Jubil-woe

The long weekend looked like being a great one with lots of mug printing and fishing. Unfortunately, the fishing was cancelled due to the weather though I don't see why - it doesn't bother the fish!

My mother arrived at Gelert Design Towers for an impromptu visit, which was great.

I was very busy with the mug printing with Zingy mugs proving especially popular

Luckily, Mrs Gelert Design helped out by entertaining mum while I was busy, and in just two days I had too many packages for a single trip to the post office!

One of the Etsy teams I'm part of, CraftyFolk, democratically decided on a new logo and a few of the team members chose to have their own CraftyFolk mug made. I love this idea - obviously - and enjoy putting other people's designs on mugs. After all, that was the idea initially!

But then, as invariably happens, disaster struck. The mug press decided it had had enough and downed tools. Completely. Cheap Chinese imports notwithstanding, you do expect your machinery to last more than a week!
So, while the orders kept coming in, I was left twiddling my fingers waiting for the bank holiday to finish so I could send a very stern letter to the supplier of the press and order a new, better, and unfortunately more expensive model today.
With priority delivery, the new press should arrive tomorrow morning and I should be able to catch up. Only a day lost and with a 3 working day posting deadline, I won't be late sending out the mugs.

Hopefully the original press will be fixed/replaced and then I'll have 2 mug presses which will aid me in busy times and means I'll always have a standby so that if anything goes wrong again, I won't miss a beat.

Well, you have to think positively don't you?

Zingy Rocks My World!

A tricky choice of viewing in tv tonight - Eurovision or Norway v England. Luckily The Hump was first to perform on Eurovision so I watched that then turned over. Great song but it's a grower and not an instant tune. Then it's a ballad and there are 25 more songs to come, so poor Englebert will be forgotten by voting time.

Now it's half time in the football so time to get down with the coolest advertising character since Flat Eric (remember him?) - EDF Energy's loveable Zingy the dancing flame . If you're in the UK you can't fail to have seen him. Here's a reminder though:

Crazily, EDF haven't tried to cash in on all the Zingy love with a range of merchandise yet - they'd make a fortune! Just look for Zingy on Ebay and you'll see the craft world hasn't been slow to grasp the opportunity!
Mrs Gelert Design adores him, so as a surprise I made her a Zingy mug - an opportunity to win brownie points with her indoors and gain more experience with my new dye sublimation printing setup.

Of course, always one to try and exploit a marketing opportunity, and until EDF Energy realise what they're missing, I printed a few more mugs and put them up for sale to see if I couldn't begin to recoup some of the money I've invested in my new printing venture.

So far so good!

He's available on Ebay, and in both my Etsy and Folksy shops. Here's a photo:

Isn't he just the best?