New Year, new directions...

Welcome to 2011!!!

I hope you all enjoyed the holiday season and came out of it refreshed and not exhausted as it often seems!

As you know we had a site crash on Christmas Eve. The good news is that the site is now recovered!! I am so happy!! I have slowly been adding items to the store, mainly wetbags right now, and have all non stocked areas turned off so it is not like being on a fruitless treasure hunt! It will take some time, but I will get it all stocked and going soon! I am excited that previous challenges have finally been overcome and that http://www.bbbuttsdiapers.com/ is going to become the primary cart for our items. If you see an issue or broken link, please email me and let me know. There are a couple of cosmetic issues to be worked out still as well.

Hidden Element (www.hyenacart.com/hiddenelement ) has been going through many very exciting changes!! We have a brand new design that I feel is edgy, fun and funk all at the same time. We are focusing a little more on the "hidden" aspect...as in we all have some hidden talents and diversity. Head to the Facebook fan page and like it for more giveaways!!

There are new vendors in January as well.... Melanie of Ewe Wear Ems joined at the beginning of the month and Janet of muggabug has returned to our congo after being gone for 6 or so months. We are also excited to add a new confectioner, Julie of Jewel of the Lion, and WOW is her stuff making me drool. I am enjoying the new diversity of items we are offering and hope that you will too!! Stocking on Saturday at 3 PM. Is it bad I will be stalking my own congo???

Back in October, November, I had a contest that asked what product the customers of BB Butts would like to see added to our line. I have listened and have begun with "BB Knees". These are available in any of our knit patterns. Just ask!! The next items I will be working on is a pattern for co ordinating hats and then little soft shoes, "BB Feet". Have a name idea for the hats? Let me know!

February is going to be a month focusing on Boys, Boys, Boys!! I love my little man, and do find it difficult to try to find cute stuff, so I am dedicating February to this. Hidden Element is also participating so there will be an awesome assortment of boy stuff.

We have been trying to pass the 1200 liker mark on Facebook for quite a time now. I do not know what Facebook is doing, but it seems everytime we make headway, they take another handful away.... we are so close to giving away a $25 GC...we CAN DO IT!! Share out!!

So let's have a little fun now!!! A giveaway...a $10 GC...to enter...you have to be a fan on Facebook and become a follower here. An extra entry if you get a new friend to like on FB and follow and they say your name in their entry post here. Your entry is your post here on the blog. This will be drawn on Jan 31st!!

Oiyeeeeee!!

First.....

Merry Christmas to you and yours!!!

I hope that you are all enjoying a little down time and savoring the joy and wonderment of the season with your families and especially the children.

Just when I thought I had it all figured out and would finally have a beautiful and fully stocked website for a first annual Boxing Week Sale.....trouble strikes!!

We had a crash of our main site on Christmas Eve...I know, Merry Christmas right?? yea... Ho HO HO.

The good news is....we now know the cause. The bad news, there is work to be redone.

I must start off by giving a HUGE public thank you to Jen of Blue Hollow Designs. I sent the email on Christmas Eve, honestly not figuring to hear until the 27th ish.

When I had a few quiet moments on Christmas Day, I logged into my email and found a group of emails from her identifying the problem, an initial restore, and some "bridging" of the gaps for customers.

That in itself was my best gift of the day!

So...the long and short is that the site is effectively down for the time being. I expect that once this holiday week is over we will get down and dirty and get at it to get the functionality and appearance restored. Then I will be able to reload all of the product items again. As I get each section completed I will open them up and make them available.

The good news is that is shouldn't take too long (more than a week or two) to get the products all listed as I had recently been working on the images for what was supposed to be the Boxing Week site wide Sale.

In the mean time, you can hop over to Hidden Element (www.hyenacart.com/hiddenelement ) for some Boxing Week sale items.

There are many items on Facebook in our Nov and Dec Project Albums and many of those items may still be available so please email us if there is something that interests you.

If you are local...this is our last week at our storefront at the Co Op Mall. We will be open Tuesday (28) 10-4, Wednesday (29) 9-4 and Thursday and Friday will be pack up days. There will be some great specials on items so please stop in and take advantage of them!

We will continue to work from our home studio throughout the year and look forward to serving ALL our customers smoothly once again soon.

Exciting News!!!!!

BB Butts Diapers has opened a storefront for the month of December!!!

We are located inside the Co Op Mall just inside the partition doors beside the food floor.

This has been made possible from an enormous amount of help from my family. Few of us realize the amount of help that family members put in to assist a WAHM in making dreams come true. Be it hubby who is home right now looking after littles and cleaning and making dinner or running to the post office, or the eldest son who babysits extra hours, my mom who sits in the store and helps me in the sewing room or her husband who is "McGuyver", the do anything type of guy, it takes EVERYONE, not just me!

Most of all it is the customers who keep purchasing and driving us forward in growing the business. While I cannot sustain the store long term, it is wonderful that we are doing this for the season. Simply put, my kids are first and with a little man who is still two, my time is best spent at home long term, not in a store. He will grow and in a few years we will re evaluate the needs of our family as well as those of the business and may decide to have a permanent storefront at that time. For now, we do it when it works.

Vanderhoof is a wonderful community. Always so many events and happenings. Many of these are centered around kids or done with the kids in mind. To kick off the Christmas Shopping season, this Friday is Moonlight Madness. It all begins with the Parade of Lights. Upwards of 100 floats all decked out in Christmas Lights and carollers will go along the parade route to kick the evening off. It is simply SPECTACULAR. Candy is given to the kids, merchants along the route serve hot chocolate for the spectators and then after the parade the shopping begins!!

BB Butts Diapers is participating in the madness of Moonlight Madness. We will be having some hour long specials at differing times throughout the night.

3-5 PM 20% off Kitchen Cloth

7-8 PM 15% off Wet Bags

9-10 PM 10% off chalk mats, crayon wallets and gift tags

11-12 PM 15% off diapers

Come on out Friday and celebrate with the community and let the magic of Christmas begin!!

New store!!

How is it that every time I come to check on this, it has been a LONG time since I posted???

We have some very exciting news!! BB Butts Diapers is opening a storefront in the Co Op mall next to the Co Op grocery store!

Loading inventory today and hope to open first thing Wednesday morning with a grand opening for Friday afternoon beginning at 4. I will post pictures soon!

Fall has arrived!

I do not know where the summer has gone, but the geese flying south and the frost in the early morning surely say that is has waned.

Today, we finished up our Farmer's Market season. I recall at the beginning of the season that I thought it would be such a chore and would *maybe* do it every other week. Oh, how wrong I was! It was a thrill to partake in, and I loved meeting so many new people and it certainly helped our local business! (Thanks Joni for the nudge) It was my weekly EVENT!

I could not have done it without the help of my family. My hubby got behind at and looked after kids, often delaying sleep after a long graveyard shift as did my eldest son. They both packed and unpacked all those totes and tents week after week up three flights and then down another full one each time! My mom and step dad were AWESOME.....every week Mom was there sitting beside me, and when we were not at the market, she was driving me forward to meet orders, produce product and keep inventory up. She is my main cutter as well! John was there every week to set up and take down as well, and often gave me a lift home if hubby was working. So THANK YOU to my family, I could not have had this part of my journey fulfilled without your help!

So what now? Well, it certainly will NOT be slowing down!! Over the next two weeks I will be attempting to list the remaining in stock items online. I need to update fabric galleries as I flew to Vancouver a couple of weeks ago and bought about 30 bolts of fabric.

I have also joined a holiday boutique called Wonderland on Hyena Cart. It is another congo catering towards Christmas shoppers and there is sure to be some amazing items there!! www.hyenacart.com/wonderland The grand opening will be SEPT 15th!

Locally, I will be participating in the Mc Leod craft fair as well as Midnight Madness. There is another possibility but I am still ssshhh about it as I am not sure it will happen yet!

Please watch the Facebook page, fan it. We are driving to 300 fans and a diaper giveaway as soon as we get there!

Till next time.........

Michelle

Back at it!

Hello everyone! :)

We are back at it in full swing! The Farmer's Market today was another great day of meeting customers old and new!

We had a number of new fabrics arrive this week. Check out the facebook page to see them all but this is one of my new favorites for wet bags!

I am currently working on a "Rainbow" of diapers for a family who are expecting their little pot of gold soon! I will be posting a bit of a photo trail of the making of this large order both here and on Facebook once it is complete.

I had another custom order last week and got to work with another couple of my newer fabrics. I really love these fabrics and think they fit in quite nicely with the "western" theme of a farming community such as ours!

Speaking of farming and western, I have committed to holding an additional market day on saturday Aug 21 at the Vanderhoof Fall Fair.

We will continue all of our Thursdays at Riverside Park as well.

Remember that the web site is currently NOT stocked very well. I DO have LOTS of instock however so if you are looking for something please just phone, email or message me on facebook and I will help you out!

Continue having fun in the sun! The weather has been incredible! Remember there is a camp fire ban in BC now. We have several fires local to us currently and it is sad to see so much of the landscape eaten up by fire....play hard but be safe out there!

Summer Holidays!!

Just a quick note to let everyone know that we are closing for Summer Holidays from July 18 to 28th.

A note on "we"...I do not have multiple personalities, not that I will admit to at least ;). Several months ago, my mom moved up here and she has become an unsung integral part of my business. I always loathed cutting.....mom has completely taken the cutting aspect over leaving me free to concentrate on sewing and design elements. As a result, capacity has increased greatly for the business.

Feel free to purchase in stock items. They will ship on the 28th. We will not be at the Vanderhoof Farmer's Market on July 22nd but do return on the 29th.

We have been listing little on our websites as everyone is outside enjoying the summer weather and on the computer little. We have focused our time on making products and selling locally for the summer months and have really enjoyed the personable aspect of this.

Simply, it has been too busy to spend lots of time on listings to have them sell locally and have to drop the listing before an oversell occurs. It is too time consuming. Like you, our family is also busier with the kids all home and trying to squish in as much summer fun as possible.

We have kept listings going at Hidden Element on Hyena Cart. The best way to keep up with us these days is via our facebook page. Click on our new Facebook badge on the left sidebar and "like" our page. We update very regularly, often post pictures of recent "builds" as well as post sales, contests and the occasional giveaway! Most items can be purchased by directly contacting us or posting interest on the wall.

Come September we will have a few HUGE stockings on each of the sites. It has been a very busy summer of sewing!

In the mean time, I am going to spend some time with my hubby and kids camping, and help the littles catch their first fish. No computer, no phone, no cell, no email, no fabric, sewing machine or serger! I AM going to take my long neglected knitting project ;)

I hope each of you also take the time to make a special memory or two this summer as well! :)