Mr Larkswold is back to his favourite flood obsessed state again. The Evenlode river is up to 1.2m - it doesn't flood anything for us until it gets to 2.1m so it really only adds a little extra fun for the ducks to increase their paddling options!
We are excited so many of you have chosen Larkswold for your Christmas gatherings for work dos and friends. I am already counting mincepies in my sleep - we made over 200 last December!
If you haven't sorted your work do yet or fancy visiting on your own you can either pop over to our website or download the crafts and dates from the link below.
Birchey is off to catch up with her Uni friends this weekend - she wanted them to go and try out Tempest Rose - House of Burlesque (they are a business on our Arts Council 'Get Growth' training programme) but her friends weren't so keen! (She's secretly relieved!)
Many of you will know that we started our networking club back in 2022 in response to Emma wanting to learn more about business now that she part owned one, and that it seems to be going quite well. Following on from this very succesful add on to our business we decided to apply to be part of a program funded by the British Library and Arts Council supporting small and medium sized business's to grow. So far we have learnt about strategy, sustainable Governance (not going to lie - I did sneak off leaving Emma to stick with that one - it was a smidge dry and my self diagnosed ADHD brain was definitely struggling. We have just enjoyed the sessions on brand and marketing and had a lovely chat with a coach called Uday who told me I wasnt allowed to talk about world domination for at least 18 months - I know - rude! That aside it has been wonderful joining sessions with all these other creative businesses and realising we all have many of the same problems or challenges.
The program has really made me reflect on the fact that having a business partner is a huge benefit. Even though we see loads of things differently we always have each others' backs & there's always a shoulder to freak out on (crying's not so much my thing).
Someone to share the wins with and laugh about the stuff ups. In a nutshell, it's fun runing a business with your bestie even if she does get to be the tall glamourous slim one who is effortlessly creative and a proper parent - I get to use her as the fall guy to my jokes :-)
Little Snowy is getting lots of lovely compliments in the studio - but I am careful to keep an eye on Emma's interactions with him as you may remember she did "accidentally" push him off the shelf a few weeks ago and break his bauble. Keeley our wonderful new felting tutor was quick to the rescue and Snowy was back with a shiny new bauble within days. Felt ornaments are a big trend this Christmas and so Snowy (Saturday 18th Nov ) and the Christmas felt bauble (Sunday 19th Nov) workshops look set to be very popular.
But if the thought of Christmas brings you out in a cold sweat - focus on the wellbeing side of our lovely creative pursuits. We have been working hard on how we make our environment in the studio as warm and inviting as possible this season with more twinkly lights (always a winner) and more display areas for our different crafts to provide inspiration for guests.
In November we have a couple of spaces left on our wellbeing day - Yoga, meditation techniques, scented bath bomb and soap making and the world renowned (ok, liked by most guests) yummy lunch.
In last weeks blog I asked you to vote on whether you wanted more photos of Emma or my ducks. Sadly Embarrassing photos of Emma won (I say sadly - obviously funny for me but I appreciate less so for Emma). She hasn't actually done too much embarrassing stuff this week, but I will keep you posted.
Edit: Emma here. I'd like to take this opportunity to jump in & gleefully point out that Melinda actually wins at embarrassing herself this week. She managed to run out of petrol in the school car park during Parents Evening, blocking in a teacher in the process. It had to be announced (to everyone) to help get the car pushed out of the way! No photos unfortunately... you'll just have to use your imagination! Tee hee!
Anyway, here's a duck video for you instead...
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