Happy New Year !

I for one, am very glad indeed to see the back of 2010.

For me and my family it was a pretty horrible year. I won't go in to details but anyone who is reading this and knows me, will know what I'm talking about. But, from a Blooming Felt point of view, it has been a pretty good year ! We built Blooming Felt Shedquarters in the garden, my trusty assistant Alison joined the team, we had a very good event at Ally Pally and we're looking forward to lots more good times in 2011.

To start off the year, I decided a little visit to Ikea was on the cards. The Blooming Felt studio has unfortunately become extremely messy and muddled since Ally Pally and it was time to put it all in order and get lots more storage.

After measuring up and checking the Ikea website for stock levels, we managed to arrange the loan of a van for the afternoon and headed to Ikea, armed with our shopping list. Car park - extremely busy. Shop (didn't seem to be too busy). We walked round, noted all of the pick up aisles for the numerous items we wanted and headed to the collection hall. On visiting the first aisle we needed, it became apparent that the shelves were pretty much EMPTY ! This continued on every single aisle we visited so I don't think the Ikea website stock levels are very up to date - how annoying !

We did, however, still manage to spend nearly £700 (on the frames as we couldn't purchase a single coloured bin, drawer or shelf). So I now have rather a lot of packaging sitting in the garage, that can't be put together until we get the rest of the stuff. Now that really is annoying ! Fingers crossed if we leave it another week or so, the items we want will be back in stock.

The Blooming Felt website will be open again and processing and dispatching orders from Tuesday 4th January. Thank you to everyone who has been spending their hard-earned cash over the holidays - your orders will be with you very soon.

Wishing you all a very happy, healthy and crafty New Year !!!

xx