A good Sunday

I am quite happy with the sunday so far, after years of trying I can finally make Yorkshire puddings that are 4 inchs high, result!! Off to the park for a walk then back to work doing the books, you never stop working when you work for yourself.








contemporary doors

Contemporary doors again!

Hi Everyone,

Been having some problems with some technical stuff, it's been a long slog but we are nearly there with the new range of doors. We had to think out of the box to hopefully create some timeless pieces. We are still on schedule with the release of them and look forward to showing everyone soon. Check them out.. contemporary doors.

Contemporary Doors

We have been working hard on designing a new range of contemporary doors. We are going to be more mainstream with them with a dash of Italian styling in there too. We hope to have these ready for launching at the start of May. Keep looking!

International Business

At the end of August we treated ourselves and the children to a 2 week holiday in Ibiza. It was absolute bliss - great weather, great company, and a great time all round. For the first week we forced ourselves to not even mention the business, and to relax, which we did. We relaxed so much that we couldn't be bothered to even think about home in the second week and had to be dragged onto the plane to come back.

We've been back about 2 weeks and it seems like forever ago, why is that with holidays?! You spend a load of money on it and lots of time looking forward to it, just for it to dwindle into the back of your memory for a rainy wistful day once it's over?

So now we're back with a vengeance. This is the year when all other things can wait, and it's Funky Wood's year. I've been to UKTI this morning to investigate exporting to Dubai, Qatar, and Saudia Arabia. I'm looking at all high growth economies, including Brazil and India. I'm looking for places where they have a lot of money to spend on construction. I'm probably going to join the passport to export programme next year so that means the next few months are all about doing as much research as I possibly can, so that I can get maximum use out of the programme.

I'm going to Italy in a couple of weeks to speak to someone about a really exciting new product which we're going to be launching. I'll let you know more really soon.

Eddie's working on prototypes for new doors and a new skirting board profile.

We're also taking on an apprentice! Shaun Woodhead will be joining the Funky Wood team over the next couple of weeks. Shaun has a really great attitude, a willingness to learn, and I'm sure he is going to be a great success as Funky Wood grows.

That's all for the moment but things are moving really quite fast these days, I could really use one of those 2 week holidays in Ibiza.....

Buy Modern, contemporary doors. , Door frames, Skirting Boards, http://www.funkywood.co.uk/

That first step in enterprise

Yesterday I took my 3 year old daughter to Raby Castle for a family fun day. We'd just got there when she wanted to go to the swings, not the family fun day! I managed to persuade her to do the crafty activities and then we walked down to the adventure playground. There was a little activity course where she had to walk along planks and chains which she loved. She got to the chains where you have to hold onto the top chain and walk along the bottom, she was nervous. She asked for my help, I was there (obviously!) with support, holding her waist, she was still nervous. It was such a huge feat for her and she thought she'd never be able to make it to the other side, but she really really wanted to get to the other side. So I said, 'just take one step' she did. Then another step, then another step, until she'd finally got to the other end and she looked back at how far she'd come. It really inspired me. This was such a huge thing for her to do and she just broke it down into small chunks and built the chunks until she'd achieved her goal and achieved something amazing. That gave her the confidence to do the next chain on her own.

It was such an inspiration for me, and I wanted to share the story to anyone who thinks they can't do things. I'm a true believer that you can do anything you want in life - absolutely anything - so long as you really really want it. Eddie's always dreamed about going to space, he can do it. If he goes to college for 10 years then he'll be a qualified astronaut. 10 years seems like a lot but if he so desperately wants to do it then he will.

It helps if you have the support from people who know and love you, but it's not essential. You can get help from a whole load of people - me included. It helps that I'm a positive thinker and I see opportunities in everything, but I've only just got my confidence back these past few months, a year ago I would never have dared to put one step on those chains, but then I dared to take one step. That's all it took, just one step. Then I took another step and now I'm onto the next chain. I once wrote a poem which you might like (it's a bit mad LOL).

It only takes guts to grab it by the horns
It doesn't cost a dime
Life's about living, or so they say
So do it today or DIE

Told you it was a bit mad!

Have a good week, Helen
www.funkywood.co.uk - Buy modern doors, skirting boards, architrave, door frames, UK

Funky Wood Unique Interior Doors and Contemporary Skirting Boards

As it says in the title, I've been eating, sleeping, and dreaming of key words, titles, headings, HI tags, a href's... I could go on! For the past month I've been upgrading our new Funky Wood website, please view it here: http://www.funkywood.co.uk/. I'm quite proud of my HTML and design skills, I never knew I had them! It's amazing what you can do when you put your mind to it. If anyone's ever done web design before then you'll understand the immense torture you go through and then the fantastic pleasure when it all works!

I'm thinking about setting up a website design & SEO business as a side-line to Funky Wood. If anyon'e interested please contact me. Might call it Funky Projects. I'm going to launch a strategy and marketing business under the same name. It just seems a shame not to share my experiences and skills with the rest of the business population. It's another website to do though, so I need a couple of weeks rest, although at least this one won't be 45 pages!

Eddie's been driving me mad with backlink strategies. It's not that I disagree, it's just that he's obsessed! It's when we get into bed on a night and he says those immortal words... "I've found a fantastic website, you know what it says..." What with the HTML and his backlinks, I'm slowly going crazy(or crazi-er?).

I'm meeting up with a couple of sales agents this week to move on with our national sales campaign, it will be really nice to talk to a person rather than a computer. I also have to let previous customers and contacts know about our new, funky wood, website! So, until next week.contemporary doors.

An update in the life of Funky Wood

I haven't had time to sit down lately, well actually I haven't had time to stand up! - been glued to my desk from morning till night, it's like slave labour only I'm my own slave driver. I've been researching other business ideas - don't tell Eddie! I just get bored after a while and Funky Wood is fantastic and all that, but you know there's so many opportunities out there.

Anyway, I haven't left Funky Wood or anything like that and in fact I've set ourselves some more goals. That will hopefully keep my interest going - at least until I can find someone to sneak into my shoes.

I've been working on stuff like accounts - man alive, how dull is that? What a painful experience! Hopefully I'll be able to get someone to take over the book-keeping soon so it can leave me alone. You'd think with my investment experience that I'd enjoy figures and I do, just that was painful. Anyway, I'm now onto our website, which I WILL get finished by Sunday night. After that it's plain sailing all the way. I'm even thinking of taking a week off at the end of July before we kick off our national sales campaign.

We got through to the regional finals of The Pitch 2010 at Edinburgh last week and were beaten by someone promoting swimwear for poorly people. She is doing a fantastic job and I hope she wins overall, she's such a lovely lady at Glitter Beach.

Eddie's working on some new fab designs, so he's happy in the workshop, doing designs and customer orders. Everything's ticking along nicely at the moment. Long may it last and please can we have some better weather???!