Painting & Packing

It was another chilly start to the day this morning as we continued work at the barn! 

We had a lovely delivery of these antique creates which I have had on my wish list for a while now.

Once all of our shelving units are painted we will be adding casters to the bottom of each crate. They will form beautiful storage under the units.

Until then we have over 50 more shelves to paint! (A mixture of white washed paint and a beautiful grey/blue paint.)

Time flew by and before we knew it, it was time to pack up and return back to our current studio to pack up today's orders.

We have had a few more trade orders heading out today and also all of these mugs are off to new homes tonight to keep our customers cosy during this cold weather!

The Byre

We are in and we have started work on the barn!

It began snowing just as soon as we got there early this morning, but we made the decision to stay and crack on with getting as much sorted as we could at the risk of getting snowed in!

There is a lot to do, so I am pleased that we have made a start today. The building is just over 24 Metres long and we have lots of plans, including an office area, packing table, stock area and a lasercutting area too!

We will be working all sorts of strange hours this week as we are continuing to pack orders and we are extra busy shipping trade orders out at the moment.

I wanted to share a couple of quick snaps here. Here is the new view from my desk!

So, plenty of tea for us over the next 7 days, cosy painting clothes and of course adding the fun decorative bits and pieces at the end!

A Very Exciting Weekend.

It's been a busy weekend here at Sophia Victoria Joy! 

If you know me, you will know that I love snowy weather. 

To top off this amazing snowy weekend I am over the moon to announce that we now have the keys to our new premises. 

We braved the snow on Sunday morning and made our way across to the beautiful market town of Alresford to pick up our keys!

It's all ours! After weeks of waiting we can begin to move in and I can't wait!

I'll be sharing pictures as we organise the interior over the next week or two.

We also made time this weekend for some beautiful snowy walks!

Winchester Cathedral grounds were as beautiful as ever.

We even spotted an igloo being built!

As Millie finds new ways to keep extra warm throughout this cold snap we pull up our extra thick long socks and get packing posting and sorting out our new premises!

We think we will be keeping our wellies handy for a few more days!

And also a fair few cups of tea too!

Wishing you a great week! Keep Warm!

An Overdue Catch Up!

It's been far too long since I sat down and wrote a blog post.

I've so many photographs from the last couple of months and so much news too! So I thought that it was time for a catch up!

This Christmas was amazing thanks to our customers, friends and family. 

After all the busy packing, posting and emailing was complete we spent the Christmas holiday in the countryside with my family.

It was lovely to have a few days in the countryside with good food and good company!

Now that we are back, we have some very exciting news. In the second week of November it dawned on me just how much the business had grown. I was struggling to keep up with orders and emails alone and began thinking about the reality of my Partner Mike becoming full time.

On the Wednesday we had a conversation about Mike becoming full time in 2 years.

On the Thursday we had the same conversation, but suggested 1 years time.

On the Friday we realised that the business was at the stage that it needed the both of us and I could not believe just how quickly it had all changed. 

I am delighted to say that after 6 weeks of waiting, Mike will be joining Sophia Victoria Joy Ltd today!
Mike knows the business inside out, designs the website, manages accounts and also laser cuts almost every personalised order we receive.

So we are fully back to work in the studio after playing catch up with orders.
Now we are just awaiting the snow, which would be the perfect cherry on the cake!