Anthology 06 - 8th October 2021

Hello October, we've been expecting you! I have to say the start of quarter four has me a little buzzing.

The last three months of the year are always our busiest (we do about half our years' orders in those three months) so we wait for October to arrive with an equal mix of excitement and trepidation. We plan as much as we can but we'll never know exactly how it will go.

This week has seen Team Betsy doing a final sweep of stock levels, product descriptions, and emergency snack rations. You'll be relieved to hear there are plenty of snacks! So, come on Christmas, what have you got in store for us?

Have a wonderful weekend, and maybe check on your own snack stash. Is it too soon for the mince pies?

It's rare that I get a moment to pause and pick up an actual paintbrush, but that rare moment happened this week and I painted this guy. The original plan was to draw him on my iPad, but my favourite adobe programme wasn't working so out came the watercolours. 
He's destined to feature on a new Christmas tree decoration that we're launching later this month. You can watch a timelapse of me painting him here.

Do you paint? Or do anything else crafty that you don't always have time for but absolutely love when you do it? Maybe you can carve out some time for it this weekend - it really is great for the soul.

Here's one from the archives that I absolutely adore; our first laser-cut Christmas card. When I doodled the design I thought it would look so smart with the word HO, repeated three times. At the back is the empty space of HO, then the cutout, standing-up letters of HO, and then the drop shadow of HO. Ho Ho Ho (Merry Christmas) 

I keep toying with the idea of refreshing the design and running off a limited edition. What do you think? Would this float your Christmas boat? Drop me a line and let me know if that's something you'd be interested in.

I think we had the last sort-of-summer day in the magical surrounds of North Devon visiting friends who have just moved there. By the time we got home, it was definitely dresses away and jumpers out. It was so beautiful, just check out that sky! 

Ben even had a spur of the moment surf lesson from Ollie. The water was amazingly warm but I think he was still pleased that we hired a wetsuit. Just look at Willow trying to get in on the action - daft woofer. xxx