In the Village // Fayre Earth Gift Shop

I've been meaning to feature Fayre Earth on the blog since we moved to Falkland last year so I'm glad I've finally got round to it! Owned by the lovely Elizabeth, Fayre Earth is easily the most colourful shop in the village, filled with locally made, recycled & fairly traded gifts. 

Fayre Earth sells a fab range of home accessories including my favourite velvet floral cushions and beautiful pieces by the Wee String Plaque Company. There are also gorgeous glass lanterns and candle holders, I love the choice of bright and bold homewares. If you're looking for quirky accessories then there's plenty to choose from too with cosy clothing, hats, scarves, cute arm warmers (which have been on my wish list for ages), floral brooches and fun jewellery.
Fayre Earth also do the best coffees; my favourite is the peppermint mocha (David likes the coconut mocha best, he says it's like drinking a Bounty). There's now a little window bench inside as well as outside where you can have your coffee and watch the world go by. We love to get a coffee to keep us warm while we go for a walk at this colder time of year and tried to make Mocha Mondays part of our routine but something usually gets in the way! If you do visit Falkland make sure you pop into this cheerful Aladdin's cave of trinkets, I'm sure you'll find something to treat yourself with!

Getting Organised Part 3 - 6 Tips for an Organised Studio

This post is a lot later than planned which isn't very organised of us but we've been spending a lot of time on behind the scenes work which hasn't left much time for blogging and social media. Better late than never though! Today we're sharing our top 6 tips for a cute and organised studio. I could have written a lot more than 6 tips and I know that these could be equally useful for a home office, craft room, study or whatever you like to call it - we call ours a studio so that's what it'll be in this blog post. 

1. Start a 'Focus Board'

At the end of last year I found Leonie Dawson and her wonderful Life + Biz workbook. After completing this we went on to make our dream board and wanted a place to keep all of our plans and goals to remind us to stay focussed each day. We started with a giant noticeboard and painted it white so it was a lovely big blank canvas then got pinning! The top left is where a monthly focus goes, at the moment this is a big mind map of ideas for 2015 but it's soon to be a mood board for our next collection launch. Beneath we have a top 3 tasks of the day post-it space, business cards from our favourite fellow indie businesses, then our weekly planner (which you can download here). In the middle we have our social media planner, customer information and monthly goals. Finally on the right we have our dream board of what we want 2015 to look like for JillyJilly to keep us inspired. We finished this space in the studio with fun fairy lights and cute JillyJilly patterned bunting (made by Barbara from RockingStitch, fabric from Spoonflower). This space is really important for keeping our goals organised plus it's super motivational to walk into the studio and see this first thing in the morning!

2. Choose Cute Storage

This might seem a bit obvious to be a tip but what I mean is, there are lots of cute storage options that might not be meant for the office and sometimes they can be cheaper too! One of the items I get asked about most often is this trolley which we use for our stationery and craft supplies, it's from Ikea and actually meant for the kitchen. I also love using this basket cake stand for packaging extras; we keep business cards in the top, chocolates in the middle and deco tapes in the bottom - perfect! Most of the furniture in our studio is second hand but with new pastel paint, the lilac desk was my Dad's old office desk and the pink shelves on the right used to be a CD shelf in my parent's living room.

3. Make a Desktop Organiser

This makes such a huge difference when you spend a lot of time on the computer, files are much easier to find and it can help keep personal and work stuff separate too. We split ours into business sections on the left and personal on the right, finished with a motivational quote and some JillyJilly pattern!

4.Labels are your friend

Last month I went a bit label mad after having our big New Year clear out. We kept losing things and bickering over where stuff belonged but now thanks to the magic of labels, everything has a place and there's no doubt over what goes where... apart from Misc. which is just another word for mess really. We got new folders too for keeping documents separate and easy to find, they fit perfectly along with our ready made stock tubs into this pastel pink Ikea Kallax unit. 

5. Filing Cabinets can be Fun

Well, they can look fun at least! You can see the DIY tutorial here because who doesn't want a pink floral filing cabinet? Although a traditionally boring but necessary office accessory I find it much easier to stay motivated to keep our accounts organised when the storage is this cute. Plain filing cabinet from Ikea. Biscuit cushion from Nikki McWilliams.

6. Keep a Daily Desk Planner

I don't know about you but I find myself easily distracted when I'm in the middle of working on one task then remember about something else which I then worry I'll forget so stop what I'm doing and so on. Keeping a daily desk planner means I can add last minute 'to dos' to the list, with sections for things to buy (whether it's envelopes for orders or milk for tea!), emails, social media and personal. I fill this out at the start of the day with my most important tasks then add other bits I might forget later on. You can download our planner here or below if you think it might be useful!

So there you have it, 6 of our tips for a cute and organised studio! I hope they've been some help. What are your top tips for getting organised?