Invaluable Friends

You can't put a monetary value on friendships or any relationship really.  I was always amazed when I had Cadell (over two years ago now)  at how my very true friends who hadn't had kids yet were there for whatever I needed, and still are now.  Then there are my amazing friends that I may never have got to know as well as I do now if it weren't for our children and shared experiences of pregnancy and the challenges of being a Mum. 



My friend, who is very conveniently also my neighbour is an amazing and inspirational Mum.  She has a full time high flying job working with the government, and from home.  She is an incredible Mum, and together we met and worked with another massively talented woman Stacey Hancock - personal trainer and nutritionist.  I could rave on about Stacey and what she does all day, but better still read my testimonial on her website  http://www.staceyhancock.co.nz/blog/view_post.php?id=191#post

Through Stacey's incredible knowledge of nutrition and our human bodies in general I went from being an often sick 69kg to a healthy and energetic 62kg.  See my tragic pictures below...

Its a little hard to see a lot of result in these pictures, but I lost a huge amount off my bum and boobs!  And I was probably about 64kg in the second pic.  Stacey also inspired my friend and I to train for a half marathon.  My friend had lost nearly 15kg through Stacey's Food First programme, and we were feeling up for a new challenge.  So that is why I have my racey lightening bolt yellow shoes on in the 2nd photo!  So my moral in this story is, friends are so important to me for so many reasons, and these friends apart from being incredible women have helped me become a more healthy and fit person.




Being a teacher affiliates you with a whole school community, so many new friends of all ages.  I once had the priveledge of teaching at Ohaupo School.  The best rural school I know.  My first class of kids are nearly old enough to be seen at the pubs, thank goodness I don't have a social life in town - I'd hear "Miss Williams!" across the dance floor!  I taught siblings in some families, and some I keep in contact with even now, four years after leaving the school.

My "School Community" friends, support me in what ever I do, so I try to help them in the small ways I can too.  I taught a gorgeous young girl Livi, who is now a talented and very mature young lady.  She is interested in Computer Science, so I took her along to my first consultation with a web designer, she never ceases to amaze me with her intuitive perception of the big wide adult world, at just 13 years of age.  Her family are wonderful people, and without friends like this, I wouldn't have a baby sitter for Munchkin #1 while I met the web designer!

"Hey! That's my digger!"

My "Girls", are my long time besties, friends that date back to Std 2, and Primary School Netball days!  All have wonderful talents and add fun, laughter, support, wine, good food, baby sitting, and numerous other things to my life. One is an amazing graphic designer, currently working for RD1, but was also Senior Art Director for "hER" magazine.  She made #1 Munchkin famous Nationwide in last years RD1 mailer and on shop windows around the country.  This beautiful friend will help Munckins out with her graphic work helping me design our new Munchkins Logo, catalogues, business cards and other printed material - better still her brother has a sign writing business!

Another talented friend and Mum to two, is Steph.  She can whip up anything with her super iron and sewing machine!  She has her new brand "Owl & Hedgehog" gorgeous Baby clothing shoes, dribble bibs, aprons, clutch looking change mats, nappy bags, and other things.  She came last week all the way from the bay, two kids (the Owl and the Hedgehog) in tow, overlocker, sewing machine and all the other bits required to sew up some new Munchkin quilt designs.  With out Steph, I'd still be sitting down hand sewing my sample to send to our manufacture right now, and making a right botch up of it!  Steph uses amazing fabric sourced from around the globe, so you can be sure what you buy from her is extremely unique, and made by a talented at home Mum.  Beautiful retro style fabrics.

"Photography by Sacha" another of my fun and talented friends, obviously an amazing photographer and Mum to two.  Another friend met through a "being a Mum" community. Has offered to teach me how to stage and shoot our beautiful hand made quilts and other products.  Check out her business on the link above.  Get in quick, Sacha is so amazing she is booked up about a year in advance!

My last "friend" I have to mention is by chance my inspirational sister.  Another qualified and highly experienced teacher and educational facilitator, stay at home fun, patient, and caring Mum, exceptional cook, wonderful wife and bestest sister I could ever ask for.  She continues to support and encourage me in whatever I do.  She has helped to contribute to my Munchkins journey by guiding me through this blog creation, and other online communities to gain exposure for our online business.  Thanks Sister you are incredible!  You can read her blog here "Through a Focused Lenz"

So to all of my wonderful friends, you add so much to my life and all have contributed in some way or another to our Munchkins journey.  Thanks for just being you!

Beautiful New Stock

I can't wait to get our new website designed and live!  There will be loads of gorgeous new duvet covers for those who prefer these on your toddlers beds rather than a quilt.  Whimsy have beautiful designs, excellent colour schemes and best of all very reasonable prices.  Here's my two favourites...

 This is called "Faraway Tree".  For those of you that know me, know I'm not a huge pink fan, but you can't help but love the tree design, really, come on?

Again this design appeals to me because of the stylish colour scheme.  And everyone loves planes aye?

Look out for the rest of the designs coming soon to our website.  We also stock Freckles, and of course our stunning hand quilted Munchkins designs.

Web Design

I had no idea the costs involved in website design for online sales or "e-commerce".  Today I obtained quotes from $2500+gst right through to a potential $20,000.  These are all just quotes however and some of these cheaper designers may not have delivered, meaning a waste of $2500+ and my time.  It can also take the design team anywhere from 15-48 hours of work to create your website, more of course if you aren't happy with the creative process and outcomes.

This morning I had the absolute pleasure of talking with Peter at Enlighten Design The team here are really and truly fantastic.  They gave me such genuine advice, and I felt that if I chose them I would be getting a totally customised, search engine optimised, fully operational and highly spec-ed website.  Unfortunately our budget can't stretch as far as I would like it to in order to employ these people, but if money grew on trees they would certainly be my first pick.  However if money grew on trees I wouldn't have bought this business in the first place!

Again today has presented yet another learning curve, when a web designer asks you what do you want your site to do, "Sell stuff" isn't the answer they are looking for!

Create your dream website, with all the whizz bang bells and whistles you can think of.  You may not need them all now, but it pays to see if the web creators you are going to employ know how to do this stuff.  For me, I found it hard to understand which of my bells and whistles were going to cost me my arm and leg in programming/coding, and which were standard things offered by the "e-platform" (new word today, and I'm pretty handy at dropping in "e-commerce" now too!) the company would use for our site.  There are also many "plug-ins" (really extending my vocab today) available that could easily do what you need too.

For example, we will be running MYOB software for our accounting side of the business (a whole new language for me to decipher) and there are apparently plug-ins for inventory control that work with MYOB and your inventory system to allow a "low stock" message to be sent to you warning to order more stock in, and when items are out of stock, not only does MYOB remind you to order in but the plug-in posts an "out of stock" message on the website for customers to see.

Nothing annoys me more as an on-line shopper than purchasing something on-line only to find out that I can't have it.  Broken links in a website also drive me insane.  So I apologise right now to any of my customers out there - I am still in set up phase, please be patient while I get my new bells and whistles up and running on the website!  In the meantime, email any orders to me and you can pay using internet banking.

It is frustrating for me too.  I want things happening now, but so many of these things in these early days of setting up a business just take time.  Time to discover what the problems are, time to find the right people to fix it, time and money invested in stock and advertising, and time to get the return on your investment.

Time is a great healer - but by god its frustrating too!

Payment Security

How safe are your credit card details online?

Just this evening my partner had a call on his mobile, basically from a telemarketer.  When asked how the caller obtained his mobile number, he was told, "You will have purchased something online and entered this phone number and we access to all of those details".  Somewhat invasive, and it made me think about how often I blindly click "Accept Terms and Conditions" buttons without even glancing over the actual terms and conditions, possibly sending my personal details out to third parties.

In setting up Munckins I have also learnt a great deal about making secure payments or shopping online.  Using a secure third party such as PayPal, Pay Station and DPS are all incredibly safe and secure systems backed by web designers.  There is a thought out there that many Kiwi's don't like using PayPal, I have had my troubles personally with them, but they have always been incredibly efficient at solving my problems with phone calls, and follow up emails even with a transaction as small as $30.  I would be interested to hear what you think about PayPal or other online payment systems and if you have ever had any complications?

Re-launching Our Business

We bought "Munchkins" just over 10 days ago now, and what a massive 10 days it has been.

My dream is that one day this business will be the leader in Nursery and Children's Bedding - a one stop shop for bedroom and sleeping solutions.  With this, I hope I can then be a Mum full time to the first Munchkin on the scene, my beautiful two year old boy.

When we bought Munckins I was amazed at the work that the previous owner had done to set up manufacturers and suppliers, she however had the benefit of being a sewer, a skill I now dearly wish I had!

Now it seems that there is still so much work to be done, and perhaps we didn't research "e-commerce" all that well before we jumped into it.

Week one was almost entirely spent, ringing, faxing and emailing our suppliers to change over accounts.  I also hope to stock a greater range of products, so new accounts and relationships have to be developed.

Here's a wee sample of the beautiful hand quilted quilts we currently have in our range.

Jungle is my absolute favourite!  The colours are so rich and neutral, the Jungle Animals are cute and the quality of the hand stitching is simply beautiful.  Absolutely no mass produced, machine stitching involved in the quilting here at Munchkins!