From little acorns and all that

It's hard to believe we started this journey a little over 5 years ago with just a spark of an idea and the stubbornness to make it work. When we tell people what we do, it's generally met by surprise as well as a belief we must own a warehouse or other form of unit. Truth be told that's where we want to be, but at the moment we run our business from home although it very quickly outgrew the space we had allocated it.

Dream office to warehouse

Do you see those light brown units in the picture? Well, that's what we started with in our small front room and even then they weren't full. Mini Maille was only 2 at the time so he had his toys stored in some of those. Very quickly those toys were moved out to make more space and then 6 months later the larger unit occupied a space in the front room too. Over the next couple of years we had to get more creative with storage and it wasn't long before books were being moved to make room for more boxes, areas of the house were slowly being taken over and it felt like we lived in a warehouse most of the time, especially when deliveries would arrive

and there was no space to move. Then of course there was that time I purchased a bulk bundle of jiffy envelopes not realising quite how many that was!

Where did all my supplies go?

Fast forward to 2024 and we started planning our house move. A lot of work was needed but one of the most important things was that we would have the space for an office and a garden big enough to expand the business as well as an attic I have my eye on (but don't tell Mr Maille). It didn't all go to plan though as there was so much that needed to be done that the garden had to wait until after we moved in.

As you can see from the first picture, my lovely dream office became the new 'warehouse'. Shelves that were supposed to hold all my creative supplies, were taken over with more boxes and once again we taking over other areas of the house. We managed for nearly 6 months but we couldn't go on. The business needed space to grow and I wanted my office back! It was time for the garden to undergo it's makeover and the new workspace to be built. As with everything it took longer than we hoped because of the great British weather plus a few curveballs that old houses like to throw out.

The new workspace is finally built!

It's not the massive warehouse that people might imagine, but when you look at where we've come from in just 5 years, I think you'll agree that it's a massive step forward. Everything has its place now and we have space to breathe and to grow, and more importantly I can work on getting my dream office and Mr Maille gets his own work area to set out in the way that works best for him - complete with little labels and colour coded shelf edges.

Well done if you've made it this far through my ramblings, but I'm sure what you really want to know is what does this mean for you and other customers. Well, firstly we've managed to quadruple our space for holding stock. This means less time when things are out of stock in between restocks. Secondly, we do now have the ability to bring in more items and expand our ranges of findings, and other accoutrements to enhance your crafting. Thirdly, it means we are able to process orders even faster as Mr Maille has his own dedicated space and so do I - no more tripping over each other!

I'm not sure how long it will take for us to outgrow this space, but I do know that the next step will be a warehouse unit or something similar. So I guess it's a watch this space...