Round Two…
Happy New Year to everyone!
Just a quick note to say thanks to all the wonderful people I met last year at the expos and via email. This year we will be at a few more expos again so look out for us. Teaming up with Touchwood again is always a pleasure so look out for their stand and you may just see my big head pop up there and say hi.
Anyhoo, before I go on annual leave for a couple of weeks with my fam, just wanted to introduce my brand new fabric designs. Fabric designing is my absolute passion, and to be able to do a couple of new designs every 6 months is a dream come true. My new design is a bit 60′s, a bit eclectic and has more than a few owls!
Owlies and Owlies stripe are my two new designs and they are great for a little boy or girl’s room and bring together some quirky owl critters and some thick fresh stripes. Sometimes there is nothing nicer that having some solid, simple stripes in a room and one of the highlights for me when shooting the new designs was seeing the thick stripes on a cot and being blown away by them. They reminded me of the hospital blankets that are wrapped around newborns and made me get a bit nostalgic about my little ones. I just love designing with soft vintage colours and I was so happy the colours came out just how I had planned.
The new fabrics and the new linen collection will be available late Jan when I get back from annual leave. They are all currently being handmade and we will be offering all of our products from cot comforters, cot quilt covers, cushion, cot couture owls and single bed quilt covers. We also have 2 beautiful artwork designs exclusively for the collection by Nicole Kerley from Poppy Studio that are painted to co-ordinate perfectly with the new collection. One design is suited for newborns and up, and the other is tailored for older children. They are all handpainted and will be available on the website to order also.
Have popped some photos below of the new fabrics so enjoy!
Art for the heart.
I have always liked art, but recently I have developed a real love for it.
I am in the process of some interior renovations (I can’t have the same looks for too long inside the house) and I decided to find a piece of art that would become the focus for my main living space wall.
Well I thought it would be a quick process visiting online gallery to gallery, but it was a particuarly difficult process and in the end I got quite confused. Did I want abstract? Water colour? Contemporary? I just coudn’t make up my mind.
Then suddenly I saw it. It was spectacular, a beautiul piece that I will treasure forever. It is by a very talented artist Jennifer Davis from the US and she creates the most intriquing creatures and this one just captured me. “Preserve” is now at home in my home and now I have a problem. I want more.
I decided that “Preserve” needed a couple of mates to hang with on the wall. I contacted Jennifer again and she was more than happy to do 2 more custom art works that blend in with the colours and style of “Preserve”. The mates are now on there way and I cannot wait to see them. Although I have had a sneek peek at them (Jennifer sent photos of them) I cannot wait to add them to my collection.
There are so many cool artists locally and abroad. Take the time to spend a couple of hours on the net looking up your favourite themes, styles and colours and see what pops up. Etsy is a great place for amazing artists, and you can seriously waste a whole day on there scouring the art pages from top to toe.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and not everyone will like the art you choose, but your art should capture your heart and send it a flutter as you walk by…….
I miss…..
Expos. I love being a part of Baby Expos. I love the crowds, the happy pregnant mums, the ever excited dads and the gorgeous kids.
Over the weekend I was a little bit sad that we had to miss the Sydney Pregnancy, Babies and Children’s expo for the first time in 3 years. It was a hard decision to make, but this year I had decided it was better to focus on doing one thing right than trying to do a millions things at once. Sometimes when you are handmade you do have to sacrifice a little, and this year we had to stop the expos so we could concentrate on the new website. I wanted to make sure our new home was furbished well with stock, and was running smoothly. I am proud of the work that has gone into it and I am so thrilled with our new little home.
Expos are such fun events and I have made some fabulous friends, work relationships and met some amazing customers over the 3 years we have been doing them. I will never forget the first expo we did in Adelaide in 2008. I had to fly back from a family holiday to set up, then fly back, and I had my mum, her best friend, my good friend Rach, and my sister in law all help out over the weekend. I will never forget it when Mum told me she had sold something (to my first expo customers and my special friends now), I was so happy and it made my day.
The first Expo I did was in Sydney in 2008. I was so nervous when the doors were about to open and I said to mum “What do I say????”. My Mum is amazing with people so I stood behind mum most of the time! I remember selling one of my favourite quilts in the first couple of hours and that was surreal. The rest of the Expo was spent meeting the most amazing people. I met my fabulous friends, Rachelle, Tonia and Maria for the first time from Isoki and we have been special mates ever since. We have also found good friends in Kirilie and Emma from Stinkibots – who are such gorgeous girls.
Since we started we have been to 11 Expos in 4 different states and we have loved every part of them. From meeting the most wonderful people, to just hanging with my Mum, it has been such a cool time. I have also met the most wonderful bunch of people in the Tobil and Co Family who distribute Touchwood, i candy and dingbums. When I was asked to help decorate their nursery furniture stand I was on cloud nine. I Not only do they have fabulous products, but they are a brilliant group of people and we have lots of fun together. Working with them is great and I love being a part of their stand.
3 moments have really stood out for me, and that is why I love working in this industry. In melbourne 2008, we met a wonderful family from Torquay. They had 3 beautiful boys and had just had their precious little girl. I will always remember her beautiful name “Ines Autumn Leaf” and her beautiful smile. She was born on the 1st of Autumn. Her Mum bought one of my favourite comforters for her and they just were all so happy.
The second moment was in Sydney May PBC Expo 2010. A lovely lady came specifically into the expo to buy one of our Spring Birds Blue comforter sets. She came and bought her set and a couple of hours later she came back. She was very upset and came to buy another one, as someone had stolen her set from her. I couldn’t let her buy another one, so I gave it to her. She was so thank-ful, and ended up buying some cushions to match from me later to say thanks. Fast forward to Sydney October 2010 baby show, and when I came back from my lunch break Mum was beaming. She gave me a huge box of chocolates that had been brought in by the lovely lady who bought my spring birds blue comforter, and her and her husband had come in specifically to say thanks again as they saw we were exhibiting at the show. What a lovely family!!
The 3rd moment is a beautiful couple who came to see us at The Baby and Toddler Show in Sydney last year. It was a special show for me as I was lauching my new fabric design “Whimsy Meadow” and as I had designed it myself it was going to be the moment of truth for me to see what people thought of it. I had it on display at the Touchwood Stand and I was very proud of it. I only had one set as it had just come in, so I was interested to see what people thought. A couple who were pregnant with their first child came and asked for some help choosing a set for their nursery. They were just lovely and I don’t think the smiles ever wiped from their faces! They ended up buying the citris spots set and were very happy. Later on they came back and they had seen the whimsy meadow set on the Touchwood cots display. They asked if it was available and I said that was my only one, but they really wanted it for their nursery too. I didn’t see why they couldn’t have it so they bought that too. For me it was the very first time a couple had Whimsy Meadow in their nursery, and my debut set couldn’t have gone to a nicer couple. (Mum will say that I got misty…)
I know this post has been extremely mushy, but when I sit down and think of the fabulous times I have had doing this gig on the road – it has been amazing.
Top ten Expo Moments from 2008-2010 (in random order)
Having a Photo with Ronald McDonald, Wearing our lovely handmade aprons, gasbagging with the Isoki girls, buying the best bargains from the Oz Sale stand, getting way too many lego showbags from the Lego stand (they had a $10 free box of Lego in them), gasbagging with the stinkibots girls, gasbagging with everyone else, meeting the most amazing customers ever, meeting the cutest babies ever and being with my Mum!
Hopefully next year we will be able to do some shows again – they are so much fun and I really do miss them.
Hope you enjoyed my trip down expo lane……xx
It’s easy to say – hard to do….
Restraint that is.
As much as I try to adhere to my new philosophy of less is more when it comes to the linen collection range of designs – I can’t seem to help myself when I see a new beautiful fabric that just belongs with cot couture.
There will be some new designs popping up on the site over the next few months with most of them falling into the beautiful category of vintage. One of them in particular has a special aura about it. I’ll tell you the story.
My lovely grandma passed away a few years ago, and she was quite the classy lady. Although we weren’t blood related, and we didn’t see enough of each other, we shared a special bond. She loved the finer things in life, and she didn’t have a lot of money, but she saved to buy quality. She had a beautiful costume jewellery collection, and when she passed away, my Mum and Dad let me pick some pieces from it.
She had a gorgeous marquisite watch that was so tiny and perfect that I had to keep, and then she had a little shell jewellry box that had a few bits and pieces in it.
Fast forward to this year, and I fell in love with a beautiful Victorian fabric from one of my suppliers and I ordered it for the linen collection. It arrived last month, and it is just exquisite! I was cleaning up my jewellery area not long after, and I found grandma’s shell box. I opened it and inside there was a necklace with a large pendant on the bottom. It was a picture of a Victorian couple, and it was just about the same picture that was printed on the fabric. It really blew me away – it was like Grandma had helped select that fabric herself….
So here is a peek of Victorian romance – if you are looking for something a bit unique, with that old school vintage romantic feel (he he yes new terminology) this one is for you.
Welcome to our new home!
Welcome to my very first blog post from our new home.
My name is Jessica Blown and I am the owner and designer of Cot Couture. I started Cot Couture in 2007, and since then I have been happily helping parents create their nursery linen.
Cot Couture started when I wanted to be able to offer parents a bit more of a modern choice for their nursery bedding. I was at home with my boys and loved creating looks for their rooms with fabrics I had found from all over the world. It took quite a while for me to work out what I was going to offer, who I was going to get to help me and how it was all going to work, but eventually all of the time and effort paid off and the site was born in December 2007.
I wanted everything that was made to be handmade, as not being from a retail or manufacturing background I had no idea where to start. However, a casual conversion at a local sewing shop brought me to my wonderful and talented sewing assistant Kay, and we went from there. Kay is amazing at what she does, and I know I am very lucky to have her as it is hard to find someone who shares your own passions for design and high quality finishing. We also have Katrina who joined us recently who has been busy with all the new looks and is a fantastic sewer. I designed the size and layout of the comforter, the stitch design and the finishing touches and the comforter was born.
I like to know and be in control of the manufacturing process, and being handmade you can do that. Having local people is wonderful as you have that contact and communication is so easy. Plus you know how and where they are made. It gives you so much more confidence in your product. We love being hand-made in SA!
The fabrics I started off with were quite comtemporary and maybe a bit too full on for a nursery, but we all have to start somewhere don’t we! Although there were two fabrics that I just adored – the pink and blue damask, and to this day I still get asked for them. I will always remember my very first customer – Thanks Renee from QLD – I felt so proud and even kissed the parcel for good luck as I was about to send it.
As the business grew my Mum and I took it on the road interstate to Expos and Events. We met so many wonderful people, and being able to show customers our products firsthand was great.
Over the years the number of fabrics we had on the site grew and grew. I think honestly I have a fabric obsession and I went a little overboard! Sometimes having too much choice made it harder for customers to choose. I loved being able to give my customers exactly what they wanted for their nurseries, but it was getting harder and harder to control the fabrics and especially having photos of the looks so that you could get an understanding of how it was going to be in the end.
So after a bit of thinking and alot of talking with the customers I decided we needed a change, but I wanted to still keep everything handmade. I wanted -
* Less Choice to make it easier to choose the look you want.
* More Room decor to co-ordinate with the fabrics.
* Clear photos of the bedding made up in nurseries so you can see everything clearly.
* Photos of all the products to make it easier to choose.
* An online check-out process to simplify the order process.
So here we are! The new Cot Couture site.
Our new site has 7 fabric designs. All of the designs have products assigned to them so you can buy your room look alot easier without confusion. You can see the fabric set up and how it can look in a room. All of the bedding is still pre-washed, reversible and hand-made and there is alot more detail on the products so you know exactly what you are buying. If you are after something completely unique and custom made to your requirements you can choose a custom made piece located in the linen collection, or if you are really game you can have “The Ultimate Room” – completely customised total room package.
We also stock a large range of room decor that you won’t find anywhere else. Alot of it is white, so will co-ordinate with any exisiting themes you may have or with our range. I am so excited to stock it all, I am like a little kid in a candy store whenever I get the new stock in.
Anyway you can just go and check it all out….
To finish I would like to say that Cot Couture has been a labour of love for me from the very beginning. Not many people can say they truly love the job that they do but I am one of them. I hope you enjoy browing through our new home and if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to contact me.
Jessica x
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