As of very early this morning the EmmieJay online shop is live!  It’s a fantastic feeling to have reached such a major milestone.  It’s been a long time coming, but, mostly thanks to the huge efforts and encouragement put in by H, I’ve made it at last.

First order has already been received!  I’m just in time for Christmas shopping, so hopefully lots more to come soon.  I feel so excited about sharing my baby with the wider world, and full of ideas for expanding the range and promoting the website next year.  There’s so much to do and never enough hours in the day, but it’s just brilliant to be spending time working on something that I love so much.

I hope you’ll like the site and the products as much as I do.  Whatever you think, I’d love to hear hear it.  Either leave me a comment here, or contact me via www.emmiejay.co.uk .

It’s official, I’m now registered as self-employed.  It may have been just a phone call, but felt like a momentous event.  If you’ve ever felt worried about ringing up HMRC with any questions, you shouldn’t, they were extremely helpful and happy to explain everything.  Having run through the basic information I needed to provide them with, he chatted through the various options on paying NI, income tax and exclusions I may be eligable to apply for.  I’ve now got lots of free information making it’s way to me in the post, which mean I should by fully prepared to deal with all my legal  obligations without any surprises.

The tax man has a bad image, but it’s not deserved - he’s a very nice man.

Today EmmieJay enjoyed it’s first sale – a successful day and hopefully the first of many.  Keen to get launched before Christmas I booked into the Chedworth Pre-School Group’s Christmas Fair about a month ago with plenty left to do.  Working towards a booked event certainly focuses the mind, and seeing the advertising posters with my logo gave me a real buzz.

I approached the whole day as a learning experience, happy just to come away having covered my costs and learnt a few things ready for next time.  I achieved all that and more, heading home having had a fun day and with reasonable sales for a first time out.  Other stall-holders were friendly and helpful, and the turn out was better than I’d been expecting.

Now I just need to re-stock a few items, work on some display ideas taken away from Saturday and get ready for next time.  I’ve got four more events before Christmas, two public sales and two shopping parties – last week that felt quite scary, now I can’t wait!

Not a great picture, but here's a snap of the stall

This Sunday I went along to the first day of the Pure London trade show.  Having never been to a trade fair before it was certainly over-whelming, but fantastic.  I can see why they recommend you need more than one day to get round –  if I’d been wanting to look at every collection I would have struggled in a day.  However, I was only interested in those stands classing themselves in the “ethical” camp.  Pure has been promoting their increased coverage in the ethical arena this year, with around 50 brands present out of the 800 showing – not at all bad, and certainly a great opportunity to get to see lots of new collections in one place. (more…)