Should we or shouldn't we?

I am leaning towards we should...

I can't bloody wait!

Facebook is fun...

Did you know Retro Age has a Facebook page? Yep - we sure do! I am on there daily, usually putting up photos of fabric I am working with at the moment or just chatting away...

Our page is here - like us if you would like to chat with me or keep in touch throughout the day!

Have a wonderful weekend, all...

Cheers
Ness

Popping back in...

Sigh - I have to admit, I am totally loving having a little blogging break. I didn't realise just how often I thought of the blog and what I should write about! They say a change is as good as a holiday and I have to totally agree....

Thank you so much for emailing us with your concerns and kind words regarding our storm damage. We are still awaiting our insurance company to get back to us with their report - that is taking much longer than anticipated and is quite disappointing. However - we are not like some of NSW and Victorian families whose homes were inundated with water etc. We still have our trusty SES tarp up and we're working - albeit in semi-darkness, but we're still functional!

Change brings about great visibility in life, though - it's like our wipers are totally going off on our windscreen and we can see the pouring rain of society coming through. So, there is change about with us - we're very certain a move is on the horizon and that will being with it the Retro Age showroom we have always wanted to bring you. It may be rural and a bit of a trek to get to...but it will be there when you want it! And there will be staff, too - so that leaves me with a lot more time to get all of our stock up on the website - and there is a lot of it, as some of you know!

Apologies if I am still not around much here over the next few weeks - this break is really refreshing. But I just wanted to pop in tonight to say hello! lovely people and that you're not forgotten :)

xNess

It's always tomorrow, lately...

Gosh - I am hoping this totally continues. Well, kind of. Yes...actually...no, I am totally hoping. Recent weeks have seen a deluge of sales...so many, in fact, that we are struggling to upload fabric onto the website every day. And that is a first in a long time! I started this morning at 8.30am and ran into the post office at 3.10pm to make today's mail, then came back and we worked on another three orders, all of which are going to Europe. A customer mentioned us in the a big newspaper this week and took the time to scan the article and email it to us...with these lovely words...

Just letting you know about an article that was published last week featuring my business. Don't know if it's legible enough to see that I have mentioned Retro Age Vintage Fabrics as one of my favourite websites. I have always been really happy and impressed with the quality of the beautiful little gems of fabric I've received from you guys. It shows that you take alot of pride in what you do, as do I with my business. So I was more than happy to mention you in the article.

We are getting more and more customers referred by family and friends and we couldn't be happier with how the business is going. We're working to offer a larger style and date of vintage fabric, a larger range of price point and a larger range of fabric sizes - and, as many of our customers know, we are still treating every order personally from start to finish, including wrapping the fabrics.

So tomorrow I am hoping to sit for a while and upload fabrics to the website...I have to, as the storage is just building and building. We get more fabric than I can list...which may mean we need staff in the future! Oh, how I would love that...I could list to my hearts content and someone would help with the booking in and out and customer orders...sigh, these are what dreams are made of!

PS. Sorry to the person who scanned the Bloomcraft Picasso advertisement - I have saved it and lost your credit! Many, many apologies!

A great day...apart from the stitches

I have had a great day today - hurrah for great days! That is - it was great except for when Syd the Whippet decided he wanted to chase the magpie in the backyard and whacked into a three prong steel chicken post...running at full tilt. So then there was a vet visit to get his leg stitched up and back home with a Very. Sad. Whippet. Other than that scary glitch the day was fab, our customers are the best and I had fun chatting to peeps on Retro Age's Facebook page...but I am thinking FB is passe now seeing as so many peeps are leaving the FB flock, so I'm definitely slow on the uptake!

Sitting back and enjoying the fabrics...

I don't know why I want to do more, more and them more, more, more. I get frustrated when jobs aren't done. And when you own your own business I don't think everything is ever done on time. There is always something that has to be done - whether that is booking in more fabric, buying more fabric that has been offered, updating the books, cutting small packs etc. And you can never tell what a day is going to bring, to a certain extent. Like today - in between swimming lessons, a physio appointment and other little things, I knew we had enough time to complete the packaging and list more fabric. But NO said the universe. Lots of orders came through overnight - many Express Post - so there was no time to list fabric today. And that got me frustrated. And then more frustrated. Until, now, at 9.44pm, I am still wanting to drive myself to load more fabric onto the website. And more orders have continued to come in late today and this evening...with express post required, so they take all priority tomorrow.

Why oh why do we want to do more, more, more? Why can't we be just satisfied at the end of the day? I need to reflect upon being satisfied with the current success of the business instead of focusing on what needs to be done. I need to sit back and enjoy the fabrics (a la smell the roses).

I need to remember to love every aspect of our business, not just my favourite parts :)

xNess

K.I.S.S is our future

In this age of digital communication we are hit by constant information and infinite choices. What about this? What about that? Not right? Then look at this? Too much? Then this might be best for you. You want red? No, then how about blue. Blah...blah....blah...the drone goes on and on. To escape it you have to log off the internet, your email and every other page on your computer - in short, you have to turn your computer off.

I am realising the minimalist - or simple - pathway is the best one for me. The simpler life is the happier I am - a simple equation, really. For breakfast I ate our homemade bread lightly toasted, local pumpkin, local potatoes, local onion and our own free range eggs (lots of it left over from dinner). It was delicious - and made all the more delicious as I knew where most of the ingredients came from.

I have been thinking about the KISS principle - keep it simple, stupid. I heartily agree with this premise. It appears to be a worldwide trend to simplify, to minimise...to alleviate choice and confusion.

The internet will only get bigger and more complicated. We can buy products down the road at the local stores or the local stores in thousands of cities around the world. The world is now our backyard, our community. What an exciting - and scary! - time.



The last time I looked on our website we had more than 1000 vintage fabrics for sale. That is a lot of fabric! Upon talking to some long term customers there really was only one thing to do to make it easier - simpler - for people to purchase (and for us to manage). And that was to give our customers minimal options and all the time in the world to browse.

Retro Age is changing this year - and this is just the beginning. I am totes excited about it. We don't pretend to be anything else but business owners who love vintage fabric. We don't want to do anything else but sell you vintage fabric - no other products, no other services, no other vintage stuff, nothing made from the fabrics blah blah. We are, from the bottom of our little hearts, vintage fabric lovers and sellers. That's it - that's the sum of us. And I love that sum of us, I truly do.

In order to manage our fabrics online - and to offer a streamlined shopping environment - customers now have exactly what they are after. Minimal pathways to lots of stock. So, from today, we're starting to adjust the website - now you can shop by New Arrivals (which we're changing to the past three months of stock), View All Vintage Fabrics and we're now starting to really focus on Vintage Fabrics On Trend. So, if you're after the latest fashion or interior look, you'll be able to buy sustainable and purchase the vintage - original - alternative.

So much to talk to you guys about - and so much to do. For now, it's back to work for me...

xNess

Getting back into the groove...

Of course, when you pack all of your fabric inventory into a bucket load of containers, it means each container holds a mixture of fabric types, ages and styles. I put these up onto the site today and have 20 more all photographed and ready to go up soon, too. It keeps me curious as to what fabric layer I will reveal next, I can tell you. Today was a super productive day - it came out of know-where. I have all of the 'live' fabric back up in order on the shelves, a box opened to put the contents up onto the website, all orders from the last two days packed and posted and I am tidying and cleaning our entire workspace.

Happy Friday, all!

There's just too much to do

Imagine you were in one of the best lolly shops in the world...kind of like that one in the original Willy Wonka movie with Gene Wilder. You know the shop I mean...the one where the shop guy throws lollies all over the children, gives them as much chocolate as they want, makes them thick, delicious thick shakes...and then has the gumption, later on in the movie, to make poor Charlie pay for his tiny bars of chocolate. The nerve!

I feel a little bit like that working here. It's wonderful to be surrounded by fabric that is on the website - they are all neatly stored on bolts on rows and rows of shelving. They twinkle at us as we work.

But what isn't nice is looking at the thousands of pieces that need to still be put up for sale. I felt like it was pushing me down...almost suffocating me. I couldn't escape all of the work that needed to be done.

So I packed that fabric up. Yes - it's back in storage. I just couldn't work like that any longer. So now I pull a box out every week and work with what stock I've stacked in it. It makes for an easier way to work and I don't feel as overwhelmed. I am not going to tell you how many boxes there are - suffice it to say there are rows and rows and they are three or four boxes high.

I highly recommend distilling your work space into a clutterless environment. It has already made such a difference to us and we still have several boxes to finish packing.

And then you get surprised with the lovelies each box holds...like the vintage sheeting above. She's so sweet, isn't she?

Heart warming

I have to say one of my favourite things being a business owner is getting feedback on our product and service. We got this email this morning - it's been the highlight of my day, thus far!

Hi Vanessa and Justin,

I have just received my first RAVF order, and I just wanted to drop you a line to say how happy I am with the quality of the fabrics, the beautiful presentation of my order (best ever of my online shopping!) and the very prompt delivery, in just two days. The pieces were presented so beautifully.

So, thank you and congratulations!

I will certainly be keeping an eye on your website as I build up my collection of vintage fabrics.

Sigh. If only the rest of my broken-hand-trying-to-work day could be this wonderful!

Phew!

We're almost back to normal! We have had a heavy two days of packing fabric orders from over Christmas and New Year's - the wrapping didn't stop until 11pm yesterday, if you can believe it! I got cracking early today so we've almost caught up with orders - just orders from the last 72 hours to go and we'll be back to normal programming.

Phew!

That means new arrivals going up onto the website tomorrow. I know I promised I would do it over the Christmas break but Santa, plum pudding, Christmas lights and New Year's drinks got in the way...woops. Not to mention a night of merriment on Raspberry Cosmopolitans that saw me very ill indeed for two days...

I have to say we're NOT going to stop wrapping during Christmas 2011 - these last two days of wrapping/cutting/wrapping/cutting has been too much for both of us...best to pace, we think!

Preparing for 2011

Today we spent the entire day clearing out the workspace to gear up for 2011. We have been storing all of the fabrics into containers for the past week (don't ask how many - it took three trips to Bunnings to get all of the containers...ahem) - and that's just the fabric that isn't live! Now all we have surrounding us is what we call 'live' stock - the fabrics that are for sale. The space is 80% finished - we have a lot more to do this evening before the packaging frenzy tomorrow...it's the first postage day we've opened for since December 20, 2010, so you can imagine what we have in store for us over the next 72 hours...

Our main workspace - the 3.6m duo cutting tables - are dusted, clean and raring to go...even if we're not! We also love having photos of our life and times around us - in frames and out of frames, so I redid some workspace wall today to put a new selection up. Photos always make us smile...and, yes, if you look closely you'll see some of me :)

Extra! Extra! Read all about the vintage fabric news!

We are very, very excited - there is a lot of vintage fabric that is going up onto the site. Lucienne Day, Verner Panton, 1880s block prints, early 20th century cottons, divine mid-century barkcloths - oh, there are too many to mention! More news coming soon...

xNess

I want my lace to be beautiful

I am trying to live in the moment more - but also planning for future strategies. That is quite a difficult thing to do, as you're constantly thinking of the future while trying to remain grounded in the present. But I am here.

I want to make my life a masterpiece - something I am so proud of. It got me to thinking of the lace analogy - imagine if your life was reflected in lace...every move you made, every path that you took, was a knot or a twist on the hook...the start of a spiral, a border etc. I would love my lace to look spectacular if it reflected my life...

I am hoping Retro Age will be a beautiful part of my life-lace. My life is hectic at the moment as so much is changing here - and poor Justin has been battling hayfever and asthma - but we are getting through things one piece at a time. Little lace knots are the best, I feel...

Images from American Fabrics magazine, 1953.

Where I get my inspiration from...

While I enjoy a good novel, I also enjoy motivational books. I have been reading a couple of good ones in the past couple of months and have really enjoyed some of the ideas. They help me be a better person - I find I am inspired by what I can be...it's exciting.

You see, I don't get inspired by others very often. I don't know why. I find inspiration within myself and what I can do with my life. I am inspired by people who I feel were true masters of their time - Albert Tucker, Baroness Orczy, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Sunday Reed and modern day pioneers such as this wonderful lady and this fabulous man. But I don't go looking for inspiration and I don't have any mentors. I think it comes from feeling so blessed in my own life that I don't feel the need to make it better. And I know I am capable to finding the right information to build our business even more in late 2010/2011.

I find sitting here surrounded by all of these wonderful fabrics inspiring - as I remember what we started with and the path that has lead us to where we are today. That journey and how magnificent is was greatly inspires me...and what is to come greatly excites me!

The romance of vintage lace

Sunday nights are always the same for us here...before we settle down for the evening, we always evaluate what we need to do on Monday...and usually that is a lot of wrapping and catching up on orders! Then we sit down with a quiet drink and catch up on a little bit of television - we don't watch television at all, but prefer to watch shows we like when we like a la TiVo. We've also been doing a bit of old movie watching of late - Random Harvest and Goodbye, Mr Chips have been recent loves. Next on the agenda is Mrs Miniver (yes - I love Greer Garson!) and Gone With the Wind. We both love old movies and are keen to introduce them to our boys - our eldest has already watched To Kill a Mockingbird and adored Scout's shenanigans and Boo Radley's soap people. There is so much more to visual entertainment than just letting kids watch something - it is quite exciting when you introduce them to something, don't you think?

These shots are from American Fabrics, volume 25 (1953) - sorry for missing some of the text...these are huge, thick books that don't take kindly to being laid out flat. I love the Liberty advertisement below - that photograph is pure romance!

And for those of you following the updating of our website listings, we are only around half way through migrating our fabrics into collections. We're doing a little every day and our designer is getting ready to finish updating our nav bar, but it will still take around another week for everything to be finished...

24" sore eyes - but the vintage fabrics look beautiful!

Well - we're back. I'm now completely online and working on a beast 24" screen and a machine that is so fast I can't click fast enough. Since I am accustomed to a laptop this is a whole new world...and I have sore eyes after just one hour on here. Oh dear.

We are finishing work early today as it's our toddler's third birthday - Happy Birthday, Sweet Man! Another party tonight - more cake, too - and then it's back to normality for us around here tomorrow. Hopefully then I can get into my routine and start to upload tonnes of new fabrics...

I so don't like change - but I am spontaneous...very strange, indeed.

Running the gauntlet with vintage fabric birds...

Things are not 100% today, but it's a major step forward to yesterday! The new schebang computer is still being populated with software, files etc - so I can't use it yet. Boo hoo, I say. I love my laptop (I was sad to see it hang up it's slimline boots) and thought I would miss it, but eyeing off that 24" black monitor is making me drool. Me wantee, now.

So - today I am running the photographic gauntlet. I have taken pics of around 30 pieces and will be spending some time this afternoon uploading them to the website - lots of them are of birds, so I must have be having a bird day, today. I hope the colours and everything else is right with them, as my laptop is not displaying them very well and the desktop is being used to migrate files to the newbie computer. The photos won't be as big as they are here...I am reducing them, like below...



Now I can't wait to work with a newer computer - if for no other reason than I won't have my cluttered desktop on this one! It's like decluttering the computer, I think....except it's a brand new one, so I want to behave myself and file everything correctly. I can never be bothered filing everything correctly. Oops - there I said it. I am a...ahem...slighly messy person. Oh dear.

Side swiped by le laptop...

Well - that was interesting. I had forgotten what it was like to be side-swiped. I think the last side swipe I had was when I thought a crab stick almost killed me, only to be told I had gallstones. That was very memorable, indeed...

Today the side swipe was le laptop. Yes, that's right. My laptop. One moment I was viewing and sorting photos getting ready for a day of listing new arrivals and the next second I couldn't see my photos very well. Yikes, thought I, my camera is faulty! So in we go to camera man who says camera isn't faulty, is bloody good, and perhaps check my videocard/screen on ye olde laptop. We come back, check le laptop and, sure enough, the laptop is in the laps of the Gods...of broken computers. Our desktop is still fine, but le laptop is the work horse and mine. So....there was nothing for it, but to send my better-half-IT-tech-man to work.

So now I have a gaming machine being set up and configured...yes, a gaming machine. Cos apparently when your computer dies you get the zingiest, zappiest, biggest cretin you can find - top-shelf-scotch-stuff. So that's what he did. The monitor is bigger and...ahem...*slimmer*...than me and apparently I could play internet games on this thing for a lifetime and still not slow down. Pity I don't play internet games, I say. Apparently the salesperson guffawed when Justin said it was just for photos and our website bizo. Yes - he laughed. And so did Justin. But he's a computer nerd so what else would I trust him to buy...as he said, he could have walked away with his old Valiant re-magged (but cool) or purchased the Porshe so I could work with a computer that can be upgraded and last years. Okay, I see what he means...but still...can the broken stuff no begone from this entire household? First we had the Optus internet dongle days, then we had the camera days and now I have a computer I should drive.

Puh-lease - enough, I say!

The matrix of the nav bar...is that a movie title?

It's all systems go here at Retro Age this morning. We are finally off the Optus dongle and back onto fast internet - lots of catching up to do in the next couple of days! As always, our orders are our priority, so we'll focus on them and then return to migrating our fabrics into new collections on the website. I think we're around half way through, so if we stick at it for the next couple of days I reckon we'll be close to finishing the matrix of the navigation bar. Phew.

I'll be back later on with some new arrivals - am excited about this new camera, I can tell you! I'll resize the shots for the website - but the bigger, the better, on the blog!

I hope you had a wonderful weekend, peeps - ours was celebrating our little one turning three and...ahem...doing the housework. From one fun thing to the most banel...urgh.

xNess