Last post for 2011

Happy New Year everybody!

I am just squeezing in the last blog post for 2011! I have been frantically cleaning the flat as we are expecting four guests for dinner tonight. We got back from our Christmas trip in Italy yesterday. It was my first Christmas in Italy and it really was great! I have tons of food pictures!  It was interesting as everyone in Italy had very different meals for their Christmas lunch or dinner. Next year I am going to ask all of Francesco's friends to take pictures for me :) The meals were so varied and they have about 5 courses!

We had so much to eat! I put on 1kg just from the Christmas lunch!

The pulling of the crackers

I carried a box of 12 crackers in our luggage, from London. They do not have Christmas crackers in Italy and no one had seen them before.


We had lots of starters, then homemade pasta in a cheese sauce, rabbit, guinea fowl, many cheeses and panettone. I was close to popping.

The antipasto

Homemade bigoli

Rabbit, guinea fowl and potatoes with aubergines and artichokes

2kg Panetonne

Francesco's parents gave us one of these to bring back to London. We had to carry it by hand. Luckily we didnt have any trouble on the plane with our 2 big rucksacks and slightly overweight luggage and a big panettone. We had to leave some things behind in Italy, was impossible to carry everything.

We will open the panettone tonight for desert.

Chatting with my sister on my iPad

Chatted to Naomi after all the food on my new shiny iPad that Francesco got me for Christmas. Every year, I usually spend Christmas at home. This was the first time I was not at home for Christmas with my parents and Naomi. I missed eating with my sister, it has become such a tradition for us to stuff our faces every Christmas. We will have to have a little belated Christmas dinner. :)

Opening presents

These were made to match Francesco's parent's sofa

Lupi and Pilu pillows

So tonight we will have a seafood feast - stuffed mushrooms, oysters, clams, scallops and lobster tails. Lets hope all goes well!

There is so much more I want to write but I have to get ready and finish preparing the flat.

I will end with just saying that I have had an amazing and eventful 2011. I quite my job in Amsterdam after 5.5 years and began SukiSuki as a proper business venture. It has been one hell of a roller-coaster for both me and Francesco. It has been 7 months and I am slowly, but surely, finding my way.  Francesco has been so supportive and has managed pretty well so far at putting up with all my craziness :)

It has not been easy but it has been  a fantastic experience! And I hope my SukiSuki journey will continue and be a success. I am enjoying meeting new people and SukiSuki seem to be receiving positive attention. There are 494 SukiSuki fans on the fb page! It is very exciting every time I get a new fan. I am hoping I can reach 500 before the end of today. It is so close! It is very easy to get greedy with the fans. I always want more! Many thanks to all my fans!

There are a million SukiSuki things I want to do. Everyday goes by so fast there is not enough time to do everything. But the first thing I will do next year is my website! I have been so fussy with what I want, I am waiting for the perfect website to pop into my head and still, 7 months later I still have no proper website. So for next year, my biggest priority is the SukiSuki website! :)

I  will also have to do more with Stuff Me Silly next year, my food blog. It has been neglected. I will be combining my love for food and SukiSuki somehow! :)

This is my old blog:
http://stuffmesilly.wordpress.com/tag/stuffmesilly/

And here is my fb page
https://www.facebook.com/StuffMeSilly


I hope 2012 will be a very creative, fun and exciting year!

See you all Next Year!

New Flower - Violet

Violet Flower

  

 A new addition to the flowers!

Daisy and Pink Fiorellino

Altogether, they are so colourful! They definitely cheer me up during all this cold, wet and miserable weather. :)

Pots and pots of joy!

Winter Wonderland Report

So the Winter Wonderland at Coutts bank was on the 1st of December. I had a month to prepare, I was sewing like crazy!

It was my first time to experience the joys of  mass production! WHAT A NIGHTMERE!

I started with one of the things that take the most time... the flowers. Tons of cutting and sewing in order of colours. It was the most organised I have ever been.

I had a list with the Characters and how many of each I wanted to make. The numbers were constantly changing. Some days for sewing went better than others. 

Flower Heads

I only started stuffing right at the end. It was such a relief when the boxes were getting filled with completed items. It was only a few days before the market when this started happening.

 

 Ambitiously, I was aiming for 100 things in four weeks, but that was not possible.  75 things was the maximum I could make. I had a few items that went wrong, so I would have had a few more.

The mass production!

 I was sewing right up to the last moment. I was super stressed! Naomi was packing everything in boxes while I was getting ready. But of course everything worked out fine and we got to Coutts on time. However, we still had to set up everything on the table and put tags on everything.

There was not enough room on the table for everything so I used the wall in front to display the flowers.

Naomi and me at Coutts

My table

It was a very enjoying evening. There were lots of interest but by the end of the night I still had no sales.  Everyone wanted to buy online. But then, just as I was going to pack up, the 2 guys from Bottletops came and bought a Suki each!!!!   Thank you guys!!!! You certainly cheered me up! :)

Olly, my first customer of the night!

Cameron, my second customer

Overall it was a very fun night and a good experience. One thing is clear, I am a terrible sales person! :)


I am glad to have made so many things in a month, but hope to never have to do another month like that again! There were some days where I almost cried. I was so exhausted and my fingers were sore from all the sewing and the million pin and needle pricks! My poor fingers...

So what's next? Get my website done!!!!

Another SukiSuki Giveaway

I love getting facebook fans on the SukiSuki page! Right now there are 462 people in the world who like SukiSuki! :)

And to show my joy and appreciation of getting fans I will do another giveaway when reaching 500 fans! The giveaway will include some very colourful SukiSuki buttons, postcards and and magnet. I will do a random draw so any of the 500 fans will get a chance to win. And there will be 5 winners!
 

So if you you are not a fan yet, please pop over and LIKE away! Like,  like, like! :)    Take Me There Now