Sunday, April 1, 2012

April Promotion!!

Good Morning!!

On May 17th 2010 we started our little business journey which means next month is our second birthday :) and as it will be around the same time as Mother's Day we thought, why not have a decent promotion/competition.

So this is how it's going to work. For every purchase you make and pay for during the month of April that gives you one entry into the competition. You will have the choice between 2 prizes (I don't have all of the goodies as of yet so I don't have a picture....I'm hoping to have this done by the end of the week or just after Easter).

Also, every week for the month of April we will be holding a market day/sale every Sunday (this weeks sale is part of the Clearance Sale). There will be a minimum of 10 items available at each market day/sale. We are also opening up custom spots for notebooks



Prize Details:

Option 1: For Mum

1 x Signed copy of the new 4 Ingredients book "One Pot One Bowl"
1 x Covered Notebook/Address Book in your choice of fabric plus pen.
1 x Satin Lavender Scented Eye Pillow
Worth: $60.00

Option 2: For Bub

1 x Signed copy of the 4 Ingredients book "Baby Bowl"
1 x Change Mat in your choice of fabric
1 x Matching Tag Blanket or Gee-Raffie
Worth: $60.00

Terms and Conditions:
Purchase/Order must be received between 1st April 2012 and 30th April 2012 and can be made via our website, madeit store or email. Item must be paid in full by 30th April 2012. Any orders received prior to 1st April 2012 are NOT ELIGIBLE. 1 entry will be received for each order made, not on a per item basis. This promotion is not a part of Facebook and is being run separately.

Happy Shopping!!

Em x





Sunday, February 12, 2012

Photo of the Week - Week 6

This weeks photo is of my cat whom thinks that she is a human and therefore her food should be served at the breakfast bar. This was snapped this morning of her finishing off the milk from one of the kid's breakfast.




Until Next Time....

Em x

Monday, February 6, 2012

Photo of the Week - Week 5

We visited my fabulous mother in law last Friday down in Swansea, Tasmania. It's one of my favourite places to go and visit and to just unwind. It's such a friendly little town and has an awesome atmosphere that is able to instantly allow me to forget and leave all of the worries and stress that I may hold behind. This week's photo was taken whilst down there.

A lone flower poking it's head through the fence outside the Swansea museum.



Until next time....

Em x

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Photo of the Week - Week 4

My favourite subject to takes photo's of is my gorgeous 3 month old baby boy, Charlie. I take photo's of him pretty much everyday to try and capture how he changes from day to day, week to week. To try and capture the personality that is this little miracle that has come into our lives. :)

This weeks photo is one that I took just as Charlie woke up, I was laying on our bed (he still sleeps in our room) waiting very patiently. I shot it with the 55mm-250mm lens so I was laying quite a fair way back on my bed. I didn't mess around with Aperture or Shutter Speed as I'm still learning and playing, so I used the Auto Setting without flash. The only post editing that I've added to this photo is the antique filter that was added through iPhoto. This is one of my favourite photo's that I've taken of our beautiful baby boy thus far.

Charlie - 13 Weeks + 5 Days

Until next time....

Em x

Thursday, January 26, 2012

A New Name

Happy Australia Day!!

As mentioned a bit over a week ago, we're undergoing a name change for a few reasons. By the end of March we will be totally renamed at Pikkulapsi (which means Small Child in Finnish and draws upon my family history and heritage).

First and foremost it is because we want to be a bit more unique. When I started up The Little Wise Owl in May 2010, I didn't do a lot of research into the name (my bad! And I've learnt from that lesson!) and my research consisted of....did the domain name exist (nope), did the page name exist on Facebook (nope) therefore it would be okay to use that name! I didn't do an extensive google search, I didn't search the Aust Business Register to see if it had been registered. So off I went on my merry way creating things and promoting myself under the name The Little Wise Owl. Now if you search the Aust Business Registry for Little Wise Owl or The Little Wise Owl, you a number of hits ranging from little owl, little wise, little wise owl, wise owl, little blue owl etc. Let's just say that it's very, very popular to be little, an owl and wise ;) And the google search....well let's just say that there are A LOT!!

A few months into my new business I got a lovely and very polite email from another little wise owl whom was a seller on Madeit and had registered the name little wise owl as a business in Victoria. It was agreed that I could keep doing my little business under the existing name, I needed to just modify it slightly for Madeit in order to avoid confusion for her existing customers and any potential new ones and because at that stage I had no intention of extending further than my Facebook page and my website with an occasional listing on Madeit that worked fine. Every few months I would mention to my partner "I should think of a new name for TLWO..." and I would throw a few ideas at him and he didn't seem entirely impressed by them so we continued on as normal.

Fast forward to 2012 and the situation has changed slightly. Due to Facebook changes and there not being as much activity through my little page anymore (despite following the helpful advice passed on by various business pages, I've struggled with trying to get my posts to appear in news feeds and I feel like we've been disappearing along with a lot of other of my own favourite businesses whom I only keep up with these days by looking at the list that I've created with all of them safely tucked away on!) Anyway I've decided to try a new way to market myself and the products that I make with listing more items on Madeit and attending Markets etc. and eventually down the track I may like to register my business name. And there are no businesses registered in Australia under the name Pikkulapsi! YET!!

It is a gamble to create a new page, a huge one! I currently have 2170-ish likers on The Little Wise Owl, I've got a bit under 80 that have come across already to the new page. But I feel like it is a journey that I have to make in order to recreate my little business, I was feeling very stagnated and uninspired for most of last year but I do feel reinvigorated again and that my creativity has returned!

Anyway enough of my ramble, these are just a few of my reasons for starting again and renaming. Yes it is slightly crazy, yes it's a huge gamble but hey...let's see where this journey takes us!!

As such, I would love it if you would "like" our new page. You can find us on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/Pikkulapsi.Designs 

Until Next Time....


Em x

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Photo of the Week - Week 3

I'm a bit late with last week's photo. After such a busy lead up to last weekends market and being absolutely buggered afterwards, I honestly had no energy left and fell asleep at 8pm that evening!

As this is more about photo's and less about words....here's this week's photo (well last weeks!)

My gorgeous baby boy was 12 weeks old and I couldn't resist playing around with the camera and taking this photo.



Until next time....

Em x

Ps. I'm working on a blog to better explain the reason behind our name change and our plans for the next few months.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Photo of the Week - Week 2

Good Afternoon!

This week has been a busy week with the three munchkins. I also received a new camera from my lovely partner as a joint Birthday/Anniversary/Christmas and Valentines Day present. We normally don't give each other gifts or we give each other small gifts on these occasions as invariably throughout the year we find ourselves wanting something "big" that would be outside the normal budget so we lump them all together. Mine was a new Canon EOS 600D :D :D

I've been wanting an EOS for a number of years but I never took the plunge as my existing camera (Canon S5 IS) was adequate for my needs and I couldn't justify spending money on a more expensive camera. I normally always have a camera on me whether it's the camera in my iPhone or my little Canon Ixus 95 IS (yes I am a bit of a brand devotee to Canon cameras!)

Anyway, I'm beginning a new journey with my EOS. I've only been messing around a little bit with it thus far but I'm hoping to get to know it better by just experimenting with it, I could read the manual but where's the fun in that? ;). The beauty of sticking with the same brand of camera is that a lot of the same options/functions carry through all models so I had a fairly good idea of what the presets would do etc. I've never really played with Aperture or Shutter Speed before but that is something that I'm going to experiment with from now on.

As this post is meant to be more about photo's and less about words, without further ado, here is my photo for this week.


Master H in all of his cheekiness.

This is a photo of my middle child, Master H and I feel that it captures his cheekiness beautifully. It was also the first photo I took on the new camera straight out of the box! This photo has been edited to remove a few remnants of food from his face and also he was really wrinkly around the eyes as he always scrunches his eyes up when you take pictures of his! So yes my son has now been photoshopped to remove these!!

Anyway until next time!

Em x

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Photo of the Week


Earlier this week I posted that my Project Life kit arrived and that I would be posting a photo that I'd taken each week. Well my dad came to visit over the Christmas/New Year period for two weeks. My dad lives in WA and he visits us in little old Tassie once every 2 years at Christmas time, so he met grandchild number 3 for the first time this Christmas.


The photo that I've selected is one that was taken on his last day here as he was having last cuddles with Bubba C. It makes me think that if you hand any man a baby that they all go gaga to make them laugh, smile and not cry!!

Until next time....

Em x

Thursday, January 5, 2012

My Project Life Kit (finally) Arrived!!!!


I've been waiting very patiently since September (when I pre-ordered it) for my Project Life kit to arrive and today it finally has! I ordered the Cobalt Edition from Craft House (they're the Project Life distributor for Aust & NZ and are located in NZ) and they put together a kit with everything that they suggest you need to complete it (retailed $165 NZ) and thus far I am very impressed with what I've received :)

This is my first glimpse of Project Life and I'm going to do it as a weekly family memory keeping tool. My daughter (aged 6) is starting to become more and more interested in art and craft so I'm going to put this together with her as a mother-daughter bonding exercise as now since the baby has come along I feel as though she may be feeling a little left out at the moment as I'm answering his every demand and whim!


This year I'm also completing my own personal 366 days of photo's which I'm uploading some to my personal profile on Facebook and others are going into my own personal photo journal (something which I did a few years ago and it was very therapeutic during a very demanding and trying time as it gave me a chance to have an outlet and to do something just for me). I've always had a passion for photography but over the past few years my photography skills have been limited to special occasions and product photo's! It is nice to be looking at the world through a camera lens again. From time to time I will upload what I've down with my Project Life layouts etc. and once a week I'm thinking of uploading a photo that I've taken that week that I want to share. I think that a photo can be just as artistic or as expressive as a painting or drawing (both of which skills I lack!).

I've also been playing around with a few programs that I have found on the Mac App Store, some of them are quite cheap and I'm planning a post on them very shortly! I do own Photoshop CS5 (my partner designs websites for work so he uses it for that) but my Photoshop skills are very limited to the basic basic basic functions so I've sought out some more user friendly programs that don't require having completed a degree in graphic design!

I would love it if you're doing Project Life this year and are blogging about it to leave your link in the comments section so I can see what you're doing as well! :)

Until Next Time....

Em x

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Hello 2012!! A New Year, A New Start, A New Journey


Goodbye 2011. Hello 2012!!

2011 was both the worst year and one of the best
years of my life. It was a very challenging year and I feel like I've learnt a lot from the bad bits and those bad bits have made me a better person because I got through them! I've also learnt that I have limits, I'm not a superwoman and I need to be more organised in order to avoid stressing myself out. So my new years resolution is to be more organised and to stop being so hard on myself. I do set the bar too high a lot of
the time and then I get very disappointed when I don't achieve my goals.

But enough about me....back to TLWO.


There are lots of new things happening at TLWO this year, I'm planning on getting out and about to a few markets (totally stepping out of our comfort zone!) I'm also going to be developing our product ranges further and experimenting with different fabrics, designs, embellishments etc. ;) I have a few things laid out on my cutting table and these things are making me feel very excited and it's been a long time since I've felt excitement about something that I'm creating (my Mojo/Sewjo/Creatojo got lost in 2011 and it's nice to have it back!).

I have been working on some new hair accessories, notebook covers and a new design for our change mats. Our change mats will still be released with the pocket so you can stash your nappies, wipes etc and have it on the go but I'm also making one for the nappy bag which doesn't have the pocket and one which you can put on your change table at home. So our change mats will come in 3 different sizes/styles. I'm also developing a geeky line...more on this at a later date as I'm still sourcing some bits and pieces that I need....this has me SUPER excited! Our tag blankets are also having a design overhaul to make them a bit more interesting and to tickle the senses of the little ones. I am however discontinuing the play quilts purely because I require a larger sized piece of fabric and batting and at times this does prevent me from being able to make 1 or 2 change mats in the same fabric.

Also in 2012 we will be focusing more on listing items for sale through our website and madeit store plus our market appearances, there will be less Facebook sales due to lack of interest from the last few that we've held. I'm not sure if that's due to Facebook hiding my sale posts or if it's a case of people's news feed being bombarded with sales from pages or perhaps my products simply don't strike a chord with you guys anymore (I'm being more positive in 2012 so I will assume that it's due to option A and B!)

As for this blog, I'm going to take it on a new journey and it will be more than just information about our new products but I'm hoping to include other bits and pieces, recipes, maybe a few tutorials, and other bibs and bobs that I think may interest you!

Well I think that I've written enough for the first day of the year. I hope that everybody had a pleasant NYE and that there aren't too many sore heads today!!

Until next time....

Em x