Happy 2nd Birthday

This month Azalea has turned 2 years old! I can’t believe where the last couple of years have gone so I thought it would be nice in this post to look back down memory lane…

When I first had the idea to start Azalea, one of the first things I remember doing was spending what seemed like days thinking of names, Googling it, finding someone else already used that name, thinking of another name until finally I settled on Azalea! However, I’m really happy with the name and I am glad that I settled on it in the end.

I had great encouragement from my friends to go ahead with Azalea and lots of help from one friend in particular with setting up my Facebook page to get the business going with online orders and for displaying my bows, bobbles and other products. I’m not really an active Facebook user personally so having someone help me to get this going was a great help and really appreciated.

I remember to start with I think I purchased about half a dozen fabrics including some with hedgehog, snowmen and Father Christmas patterns for my first bobbles from one of my local fabric shops. I then started visiting them more and more regularly and had great support from Nicky and the staff at Material Needs and Janet and Teresa from Barrington Patchwork and I soon found myself filling up entire shelves at home with box after box of fabric! Barrington Patchwork has since moved to an online store since Janet retired and I had a super time helping out in the shop during its closing down sale – it was manic but a lot of fun!

Both Material Needs and Barrington Patchwork asked to stock my bobbles which was very exciting to see them in a shop for the first time and gradually bit by bit I have started stocking my products in more and more shops. I still get a buzz every time I see things that I have made in store as I remember not long ago I used to just look at other people’s things in craft shops!

Soon after making the bobbles, I started to make the bows and tested many different patterns with my long-suffering mum until settling on the designs that I currently use. I also had a lot of great sewing advice from Nicky from Material Needs (thank you Nicky!). I have spent many hours talking to her in store before inevitably having to dash back to the car park with an armful of fabric before my ticket runs out! I could sew before I started Azalea but I definitely feel like I have improved and refined my sewing skills over the last couple of years and even made my first dress over lockdown although this was just for personal use – not a new line coming to Azalea! I think the challenge of making new products and items has been really exciting and it is satisfying to see the improvements from my early bows to my more recent bows. Also, the range of fabrics I use now has grown so much that some of the older fabrics have almost become classic Azalea designs and are growing hard to get hold of as I can’t replenish some of the older fabrics.

I have also enjoyed making bespoke products for customers on request, whether that is upcycling fabrics or making special sets for weddings or Christenings. It feels a real privilege to be part of someone’s special day.

For my packaging, I spent a long time designing my first card backs and I had my first packaging printed from my local print shop, Purnells, to coincide with launching two years ago ready for my first customers and Christmas craft shows. I was very pleased with them until I realised I had forgotten to put any safety info on them so I quickly had to print some stickers off to go on them! This slightly detracted from the professional look but since then, I have had several editions of the card, each one with slight changes and improvements (including adding the safety info!). I have had consistently good feedback about the quality of the cards – I am very thankful to Purnells for producing such great cards for me! As for the craft/ Christmas fayres, I tried to pack in quite a lot in my first year and had some successful ones and some unsuccessful ones when a slashed tyre from a pot hole on the way back from a little fayre meant I missed a really big fayre the next day! Oh well!

I have tried to build up a bit of a social media presence over the last couple of years but this is always something I struggle with as I forget to post what I have been up to! I have also started this website and made the change from a free blog to a paid for website during lockdown, which is exciting as I now have a proper .co.uk domain! I am also determined in 2021 to make my social media and blog posting more regular…

Then of course, there is the accounts, taxes etc that comes with running a small business but I won’t bore you with how I fill out my spreadsheets! Suffice to say that has been another learning curve!

And where next for Azalea? Well, I have some plans and ideas for 2021 so fingers crossed and watch this space!

Many thanks to all of customers, family and friends who have supported me over the last couple of years – it really does mean a lot to me. Thank you everyone! xxx