happy to know that there are more good things on the way to the shop and that Boutonnerie is making a start in helping artisans increase their business!

I should know better

...than to suggest, in public, a timescale on anything!
However, despite delays, setbacks, mishaps and near-disasters, the first few of the clay buttons are done.

This is not the best photograph in the world! They are still on their backing paper (baking parchment - brilliant stuff!) and are still in need of a second coat of varnish. But, we are getting there.

And also on the theme of getting there... http://www.boutonnerie.com/ is now live and working. There is still a great deal of work to be done on the commercial stock, but very soon the first artisan-made buttons will be here to be listed!

Coming soon...

Well, yesterday I worked most of the day on uploading pics and descriptions to the website. Promo material has started to go out and I reckoned it might be a good idea if people had something to look at.

It is tedious and really not my favourite part, but around a third of the commercial button listings are done now. There is light at the end of the tunnel!

I'll carry on with more today but I need to make a decision. Do I include other haberdashery items - beads, bias binding etc and slowly move everything over to this one site thus making my business more focussed, or do I keep the site focussed on buttons and buttons alone and sell the other things through other sites?

Thoughts?