new blog address

hi all, just letting you know that I have a new blog, with extra details about the shop and the grand opening next Tuesday :o)

you'll find it at www.chaosandpookey.pookeypockets.com.au so come on over and have a look!

I'll be deleting this blog soon, and all the updates from now on will be on the new one, so don't forget to bookmark it!

Today's effort was the floor :o)

We now have carpet (yes, decided not to do vinyl in the end, lol!) My goodness it makes a difference to how it looks!

These are taken from the back, looking at the front which will be the main shop area

The different coloured square at the front left of the photo is where the kids area is going to be. There's a huge playpen, and the boys are ready to pick out which toys they want to take in. :o)

This one is taken from the front of the shop looking back at the sewing area (and kids area)

and this last one is just a closer view of the back of the shop

Unfortunately there weren't enough of the carpet tiles in any one colour to do the whole of the shop, so we've created 'zones' with different tiles for the different areas of the shop. I guess it will all make more sense once there's some furniture in there!

So that's the next step - starting to put all the stuff together!

painting's done!

We've got the second coat on the walls now, and it looks great if I do say so myself! The doors to the sink are yellow now too :o)


I'm still tossing up between carpet tiles for the floor, or vinyl flooring. Vinyl would be easier to look after on the whole (just sweep up sewing mess, pins etc) but more expensive, and potentially more likely to get marked/damaged easily with heavy furniture etc. Carpet tiles are easy to lay ourselves and half the price of the vinyl quotes so far. Spills can be cleaned by pulling up the tile to wash if necessary, the main downside is that I'd have to vacuum sewing scraps, and pins etc would be harder to clean up. Still trying to decide!
These are the carpet tiles I'm looking at at the moment - the plain ones would be a border on the outside, the spots and squiggles would be for the sewing area and kids area (cut pile, so pins less likely to get caught up in it) and the multi coloured pattern would be for the main shop area.


Please comment if you have any thoughts/suggestions!! :o)

So now I need to concentrate on the furniture, stock and other fun 'shopping' stuff! (I love going shopping, lol!!)

add a bit of colour...

We started painting on the weekend - didn't get quite as much done as I would have liked, but there's now one coat on the walls and the ceiling. The colour is called primrose yellow :o)
Here's a few photos of the progress so far...

"before" photos

I thought it would be cool to have a bit of a before and after record of the shop here on my blog. So here's the "before" shots ;o)

<-- This is the front of the shop

Ok, so I'm helping your imagination out with a very badly photoshopped logo image up there! But if you can imagine that that's a real sign, that's vaguely what it's likely to look like!

As you can see in the reflection, there's some parking spaces just accross from the door, and there's more around the corner to the right of that photo.

This is the view from the other side of the front window -->

I can see I'm going to just love cleaning all the glass!! Theoretically, this is where my desk/counter is going to be, and Hopefully I'll have some cool things up on the window to look at as well.

So then, moving inside the shop, you'll see we have a bit of work to do ;o)
The walls are going to be painted next weekend, but I have just a bit of cleaning to do first! (and we all know just how much I love cleaning, lol!!)

(excuse Mikey's sad look in the photo, lol, he'd been told off for running around like a lunatic!)

Then there's the back door of the shop, which opens into an arcade type thing, and last but not least, a picture of the sink ;o)
Which I am assured will be operational soon!

So that's what it looks like right now. Stay tuned in the next few weeks for an amazing transformation!! Hopefully we'll be on track and ready to open at the end of the month, but we'll see how it goes!

the Shop

Today I'm feeling totally miserable (horrid snotty cold that came out of nowhere!) so instead of trying to do anything constructive I thought I'd do some long overdue blog updating, and tell you about
It will be in the western suburbs of Brisbane, at River Hills - I don't have a set opening date yet, but will be updating (semi-)regularly on here as the fit-out progresses. If you hadn't guessed, lol, I'm pretty excited!!

There will be nappies (of course!) hopefully a good variety of brands of MCN and accessories.
Plus you will also be able to get all the supplies you need for making your own nappies - hemp, bamboo, PUL, microfleece, 80% cotton velour, snaps, velcro/touchtape, elastic, and more.
Maybe even wool and knitting gear ;o)
A snap service for snap repairs and/or snapping nappies you have sewn.
We're also looking at running small nappy sewing workshops if there is interest.
Plus lots more ever-evolving ideas!!

So there it is - a real-life shop, where you can see and pat the nappies before you buy them. Plus you can see and feel the fabrics, and ask questions about nappy making and fabric combinations etc.
And then take everything home with you straight away - no waiting for that fluffy-mail fix! What more could you want?? ;o)

June already!

Hasn't that gone fast!?!

I had a June 3rd deadline to have Rhiannon's communion/confirmation dress finished... and I've made it with days to spare! (well, I still need to do the hand finishing on the jacket, but that's only a half hour job) Photos are here.

Moving the website to the new domain and server seems to have mostly gone ok, there are a couple of niggly errors still, but they don't affect the working of the cart, just look bad. I'm still working on finding out what the problem is. (If you're a tech genius and can tell me how to fix it, please do, lol!! I'll give you a nappy!!)

So now, back to the grindstone to get some stock into the store and finish getting things organised for my special project - things should start happening pretty soon!!