So, the summer has come and gone since my last post!

I’ve spent some time in Cornwall by the beautiful coast,

Hanging out on the beach in Cornwall

in West Sussex camping in our fabulous bell tent on the edge of ancient woodland,

Our canvas home

closer to home I’ve been sowing and digging at the allotment

Summer at the allotment

and have been messing about with the kids having loads of picnics and barbecues having a delicious time. Recently we’ve been harvesting the fruits and veg of our labor, scrumping  along the way and taking the rest home to preserve.

Juicy plums fresh from the tree

We’ve been making sumptuous jam, homely apple pies and freezing the excess.

We painted the Summer house hoping to turn it into a studio until we found a number of holes in the roof so I don’t think the sewing machine (or I) would live too happily there over winter – maybe we’ll try again next summer.

Alfie has now started nursery on a few afternoons and he LOVES it. So now I have a little time again to put my efforts into sonnyandalfie the business, and after the wonderful summer break I feel ready and raring to go. Watch this space…

This week I had a lovely review on the daisychainbaby blog. Lindsay from Daisychainbaby has been very supportive and has offered me advice on starting a new business, including, setting up a stall at markets, something I’m thinking about doing in the summer especially if I start to sell pre-filled bags as I’m sure the contents would be quite successful in summer fetes and markets.

I’ve been doing a fair bit of research into finding bag fillers. I’m trying to source products that will stand the test of time rather than the usual toys that break soon after arriving home from the party. I am also trying to make sure they fit the style of sonnyandalfie and the ethics – no mean feat when looking for pocket money toys. Keep checking the blog to see how I get on.

So what happened to April then? We’re suddenly well into May and I haven’t had a chance to scribble down my thoughts.

April was a pretty good month for sonnyandalfie, we had a number of new designs popping into existence, the first a lovely New Baby thank you card, the second an incredibly cute party invitation and lastly, a Christening card like the fabric New Baby cards but the fabric is cut into the shape of blossom and  a button in the centre. 

New Baby Thank You card

Party Invitation

 

I’ve been so tied up with designs that I haven’t had the chance to spend time on promotion which I do need to keep up as I’ve discovered that it does not come to you, you have to search for it. 

The other reason that I’ve been fairly idle with the blog is that I finally managed to get hold of an allotment after being on the waiting list for over a year. I invited some friends to join my husband and I in working the allotment as it is a big undertaking with small children and it’s so much more fun going up there when we and the children have company. So our little community allotment was born.

The site was totally overgrown when we received the keys, but we have done a blinding job in getting it up and running. Thanks to the kindness of freecyclers’ we have a shed, some tools, some cherry tree logs which the kids use as stepping stones and seats, and some garden furniture. We have planted potatoes, carrots, onions, cos lettuce and broad beans. It’s a wonderful place to spend time when the weather is good and it’s a great way of clearing your mind leaving room for new ideas and designs.

I’m now spending some time researching filling the party bags and sourcing ethical and environmentally friendly fillers – any ideas welcome !

I’m placing my first ad in ‘Juno‘ the parenting magazine. It came about as I had been thinking of ways to promote the site and an email landed in my inbox inviting me to advertise in Juno. I love the magazine, so have placed an ad and we’ll just have to wait and see if it generates any traffic. Unfortunately I didn’t include a discount code on it, so unless I ask I won’t be able to trace the source.

Well, we’ve now had over 100 unique visitors which is fantastic, I now need to find ways to get people to return to the site when they are organising a party. I’ve sent out information on party supplies to a couple of mailing lists – NCT and ‘The Twins Club’ which did generate a fair bit of traffic. I’m still hoping sonnyanalfie will appear on a google page, but so far nothing.

I’m getting fairly addicted to checking google analytics each morning. The excitement I get to see there have been new visitors to the site, then investigating whether they came from referrals and which ones – I’ve always been a bit geeky when it comes to figures!

I seem to have a steady trickle of new visitors, probably two thirds are from referrals from other sites, amazingly one was from this blog which makes me realise that it is being read by someone so “Hello, and thank you!”. I have done another google uk search and sonnyandalfie is still not listed, my search was for “eco party bags party invitations”. The good news is that the products are coming up on about the 6th search page and a little later from the reviews they’ve had on the green familia and the gin lady websites (by the way theginlady has had a re-vamp and is looking fabulous).

Fortunately the stats on google analytics are only updated automatically once a day so now I can get back to the day.

So, I’ve created my first post on the blog, chosen my ‘theme’  and added my links. Next, I need to let sites know about the blog and the sonnyandalfie website. 

I’ve submitted the site to delicious who are a bookmark site, this was really easy to register with and add bookmarks to, it may also help me tidy my own bookmark bar as I’ll add all my sonnyandalfie web contact sites to this, then I’ll be able to access them from any computer – handy.

Next, I’m submitting the site and blog to reddit, I’ve found you can’t add more than one site too quickly as reddit will stop you and make you wait for 8 minutes, which is perfect as it gives me time to update this blog. The advise is to not just enter your own sites, so I’m also adding the green familia a great light green shopping blog, Brenda the editor has been extremely supportive to sonnyandalfie.

Spurl and Blink are next, both bookmarking sites, again really easy to  set up and use.

Well, this is something I never imagined myself doing. I’m setting up a new business – sonnyandalfie. Sonnyandalfie produces hand-made eco party invitations, party bags and thank-you cards. I don’t have much money set aside for advertising, so I’m exploring other ways to get traffic to my site http://www.sonnyandalfie.co.uk it’s a lovely site with great products, I just need to find a way for people to find it.

A few friends suggested setting up a blog, but to be honest I can’t see many people being interested in what I have to say, but I have just been reading on webmums that I HAVE to start a blog as it will help with ratings from search engines which currently are so low that I haven’t even found the site in google.

So, I thought I’d start to blog on how my progress goes with marketing and gaining a higher position in google, it’s going to be a very steep hill to climb, but I made it up Machu Piccu so I’m sure I can do this too. My first obstacle is getting the time to spend working as my two little boys have an extreme eversion to me spending time on the computer, they would far rather be looking at cbeebies or the wiggles on it, so while they are napping, eating or at nursery I will try to scrabble a few words together.