Cherry Pie Lane

Monday, Monday… the winning designs!

Apr 302012

OK, I’ve kept you all in suspenders for long enough! Here are the 3 winning designs from the competition that I launched at the beginning of the month.

These hearts will all be approx. 15x15cm and will have a turnaround of about 2weeks (though I won’t know for sure until I’ve made a few up!). All of the hearts will be glazed, rather than the ‘vintage’ finish that I normally use. All designs cost the same and will be priced up at £42 each once they are available to buy in June.

The colouring on the designs is able to be customised e.g. blue stripes on the candy heart or a lilac plaque on the peony heart etc. Ignore the name and date on the hearts, these are just to show you how they’ll look!

FIRST PLACE – winning your design, which will be made and sent to you for free…

Naomi Vaughan – Teacups, Peonies, Pink:

SECOND PLACE – winning a whopping 75% off your chosen design:

Emma Briggs & Hayley King – (You guys entered almost the exact same idea, so you can both have the discount!) - Retro, Sweets/Candy

THIRD PLACE - winning a whopping 75% off your chosen design:

Elaine Green – Military, Love, Poppies

So… what do you think?!

Sunday Brainspill… Sneaky Sneaky

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Apr 292012

So, I promised you guys a little sneak preview of the brand new wedding heart designs that came from the winning competition entries.

I’ve deliberately been very mean and am showing you the least possible slice of each design – you’ll have to come back tomorrow to see the whole thing

FIRST PLACE – Naomi Vaughan – Teacups, Peonies, Pink

SECOND PLACE – Emma Briggs & Hayley King – Retro, Sweets/Candy

THIRD PLACE - Elaine Green – Military, Love, Poppies

So, whatcha think?? Swing by tomorrow to see the whole designs, details about the style of heart, turn-around times and prices

BONUS POST – i LOVE etsy

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Apr 282012

Ok, ok, I’ve been sitting on this piece of top secret info for too long – it’s so exciting that I am writing an additional post for you guys today!

A while ago, I got a convo (that’s a message for technophobes) via etsy concerning my ‘LET THEM EAT CAKE’ hanging letters. I actually made these for Mini CPL’s naming day, but thought they would make super cool additions to wedding reception dessert/cake/sweet tables, so up the listing went.

'LET THEM EAT CAKE' hanging ceramic letters

This convo was so exciting that I had to re-read it several times and then nearly spewed – etsy’s headquarters in New York wanted my letters! My letters were going to wing their way over to Brooklyn (very jealous!)

For those not in the know, etsy is holding a mega wedding fayre – the first of its kind. An entirely etsy-sourced wedding event. It is called ‘to have and to hold’ and has been sold out for yonks now. It is on today only… well, later today as NYC is behind us in time.

The head honchos at etsy have personally scoured the site for wedding details that took their fancy and one of them was my set of letters. I can’t tell you how chuffed I am to have been selected, it’s amazing.

Anyway, as I obviously can’t get to the show, I’ll be waiting (read: rocking back and forth next to my laptop) for any feedback and coverage of the show & hopefully a glimpse or two of my letters

If you guys see anything, please share the links too – I would LOVE to see what else has been brought in for the show! Here’s hoping to lots of sales!

Keep ya eyes peeled…

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Apr 232012

the competition winning designs are just being finished off and will be revealed soon – keep an eye on the blog over the next couple of days to get the first glimpse!

Monday, Monday… Parkinson’s Awareness Week

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Apr 162012

I never know how to feel when it gets to this week of the year. Half of me wants to give all my money to Parkinson’s UK in the hope that it will help find a cure faster and half of me is too scared to face up to the disease and talk about it.

My Dad has had Parkinson’s for quite a while now. It’s a hideous disease. I’d swap places with him in a heart-beat, he doesn’t deserve it, no-one does. Aside from the awful symptoms associated with the disease, it is so hard to see someone who is still ‘with it’ & has been so independent in the past, struggle so much.

I’ve wanted to write a book about my Dad and his illness for some time, but every time I start, I can’t get past the first couple of paragraphs, she says with her eyes welling up whilst typing this post. I even have an awesome title for the book too!

Anyway, what I came on here to say, before I lose myself again, is that for the whole of Parkinson’s awareness week (16-22 April, 2012) I will give 10% of all sales to the charity.

Please help me support Parkinson’s UK & if you have nothing to order from me, please think about giving them a donation.

Thank you

ANNNNNNNDDDDDD… the winners are…

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Apr 092012

MAN! You guys have given me a seriously hard time with the entries to the competition. I had so many fab ideas and my mind has been racing with pictures for a whole week!

I’ve had a sit down, a long think, picked Mr CPL’s brain, had some more thinking time… drank some fizz (well, it is ‘technically’ still my birthday weekend)… thought some more, annnnnnddddddd…

We have our winners, I loved them all!! Here they are – if you see your name, you need to mail me at: info@cherrypielane.co.uk and we can chat names & dates for your design.

So…

FIRST PLACE – winning your design, which will be made and sent to you for free:

Naomi Vaughan – Teacups, Peonies, Pink

This will be such a gorgeous piece, using vintage teacup & saucer style prints to decorate the edges of the heart.

SECOND PLACE – winning a whopping 75% off your chosen design:

Emma Briggs & Hayley King – (You guys entered almost the exact same idea, so you can both have the discount!) - Retro, Sweets/Candy

An awesome retro styled candy-striped heart with gorgeous fonts and candy details.

THIRD PLACE - winning a whopping 75% off your chosen design:

Elaine Green – Military, Love, Poppies

I couldn’t help but love this idea, what with my Daddy being an ex Coldstream Guard & Mini CPL being called Poppy!!

A beautiful heart with a central poppy pattern – not just for November!

I can’t wait to get these ideas in to production – I will be working on the designs over the next 2 weeks and I will post the finished design pictures on here for you. If you are a winner and you’d like to wait to see the designs before ordering, that’s not a problem

So, give me 2 weeks, I’ll show you the designs and then a few weeks after that, you’ll be able to see photos of the real finished product!

Thanks so much for your entries – keep your eyes peeled for the next competition that I’ll be running within the next few months.

My Awesome Find… #SBS

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Apr 052012

OK, as some of you may know, I had a really mega amazing week last week, mostly thanks to finding a little #tag on twitter known as #SBS.

#SBS stands for ‘small business sunday’ and it was an idea thunk up by the evil (actually not at all evil) genius Mr Theo Paphitis. I stumbled upon it on twitter one Sunday evening and found out what I had to do to enter.

Any small business can enter, so long as you are on twitter. Between 5 and 7.30pm every Sunday, you have your chance to catch Mr Paphitis’ attention with 140 characters of selling your business. Theo Paphitis has the very daunting task of reading the thousands of tweets, shortlisting any that seem interesting and then picking just SIX businesses to retweet to all of his followers.

I’m no maths genius, clearly, but the odds of being picked each week are pretty small!

I entered a few times, here and there with ‘sensible’ business talk & I hadn’t been picked, so I changed my tweet to be more ‘me’ & hey presto, it worked, I got selected

Here’s my retweet from last July:

I can’t begin to tell you how insane my phone went for the next 5 hours, I had thousands of new mentions, congratulations, new twitter followers, new visitors to my website, new facebook ‘likers’ – it was literally like the floodgates had opened. I was just awestruck, it felt like all the hard work and the late nights were finally being recognised. I went to bed very happy that Sunday

The excitement died down a bit & I continued to watch the #SBS every week to see who would be picked next. It’s strange, it’s like a little family is being built. You spot new followers with #SBS in their biography & you feel like you know them already!!

Anyway, I digress. There was mention of a gathering of some sort for all of the #SBS winners (cue excitement & flailing arms). The details were revealed, the invites sent and then I was on my way…

The event was held at Edgbaston Cricket Ground, Birmingham and sponsored by Ryman. We could all take a ‘plus 1′, so I took my sister, Nic, with me (my current financial investor – read – money lender!). I left Mr CPL & Mini CPL to look after each other at home.

We arrived, saw a ‘blinding’ mirrored car, signed in & got our name badges, then headed upstairs to a room full of buzz, winners, sandwiches and a FREE BAR!! We were really not expecting such fab hospitality. We all flitted about, meeting new people, meeting old friends, and finally meeting people that we had been talking to for years over twitter. (You all know who you are, it’s too scary to mention you all, and I always leave someone out and feel bad!!)

Once we had all had a chit chat and a bit of a relax, we got called in to the conference room to meet the man himself!!

Nic and I were sat just 4 chairs behind Theo Paphitis *exciting*. We were introduced to the CEO of Ryman, Mr Kypros Kyprianou, or ‘Kyp’ as we were advised. This guy was fab, funny, beautifully dressed and was to thank for funding the entire get together, the free bar and the fab goody bags at the end.

I was expecting it to be a bit scary, but really watching these guys on stage was like hanging out at the pub with them. They are all so down to earth and friendly & Mr Paphitis has a worse potty mouth than me, haha!!

We were also introduced to Chris Wheeler from Metalfrog Studios, whose company were not only previous winners, but also have been working super hard on the amazing new #SBS website – go check it out, it’s stunning!!

After lots of chat and inspiration from Theo, we had a chance for Q&A. After this, we were actually all given the opportunity to have a photo taken with Mr Paphitis & our CERTIFICATES – woop!

Theo, Me & My Sister

I am amazed at how much time we were all given, it must have been knackering to smile solidly for nearly 2 hours!!

Certificates picked up, photo taken, we popped back to the lovely free bar for more wine & hung about for a chat with a few more lovely tweeps, then headed back… via Theo’s car… via a restaurant… without my sister’s coat, which she left at the cricket ground… minus our missed train as we were late leaving the restaurant… via a car with Mr CPL & a Mini CPL that was wondering why she had been torn out of bed at midnight and put in to a car *cue unimpressed looks*.

If you are a small business and you are on twitter, I massively urge you to enter #SBS on Sunday!

Lots of thanks to Theo Paphitis, Kypros Kyprianou & Chris Wheeler.

Monday, Monday… Competition Time!

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Apr 022012

As I said on the CPL FB page last week, April is my birthday month (the 8th to be precise!), so expect something fab for you guys – well, here it is!!

I am launching a fab competition for you guys to win a brand new, never been seen before, wedding heart design.

I am about to create a few new experiments in my kiln – trying a few new techniques and styles to make a new range of gorgeous wedding hearts that can be turned around in just 1-2 weeks! Fab news for you last-minute planners or gift buyers

Anyway, I need your help to get these designs on the go – I *could* just make up some designs and put them in the shop, but I want to get you guys involved & this is your chance to have a complete custom design made up & added to the CPL range.

Here are the details:

THE PRIZE:

There will be 3 new designs chosen from the entries.

First prize is your idea made up in to a ceramic wedding heart, featuring your names and date of choice (this doesn’t have to be for you, you can have it made for a friend/family member). The date of the wedding doesn’t need to be in the future either, the hearts make really gorgeous gifts for anniversaries too – either your own or someone you know and love lots! This will be sent straight to you, or your chosen couple!

The 2 runner-up prizes will get their designs drawn up as CAD pictures and will also be given a whopping 75% discount on the first purchase of that design.

THE ENTRY:

To enter, all you need to do is tell me your idea – I only need 1, 2 or 3 keywords and I’ll sort the rest for you. For example:

This heart, I would say… sparrows & tattoos

This heart, I would say… sepia & lace

This heart, I would say… Ivy, Secret Garden & Key

You can enter the competition up to 3 times. One entry can be as a comment below on this post, one entry as a tweet to me and one entry as a comment on the CPL facebook page.

THE WINNER:

The winners will be selected by the quality of their entry only, not by the number of entries. I am looking for ideas that really stand out, are interesting and different and will appeal to lots of lovely couples.

The 3 winners will be announced here, on the blog, next Monday (Easter Monday, the 9th), so you have a whole week to get your thinking caps on and come up with something brilliant!

Any questions about it?? Just ask! Looking forward to your ideas

Sunday Brainspill… Superwoman (not!)

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Mar 252012

Thought I’d drop in and give you a quick bit of something to read in the sun whilst sipping your cocktails and smelling sausages charring on the BBQ!

CPL HQ (that’s me, effectively) has been super mega busy this month & it looks like we’ll be mega busy next month too as orders are already queuing up to be placed.

I can’t tell you how happy this makes me. When I first started making (frankly embarrassing) stuff back in 2010, I had no idea that it could come this far. I really love making things for you guys, I especially love knowing that they will take pride of place at a wedding, in your homes or wrapped up & nestling with a bunch of other gorgeous gifts on a present table somewhere. I also love hearing good things from you guys too – it makes me all warm & fuzzy inside, haha!

The best bit is that I have had some really exciting news and emails over the last week – it is all very top secret and hush hush at the mo, but I hope to be able to tell you all by shouting it from the rooftops in a few months. It is this piece of news that has led me to racking my brains about extra space. Our cottage is beautiful (or at least has the potential to be once we finally finish all our DIY!), but mega tiny, the garden is next to non-existant and the loft is titchy. Mr CPL is currently in the garden, being ‘helped’ by Mini CPL to measure up any space we do have to see if I can have a studio of some description somewhere!

Mini CPL & the Tape Measure

Anyway, keep your eyes peeled for news over the next couple of months – I cannot wait to share it all with you

Enjoy the sun peoples!

Monday, Monday… A Non-Choco Easter!

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Mar 192012

Seeing as it was Mother’s Day for us in the UK yesterday, I decided not to post & to spend time with my family instead Sooooo… I have saved this story for you guys today!

Going up in the etsy shop later today is a small & very limited collection of Easter bits. They are all pre-made and ready to ship. They will also be the last of their kind as I no longer use moulds to make any slipcast work, so if you want something special this Easter, grab them whilst you can!

Here is a sneaky of what’s up for grabs…