It is time to brave the cold again for the Melbourne Trade Show.  Every year in August we make the pilgrimage to the Mecca of Gift and Homewares trade shows in Australia.

You can see us at our usual spot on stand 114,  in Hall 1 ( 'More Gift' ) which is at the start of the Reed Gift fair in the Melbourne Exhibition centre.

We are again showing our crafts together with the other good folk from Craft Contact (a group of Australian craftspeople headed up by  crafts patron Janette Galbraith).

Please do come and make yourself known to us as we will be glad to say hello and put a face to the name (and all of our customers voices that we get to know so well).

The Banksia Coasters and Tealights have fit in well with our other products which are all solid timber.  Of course it is not quite correct to call the Banksia items 'solid timber as they are in fact made of Banksia Nuts (seedpods).

The particular species used for these is the Banksia Grandis which produces a particularly hard and solid seedpod, at least for a Banksia.  So I guess we could almost say that they are made of solid seedpod ???

In any case with these doing so well for many of our retailers, we have realised that the range needed to extend.

What could be more natural than to add a boat, or double tealight, by slicing the nut longways with two tealight bays for added light and greater interest ?

We have also introduced the frequently requested Banksia Keyholder.  These are now available for ordering directly throught our website.

If you are a retail customer you may order through our site, don't forget that a coupon discount may be obtained by using the coupon code of the retailer that first introduced you to our products, or by shopping with your nearest stockist.

Retailers are reminded that they do need to have their online buying account ratified by us to be a genuine wholesale account in order to see wholesale prices and access our special whole information pages.

Cheers,

Heather.

Travelling only four and a half hours to do a trade show is quite amazing for us - imagine just a reasonable car journey to get there instead of needing overnight accomodation and/or plane fares for the trip.

It was great to see the buyers from Queensland and quitre a few from Norther New South Wales out in force for the trade show.  Of course there are always some from other states like WA and of course Northern Territory as well.

With a few new customers to introduce to our style of timber work and quite a few established connections we found it a passable start to the new financial year.  I hope all of you who made it were also able to find what you were seeking.

Cheers,

Heather

TADA>>> well I just have to give this one a great big TADA, another addition to our wildlife coaster range, bringing the number in total to fourteen.

We love to hear from our retailers with comments, compliments and of course suggestions for new products or improvements to products or services.  Every comment is taken on board and considered though of course it is not always possible for us to incorporate.

The dingo wildlife coaster was suggested to us by a customer at the February trade show and we agreed it is is a good idea.  The timber used is Jarrah so it also showcases another well known Australian Timber.  The lovely darkness of this coaster sits nicely with other timbers in the wildlife coaster range.

Our information panel is a unique feature of our coasters so of course this one is no exception with care being taken to select facts that will interest both Australians and their overseas friends and visitors so this will be sure to be a hit, especially where Dingos are a feature of the landscape.

To Market, To Market..

As the saying goes, and what a trade show it was!

It is always good to see our friends, new and old at the trade show.

We have been home for a week now and are seeing the orders from the trade show going out fairly briskly.  Some customers will be just receiving their proforma invoices this week.  We will send each order asap after receipt of payment.

Of course the established account customers orders are being sent as soon as after receipt of the order.  Trade show time tends to slow up order dispatch a little but Merle is on top of it and sending the orders with much care and attention to be sure you get what you ordered and in good condition.

Please do let us know if anything is less than you expected so that we can ensure your satisfaction.

We hope to send information packs out (separately from the orders themselves) in the very near future so  that all outlets will have up to date and relevent product info plus a profile to let your customers know the product and its Made in Australia status are completely authentic.

We are looking forward to meeting up with many retailers at Reed's Sydney Gift Fair at Darling Harbour in Sydney.

The dates are from Saturday the 27th February to Wednesday the 3rd March, 2010.  New information and retailer options will be presented so please do take the time to come say hi.

We are on stand 5000 with the other Australian Made craftspeople.

Our friend Annie has been an integral part of our business for several years.  Together with her husband Charlie, they have produced various timber items for us and currently produce the Little Aussie Bottler.  In addition Annette has often pack orders for us as well as helping Heather with website creation.  We are very happy that Annette is now helping out with the IT work on an ongoing basis so she will be working with Heather to create and maintain everything you see on this website as well as other less visible IT  work.

With some members of our family heading off for full time study we have needed to do a reshuffle of who works where and when.  Previously packing had been the domain of

• Heather, who is absorbed more than ever in general management.
• Rebekah, now working in the workshop these days.
• Annette, we'll talk about her various talents and new work next week

This has left a huge hole in the order packing area.  Now all of that has been solved with the appearance of our good friend Merle.  Merle's husband Denis helps us with our sign orders for the timber signs side of the business and we are very pleased to welcome Merle to the order packing arena. She has been busy sorting and organising our packing room and we expect your orders to be dispatched in a much more timely manner now that Merle is full time on the job.

Welcome to An Original Gift,  Merle.