OK, so this post has been hanging around my drafts folder since last Summer. <ashamed face> Its original tone of ‘wow, there’s this really cool thing called Pinterest, check it out, dudes’ is like, so totally 2011, and it has therefore been quietly put out of its misery.

Since then it’s become a legal requirement for all blogs to do a Pinterest post, so let’s now get all 2012 on its ass with some top tips and observations about the site gleaned from a year of using it. It’d be great to hear yours too.

1. It is dripping in oestrogen.  D-r-i-p-p-i-n-g.  And crack.

Pinterest speaks directly to the X chromosome on a compelling primeval level.  Many ladies who use the site react to it the way that socially awkward boys do to certain online games. It starts with a couple of pins, and descends, 15 straight days later into you clawing at your unwashed face, screaming MORE PRETTY, MORE! in to the void, as your kids roam, feral and hungry on the streets. Straight men; there is nothing for you here, move on. Chicks and Teh Gays; wave goodbye to your lives and join me.

2. Follow boards, not people.

Pinterest gets crowded quite quickly, so selective editing is required to make sure you’re only getting the good stuff. Personally, I could not give a flying one about shoes, cupcakes, fancy manicures or motivational quips. However, these things are the four central pillars of Pinterest’s oeuvre. (Mixed metaphor alert). You can choose to follow someone or a single board. Whilst you can choose to only follow a few of a person’s boards, if you follow them, rather than a selection of their individual boards, you’ll automatically follow any new boards they create. No matter how similar your tastes are, they’ll inevitably have a few boards where they post some utter cack. You do not want to miss any pretty, so choose carefully. There’s no real etiquette about following back, and Pinterest’s following/follower lists are so flaky, you’d never be able to work one out anyway.

3. Down the rabbit hole.

Pinterest reminds me of using the internet 20 years ago. You can’t always find what you want, but you will constantly end up getting unintentinally drawn down interesting paths. The new layout really helps with this.

In the top right of everyone’s profile page is a list of the three users they most often repin. In my case, that’s Ruth Wobo, Katrine Camillo and Modflowers. All very much worth following – those ladies are empresses of pretty. So you know who inspires you, who inspires them? Click through to their profiles and have a look. And so a never ending cycle of obsession begins. You’re welcome.

(If anyone can tell me who to centre my avi so that poor elephant gets her trunk back, I’d be eternally grateful).

4. Do NOT try this at home.

Realistically, we all know that we’re way too busy sitting on our asses looking at the pretty on Pinterest to actually ever make any of the pretty we find there. Good. Keep it that way. Attempt to recreate any of the pretty and you’ll end up in a tear stained heap of cack handed self loathing.  I have tried two things found on there, both unmitigated disasters. One was a deliciously tempting gooey chocolate cake that you made in a cup in a microwave. (Yes, the signs were all there, but I was blinded by sugar craving). The result was an inedible waste of ingredients and a ruined mug. I don’t say this lightly. It takes a hell of a lot for me to not eat cake.  AND it was one of the good mugs.

The other attempt speaks for itself.

Pinterest version

Real life version

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This blog has been neglected of late, so I’m really grateful that Jennifer of Scamp Baby Gifts agreed to write this post on how daily photo blogging has both introduced discipline into her blogging, whilst also allowing her to relax with it.  Thanks Jennifer!

Today I’m super happy to be writing a guest blog post for Loveitloveitloveit‘s blog all about the trials and tribulations of (trying) to write my own blog.

I have written a blog for about 6 years (started just after the birth of my eldest child). I began it merely as an online version of a baby book – to record moments in time, photographs, memories of holidays and things that my kids said as they grew up all too quickly.  I religiously uploaded and updated my blog every few days for the first couple of years, it slowly dwindled to weekly as I went back to my part time job at the BBC then, when I started Scamp Baby Gifts, in 2010 it all but ceased completely.  I would load up three months worth of pictures at a time then desperately try to remember what we had done and the stories I wanted to tell.  It takes time to write a blog and I didn’t seem to have much of that whilst building up a new business.  I had great intentions of the different things I wanted to write about – all relating to children, making, cool baby things, craft projects and things to do/places to go with kids.  I kept being told how important a blog was and it was a vital addition to your own website.  It lets your customers know more about you, get what you are about, see what you like, what your children like, what your tastes are like and ultimately if they like what you like then they are bound to be into what you sell.

Despite knowing all of this it still was difficult to make time to write posts.  Then, on December 31st 2011 I stumbled across an idea on that most magical of social media sites … Twitter.  My Picture a Day 2012 #project366 was born the very next day.  I HAD to take a picture every day and I had to write a blog post about it.  It did seem a bit of a chore for the first few days (and the odd time when I realise at 10pm I’ve forgotten to take a photo) but in general I have loved doing this.  I am now thinking of situations I’m in each day and how I can portray them.  I only use my iPhone camera, the trusty Instagram app and the thought of using slightly different angles for shots but it helps to turn what may seem mundane and dull into something a bit more, well, interesting.  What I was determined not to do was bore anybody good enough to follow my blog with an entire collection of shots of my kids being cute.  I want to take photos that are about memories, about interesting things that we may have done, about happy days, funny days, days where not much has happened, every day objects and then tell a short tale about each and every one.  This, I hope, I’ve succeeded to do.  Since starting this on New Years day I’ve learned that this still fulfils my original idea of what our blog should be about.  Having the photos create the story has made writing about them much easier though. 96 days down and the project shows no sign of waning!

Jennifer is on Twitter @scamp_babygifts

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Happily, people come in all different shapes and sizes. Luckily, clothes do too. Unfortunately single sizes of clothes also come in all different shapes and sizes. Every woman in the UK must have experience the frustration of being a different size in every store she visits. (It’s a problem which this magnificent tool both cleverly illustrates and attempts to address.) Sizing is not simply a three dimensional issue. We each bring a large dollop of confounding factors in the form of our beliefs about our size, perception of what we ought to be and emotional reaction to how clothes fit us.

All of the above also applies to childrenswear, which is further complicated by the addition of age based sizing, and what size a child ‘ought’ to be at any particular age.  Babies and children of the same age vary hugely, and parents get to know pretty quickly whether their child fits nicely in to the ‘correct’ size for their age or whether they need a different one.

 Or do they? When polling my customers on the fit of the brands sold in my store, the range of responses was staggering. There was virtually no agreement at all about which brands are particularly ‘big’ or ‘small’.  There appears to be even more variation in sizing of children’s clothing than there is in womenswear.

This picture shows romper suits from 12 different brands stocked in my store. They are all labeled 3-6m (68cm), and yet there is 15cm difference in length between the shortest and longest. As childrenswear sizes increase in 6cm bands, that’s equivalent to 2.5 whole sizes and nearly a quarter of a 68cm tall baby’s body length! Furthermore, the shortest romper is significantly wider than the longest.

How on earth can a customer know which size they need when it appears that neither age nor height are a reliable indicator of how clothing may fit? It’s a brave parent who takes a child under the age of 3 or 4 into a changing room to try on clothes. The risk of tantrums or nappy related accidents are just too great. It’s not even an option for shopping online. The inevitable confusion caused by this variation has several consequences, none of which are ideal for the customer, retailer or manufacturer.

In the first instance, if an item is too big, the customer can put it away for when the child grows in to it. The least worst option, most people won’t mind this, but the seasonal nature of clothing, and the unpredictable rate at which kids grow mean the item may fit at exactly the wrong time and never be worn. It’s also easy to forget about saved items until it’s too late. Too-small clothes can be returned, but no matter how smooth a returns process, there is always some level of hassle for the customer, especially one with small children, and some admin costs to the retailer.

There are also the other variations on the theme; clothes that wide enough but too long, the right length but too wide and so on.

In each of these cases, the customer will inevitably be disappointed and possibly frustrated, a feeling that will tarnish their perception of our brands and us as retailers and manufacturers.

Getting it wrong encourages customers to play it safe, stick with brands they know, thereby reducing their choice and our sales.

So is sizing standardisation the answer? Well, no. Customers told me that they appreciate the fact that different brands cater for different body shapes. A standardized sizing set would fit far fewer people than it didn’t fit. What customers (and retailers) are crying out for is more, clearer information.

They, and we, want to know how long clothes are, how wide they are, what length limbs they fit. Current sizing charts which focus solely on a child’s height are clearly pretty pointless given the photo above, and cause a surprising amount of confusion.

This is an appeal to clothing manufacturers; please publish more detailed sizing information. You must have all the necessary measurements to be able to produce patterns for each garment size. Please let us have them, and we as retailers, parents and customers will do the rest!

———————————————-

This article was first published on CWB (Children’s Wear Buyer Magazine)’s blog.  I’m pleased to say that Kurt Jewson of Frugi has already said that they will look into providing trade customers with additional sizing information to pass on to their customers.

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Valentine’s Day is all about love, this shop is called Love It Love It Love It. Erm…. something to do with hearts. Anyway, have look at these pictures and hopefully a proper blog post will be along shortly.

Sture & Lisa organic cotton hearts body, £16.

Krutter heart dungarees £31.50 (only size 3-6m left), hearts top, £22 and hearts body, £18

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It’s November, and there’s almost a whole month left before Christmas, so a post all about it seems a trifle unnecessary.

However.

The last posting dates for Christmas are sneaky little beggars, prone to dash up behind you and bite you on the bum, coming as they do so much sooner than you expect.

Here then, are the last dates you can order goodies online to be sure of receiving them in time for Christmas. If you’re quick off the mark, you can also score a top bargain in the Rainbow Weekend sale, which ends tonight at midnight.

Customers in Australia and New Zealand, Japan, the Far East, South & Central America, Caribbean, Africa, Middle East and Asia: Monday 5th December

Customers in USA, Canada and Eastern Europe: Friday 9th December

Customers in Western Europe: Monday 12th December

UK free First Class delivery and Recorded Delivery: Tuesday 20th December

UK Special Delivery: Thursday 22nd December.

Please also note that at Love It Love It Love It, orders made before 2pm on a Monday-Friday are generally despatched same day, but it can take longer during busy periods, such as Christmas….. YIKES!

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You know how sometimes things change so slowly that it’s imperceptible and it’s only when you stop and look around that you suddenly realise how much the scenery has changed? Yeah, well, that.

A few weeks ago, a friend on facebook posted a link to the new Hyperbole and a Half post, she’s the one who wrote God of Cake, yeay! Reading the new post, probably the best description of depression I’ve ever seen, was the realisation. Oh shit, it’s happening again.

For me, even noticing that my behaviour and mental state isn’t normal is the first step to sorting it out. I’m taking several other steps too, but they’re not working yet. The normal steps feel wobbly and  inadequate, so this is a request for you to share what your steps would be – what brings you joy and makes your life more enjoyable? Would you mind me nicking your ideas?

Until my steps, your steps or any steps work, please forgive what may seem like rudeness but is in fact me just not knowing what to say, and being fearful of saying anything.

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Winter brings a whole host of new international kidswear labels to Love It Love It Love It, and there’s a distinctly retro theme going on.  If you remember wearing luxurious, warm fabrics such as velvet, velour, terry towelling and corduroy as a child, you’ll love what’s on offer.

The most recent arrival, from Denmark, is Krutter. Inspired by designer Birgitta Sonn’s memories of her own childhood, there is some serious 80′s funk going on, with soft velour jumpsuits and bright dungarees the order of the day.

Another Danish label newly arrived this season is Albababy. Albababy keep it simple with contrasting block colours, beautifully soft fabrics and clean lines. The orange, black and golden yellow velvet tops and baby vests are a proper old skool treat.

Nadadelazos (which means ‘no ribbons’ in Spanish) are also specialists in fuss-free clothes. Taking inspiration from Pippi Longstocking, this season’s collection is full of buttery soft terry towelling items, and was a huge hit when it previewed at the Bubble kidswear show back in January.  Unfortunately, many of the items we ordered didn’t make it into production, so our range is compact and bijou to say the least. Grab it while you can!

Lastly we have some Dutch cool in the form of 4funkyflavours. This season’s collection is called When I Grow Up – yet another reference to the designer’s own childhood. The skinny-cut juicy fruit tops, tracksuit jackets and piped romper suits all put you in mind of some very cool 70′s kids.

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Ah Downton Abbey.  With its pretty dresses, intruige, romance and more pretty dresses, it has become a Sunday night TV staple. But don’t let the pretty dresses fool you. It’s also a grittily accurate historical documentary and searing social commentary. Whilst Downton teaches us many things, here are just a few of its most salient points, which we would all do well to note.

OMG Sybil, I’m totally gonna pull a handbrake turn in this tractor. ROFLMAO

1. World War I was A Very Bad Thing, involving Senseless Waste of Life.

2. Servants spent the majority of their working day sat around the kitchen table having a natter.

3. Soldiers at the front could come home for a holiday pretty much whenever they liked.

4. Edwardian society was very socially mobile. Working class people could easily escape from a life of toil and deprivation by working for the gentry.  [See also: gentry going to work for working class people.]  They were guaranteed a slice of upper class totty within minutes of staring work, and the relationships were always conducted on completely equal terms.

5. Likewise, the aristocracy were incapable of making any decisions without first sharing every detail of the problem with their servant and asking their advice on the matter. The advice given was always held in such high esteem that it was always implemented to the letter.

6. In fact, this equality went so far that aristocrats would arrange for dying, newlywed or just slightly fagged out servants to have a short holiday in one of their plush bedrooms. They didn’t even mind if servants nicked all their food.

7. Where soldiers suffered debilitating injuries in action, the only concern the sex mad Edwardians had was whether their marriage equipment was still fit for purpose.

8. Spanish flu was so virulent that the first person in any community to catch it would be the one that never went out nor had any contact with people outside of their own household.

9. Conversely, it was not so virulent that you could catch it from constantly attending to the sick, hugging or kissing them. That was fine.

10. Nowadays, we tend to think that many subjects and behaviours were deeply frowned upon and unacceptable to the point of being taboo 100 years ago, including mental illness, illegitimacy, desertion, contentious objection, pre-marital sex and homosexuality.  In fact, whilst Edwardians may have acted shocked for a couple of seconds after discovering such things, they very soon after declared them ‘cool’ and had a group hug.

11. When someone was at death’s door, they always made a miraculous recovery, then flicked the V’s and shouted ‘”SUCKA!” at the less important character who shuffled off this mortal coil in their place.

12. They had some really pretty dresses.

Call that a pretty dress? Please, bitch. *This* is a pretty dress.

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A mere 16 short months ago, I started a semi regular series of blog posts about the stuff you really need and don’t need when you have a baby. It has turned out to be somewhat less than semi irregular, let alone semi regular. In fact, if you found the last instalment, on feeding useful, you’re probably about to wave your baby off to college and are better placed than I am to write this post but hey, let’s press on regardless.

So. Travel. Babies need a way to get around.

Essential

Car Seat

Whether you have a car or not, you need a car seat for your baby. This is a relatively straightforward buy as the only real consideration is safety.

Pushchair

Get a cup of tea, this is going to be a long section. First, we’ll start with a universal truth: you will buy the wrong pushchair. Accept that as fact. Pushchair manufacturers proudly claim that your child can use their product from birth to age three. If you can get halfway to your baby’s first birthday without breaking his or her puschair across your knee in fury like the Hulk, then you are in fact a Buddhist monk or need to cut back on the mogadon.  There are just too many variables and you have no hope of accounting for them all correctly until you’ve spent some serious time pushing a child around in it. Shoving it back and forth by a few feet in the shop just doesn’t cover it, so you will buy the wrong one. Don’t worry though, you’ll get it right second time because you’ll then know exactly what you *don’t* want.

These are just a few of the things you need to consider:

• How you usually travel
• Walking – you need something easy to push and steer, with lots of space for shopping and baby gear. But do you want baby to face you or the world? Do you want it to be able to lie back, sit up or both?
• Driving – you need something that folds down small enough to fit comfortably in your car boot. Unless you have a Hummer, a surprisingly large number of the most popular models won’t go in your boot.
• Public transport – Modern buses have lots of space for pushchairs and wheelchairs, but don’t be fooled. They’re always full. There’s some sort of conspiracy going on between disabled people, other mothers and the bus companies. You need a buggy you can fold one handed whilst also holding a screaming baby and a week of groceries and trying to find the change for your fare. Quickly, dammit! If travelling by tube, you need something light so you can carry it up and down stairs if no other bugger will help you.
• Storage space – how much space do you have in your hall? Do you have a hall?  Where are you going to put this thing?
• Adaptability  - do you want something that starts off as a pram and converts to a pushchair later? Do you want to be able to slot the car seat onto the frame? If so, be aware that spending too much time in those car seats is really bad for babies’ soft spines so be careful if you’re using it as a car seat then pushchair then rocker on the floor.
• Your height – if there’s a big difference in height between you and the baby’s dad or anyone else who’ll be using the buggy regularly, you may need one with an adjustable height handle.
• How easy it is to clean. The Gestalt Principle states that a whole is more than the sum of its parts. Babies operate on the anti-Gestalt. They can break a piece of food down into many millions more particles than could ever have existed in the original item. The crumbs…oh the crumbs. If you think the collection lurking in your computer keyboard is bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet. Post weaning, pushchairs are little more than mobile petri dishes.
• Number of wheels. Three wheelers can turn on a sixpence, but the front wheels are always dodgy. Look in to the eyes of a woman pushing a three wheeler. See that? It’s incipient madness, brought on by wonky-wheeled suffering.
• There are loads more, but both of our brains are already hurting aren’t they? That’s before we even get on to double buggies. I specifically had my kids 4 years apart so that we could sidestep that particular swirling chasm of doom.

Not only will you buy the wrong puschair for you, it will without doubt be the wrong puschair for your mother or mother in law. She will use your choice of pram once or twice, then dismiss it as ‘too complicated’ and go and buy something as close as possible to this:

i.e. the one she used to use. This must have been the only model available in the 70′s and 80′s and memorably fell from favour after Lynne Faulds-Wood demonstrated on Watchdog how the folding mechanism was so sharp it could chop raw carrots.  Your pushchair is not too complicated, it’s just makes some accommodation for Health & Safety, so she just can’t do what she wants to do with it. Women of that generation are *terrifying* when using an umbrella-fold. The only way she knows when to stop shopping is when the bags make the buggy tip over and the legs buckle. She’ll blithely saunter on to escalators with it, bending it to all sorts of angles ‘for balance’. She will even part-fold it with the baby still in it in order to squeeze through a narrow gap. Keep a beady eye on her or else she’ll probably jam it in the back of the car and call it a car seat. It’s 50/50 as to whether she’d do the straps up.

Baby carrier or sling

Especially good when the baby is small, they’re comfy, safe and nice for both the baby and you. They’re great for short journeys and window shopping, but no good for any trip where you need to carry a lot. Style of carrier is very much down to individual preference, and the size and shape of your body (in particular your knockers) make a big difference to the comfort and fit of different styles. Just because other people swear by a certain style doesn’t mean you’ll get on with it.

My favourite was a ring sling made from a long length of stretchy jersey. It could be tied in a number of ways and was really comfy, but tended to sag over time so it looked like I was having a prolapse by mid afternoon.

Slings really come in to their own for second and subsequent children. Your first born still wants as much attention as they’re used to so you just have to strap the new one on to you and get on with it. A little-discussed benefit of slings is that the baby catches all your toast crumbs on their head, stopping them going down your cleavage and being all scratchy and annoying. Bonus.

Recommended

A bike

You don’t need a bike for a baby, but once they can sit unaided, a trike with a long handle with which you can push it is a popular alternative to the buggy for short trips. They can usually be altered as the child grows into a normal trike, so it will last a good while.

Meh

Carry cot

I just don’t get this one. What does it do that a pram or moses basket doesn’t? If you want one for the 3 months you’ll use it for, then good luck to you.

Cack

Buggy parasols

Whoever invented these ought to be burned at the stake. Every single feature does the exact opposite of what it ought to.  Flexi grip to attach completely insecurely to the buggy frame! Bendy stalk so you can angle the parasol to ensure that the sun foes directly into your baby’s eyes whilst simultaneously poking an innocent passing toddler in the face! Inconvenient and unconvincing folding action so that it is always getting in the way! Utterly useless in every way. Get a SnoozeShade instead.

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During the genesis of Love It Love It Love It, whilst deciding which brands to stock, I looked at well over 700 children’s clothing brands from around the world. Since launching the store, I’ve lost count but must have seen several hundred more.  Here are some* of my favourites that didn’t make the cut. What do you think – did I make the right choices?

Zutano

Zutano do a fabulous, wide range of clothes with great prints for girls and boys, many of which are unisex. Their print family concept means that it’s easy to mix and match pieces from across the range. Zutano was going to be one of the first brands stocked in Love It, but timing meant that I’d just missed their order deadline, and since then I’ve learned the hard way that import charges on clothing from the USA is so high that it’s difficult to break even on it, never mind make a profit.  Maybe one day, eh?

Kuki Kids

Another collection of lovely, bright prints but also a lot of ironing.

Happy Green Bee

From the originators of Burt’s Bees, Happy Green Bee clothes are all organic. Another US brand, at the moment, they can’t sell wholesale in the UK and nor do they ship here. Their newer collections are pastel and monochrome, but I loved this colourful collection that is currently in their clearance section. This cardigan is just $7. If you have a friend in the US or Canada who’d post on to you, you could get a great bargain.

Dragontail Baby and Lucky Wang

Two quite similar, Asian inspired US brands. Again, there’d be the import problem and whilst the clothes are absolutely exquisite, they don’t quite fit the Love It robust, easy care ethic.

Animodul

I’d stock this range in a heartbeat. When Amy from Whiteacres Design first showed me this, I contacted Animodul immediately to make an order, only to discover that it’s not real!  It’s just a demonstration concept by Spanish graphic design studio atipo. They are open to manufacturing deals though, so if you know anyone who could help – you’ve got one customer lined up already.

animodul from atipo on Vimeo.

*some, but not all.  Mwah ha ha hah! There are some fantastic brands that I’m still working on bringing to Love It Love It Love It. Until they arrive, their names are a closely guarded secret. *twirls moustache*

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