At last . . . .

At last - we’re nearly in to our new unit. More room to make picture frames, more room to store stock, more room to move !!!! Phew!

As anyone who visited in the last year will know, we’ve been somewhat crammed in our unit.

Our expansion arrangement didn’t quite go to plan as the unit we were supposed to be moving to just kept leaking! So plan B is to knock through to next door.  

There’s plenty more to do before we’re fully moved, but the first coat of paint is on!

Watch this (nice new empty) space!

We've Gone Even More Hi-Tech !

We’ve gone high-tech! We’re just finishing a project to digitally scan every print, mount or framing order we’ve ever taken and store them on some enormous database in ‘the cloud’ (a posh term for a big computer that no one knows the whereabouts of! ).  

Why?, because it means we can now instantly lookup the details of any order that anyone has placed over the last 10 years. We’ve always been good at storing every orders sheet in alphabetical order, but with thousands of customers and thousands of orders it was getting bit difficult to find something quickly - and crawling around in the bottom draw of the filing cabinets just hurts! 

We are regularly asked for “the same frame I had 3 years ago” or “just the same mount colour as last time” which is all information kept on the orders sheets and now at our finger tips.

For the techies amongst us, the fantastic little Canon scanner we bought scans 20 double sided pages a minute and automatically creates an indexed PDF. We love the gadget - it is our favourite new toy. And we love the software that we had specifically written for us by a local development company.  

Even poor Maddie, who has spent the last month and a half feeding-in thousands of order sheets, actually loves her toy. She’s possessive about it !!!

Maddie has been our secret filing girl and tidier-upper for about a year now. Initially she came after college but has recently been full-time. We also congratulate her on getting her A levels results today, all above the grades she was expecting. Well done Maddie - and no, A levels don’t give you an automatic pay rise! 

Below is Maddie doing her second least favourite job - clearing out the mitre saw!

 

We need more room

Okay, so the word is almost out - we’re expanding and need a new warehouse to store all our stuff.  We’ve almost got the keys, but one small problem - it leaks! Not exactly ideal !

However, fear not, the men with crane are at work. So watch this space we’ll let everyone know when we do, eventually, get more space !

However, that does prompt a question - why did we choose the picture framing industry where everything is so big? Big sheets of board, big bits of glass, long bits of wood, big boxes etc. etc. How we wish we’d done something like sell mobile phones - loads of small boxes and a few padded envelopes! Oh well!

the Sun is Out - and so are the Artists !

Well we can tell that the exhibition season is approaching, the benches are full to overflowing (although I had to just take a quick photo when one area of bench was actually clear - for about one minute!).

The last month or so has seen a spate of quite large pieces to frame (they’re always nice to do) and quite a run on fabric pieces. It still amazes us how a nice piece of fabric can be transformed into a fantastic piece of wall art once it’s been properly framed. The art is definitely in choosing the right frame and mount - and with a little help, our customers choose some really stylish combinations.

We’re still very busy with our various corporate customers (although we’re not allowed to say who they are) and we still enjoy and are amazed at the incredible range of work that we get from the cooperate customers, through to all the artists we work for, the professional photographers we print for, right through to all our private individual customers - who in bring in a fantastic array of pictures, memorabilia, photos, tapestries . . . . . . . . you name it, we get it . . . . . and the stuff is great. We’re certainly never bored!

Tests, tests, tests . . . . .

For ages now we’ve been threatening to subject Jess to the stresses of passing her Guild Commended Framer (GCF). Our excuse about too busy just didn’t seem to go away, so we’re ignoring it and Jess’s training is underway.

We’re pretty sure that she’ll fly through the exams and we can add the GCF ta got Jess’s name. Watch this space ! . . . .  

January and the Picture Framing world.

2014 started with a real bang for us and it felt a little like where we left off before Christmas, so that’s my usual excuse for taking so long to update our blog. 

The New Year has brought us the usual fantastic range of items to be framed, from large to small, from pleasant and cheerful to the elaborate and pricey!

Back at work in January tends to be the time when you reflect on the previous business year. When talking to other businesses around us, it struck me that by comparison our industry has a really good bunch of suppliers. The companies that we deal with have all been reliable, pleasant and professional . Without this our life would be harder. Maybe because the picture framing world is primarily a friendly one, that (almost) everyone in is equally pleasant. Certainly having to solve the odd crisis always shows the best in our suppliers - they really do come up with the goods (literally) when we need them to.  

So, belatedly, happy new year to all our suppliers - and can we have a bit more extended credit? (if you don’t ask, you don’t get!)

The Year is Nearly Done . . .

This is pretty much a final wrap-up blog for this year. December has again been a record month for us, with a lot of late nights and weekends spent at the work benches. Every one of our gang has been their usual magnificent selves, and we haven’t missed a single deadline - Phew!

The new van decided to breakdown big-time 8 days after we bought it, but it’s all fixed and now displaying its shiny new livery. As ever, give us a wave if you see us out and about.

We’ve been doing some exciting (and at times challenging) new work on an art collection based on the theme of war. This exhibition is due to run throughout the year as part of the 100th commemoration of the 1st World War. We’ll give more details about this once we’re given permission to do so.

A quick tot-up of our records shows that we welcomed 381 new customers this year and we thank everyone who came and found us, as well as all the regular customers who continue to support us. It really is appreciated.

We’re pretty pleased that we’ve been able to create a couple more jobs this year and that is all down to our customers (with sod all help from government schemes that are never aimed at genuinely small businesses - but I’m not allowed to end the year on a rant!).  

So on that note, we wish everyone a great Christmas and a peaceful New Year. The photo shows the loneliest Christmas tree on our little industrial estate - but it’s cheered everyone up!

Happy Christmas!