LITTLE BADGES - I'VE BEEN DRIVING IN MY SOAPBOX CAR

www.thebiglittlebadgeco.com

Hi

The virtual kettle's on..... So while I let it boil I just have this to say

Well we have some interesting clients and customers (friends) here at thebiglittlecadgeco.com . We work hard to make sure our customers are satisfied, and we love to hear from customers about their purchases, why they purchased etc etc. Basically I am very NOSEY.

We have people that have bought second's badges to recover a table top...to Upcycle it, we have had sculptors buy from us, and we have had artists who make up pictures from our lil badges.

We have teachers that buy badges, for teaching aids, to involve children in history, to help with schooling and praise....and we have people that buy badges to add to their collections and are happy to show us them in their new homes and environments being looked after with Custard creams and cups of hot tea.

I love getting feedback from our customers as that is the only way to improve and to help people in what they need to achieve, and it is not with trepidation that I open correspondence emails from our customers.

So the other month I opened a very lovely email from Peter Vivian who I think had purchased from us for the first time. To say my jaw dropped would have been an understatement, and to say I had an almost Ready Brek glow of pride about me for the rest of the day certainly would have been true. Anyone around that could have been shown the email.....was shown it.

So what was this email and it's contents.... Someone covered head to toe with little badges, an item with our badges featured on BBC Breakfast. No, what it was was one of our badges taking pride of place on what has to be the most beautiful hand crafted object I have seen.

The email contained this lovely message and two stunning pictures:

Thank you for the badge you sent me recently it arrived in pristine condition, I thought you might like to see it in its new home, it has a very important new job!

Now we take pride in our badges, and we only sell quality made objects...... But when you see the work of Peter we pale into insignificance.

Absolutely stunning. So being NOSEY like I am I had to find out more about what Peter did, and if he had a website or outlet for selling these amazing one off pieces.

So let us tell you a little bit about Peter Vivian.

Peter started his business 3yrs ago called Creative woodwork specialising in hand made one off pieces of furniture. Rocking horses, heirloom toys etc. made from love and skill. With other people also creating rocking horses (not as good quality either) Peter was looking for something unique to turn his hand to, to stand out from the crowd.

Now what could be better than combining one love with another, and Peter being a bit of a petrol head decided to enter a hand made Soapbox car into the Soapbox Derby at the Hotrod Hayride. First time of entering ....they came in second only to an out and out downhill specialist.

With such a great start....Peter decided to enter it again at Goodwood where they won 'BEST CART' (unsuprisingly) and the award for most money raised for Charity.

The soapbox pictured above became a little star and was featured in 'Classic and sportscar magazine' and 'Custom car' magazine. Centre spreads I hope.

The cart featured with our little scotland badge was the first customer cart they produced. **GLOWING WITH PRIDE**

Peter is now onto his second commision which is a 20% larger open topped roadster. He is recieving enquiries from all over the world, New Zealand, Germany, Finland, Florida and even Wales and to be honest you can see why. If he get's any spare time (which i think will be in short supply) Peter is planning on entering this years 'Hotrod hayride' with a 1930's indy car.

Unfortunately having been let down by a web designer (surely someone can help Peter to show his product to the world) His website is currently offline..... But do not hesitate to contact him on this email address to place all your lovely orders Peter Vivian or give him a ring on this number:

Creative Woodwork 01202 723854

Too often you hear that this country does not produce anything, and I know that this country produces some of the finest things around.

We are so proud to be a little part of what Peter is doing, but all the praise has to go to the incredible workmanship of Peter Vivian.

Don't delay....put your orders in with Peter today :)

Finally having made my jaw drop once...Peter managed to do it again when he sent over this picture of a FULL SIZED wooden sports car that he made 20yrs ago and still owns.

Just amazing and it is just such skills like this that need to be kept and treasured.

I have given the link to my wife and am hoping that she has mentioned it to SANTA.

Well, I can hear the kettle has just finished boiling so

Milk and sugar?

Join us in our little shop for a virtual cuppa www.thebiglittlebadgeco.com

LITTLE BADGES - HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY SAY IT WITH FLOWERS

www.thebiglittlebadgeco.com

Hi

The virtual kettle's on..... So while I let it boil I just have this to say

Well it's that time of year again. Men wandering around aimless wondering what to get their wives and girlfriends...(not irons, saucepans...or Lingerie). Probably at the same time as grumbling about the Commercialization of Valentine's day....and oh buggers I forgot to get a card...I forgot to get a card.

I hope it is still a day celebrated and feared. For Single people it can have the same effect as midnight New Years eve....but at the same time it could well be the day they stop being single as someone plucks up the courage and shows their affection to them.

When at school it was always a big deal. Weeks before the event, you began to get groups or herds of giggling girls trying to seperate boys from their mates to give them a gentle hint or kick, and to subtly suggest that it may not go unrewarded if you were to show some interest in so and so.

And of course from the boys point of view you did not want to be the one left on Valentine's day without a kiss or at least one Valentine's card. For some reason your mates always seemed to have loads of cards even though they were deemed spotty and ugly with no social graces, and had in fact shown little interest in girls, but yet on Valentine's day they would gladly show you the amount of cards they had recieved. This would normally include one from their parents, and the other's looked like a box set from the market all suspisciously written in the same handwriting...and normally the left hand.

From my own point of view, my gimmick was to send a Yellow rose to someone I fancied....I felt that this made me stand out from the crowd, and would generate more conversation. Plus Yellow roses are a damn sight cheaper when Valentine's day rolls round. Not as daft as I might look.

Of Course the general conversation it probably generated on Valentine's day was "Some muppet has sent me a Yellow rose on Valentines day...What a muppet. I'm going to go out with (add boys name here) as he did the decent thing and showed his love with an overpriced red rose"!

To Anyone in the Northampton area who recieved a Yellow rose on Valentines day...I apologise!

And although Valentine's day is for annonymous lover's or as they are called today sex pests (quick get an Asbo...sorry CBO now), It was amazing how many girls were able to break the code of the sender....Normally just looking at the victim...Sorry boy would have him blushing, and his mates all hitting him on the arm.

So it is with that in mind, I hope our little badges have helped in some way in getting one person to say 'I love you' with the medium of a lil badge. Of course if your plan of suprising your intended with a little badge has backfired and the conversation goes "Some muppet has given me a little badge for Valentine's day instead of roses....what a muppet" well then we apologise.

So with that said, why not stock up on Valentine's day badges this year and for next for all your lover's. We wish you all a very HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY and wear your hearts on your sleeve....collar, lapel, bags or even your scarf!

Well, I can hear the kettle has just finished boiling so

Milk and sugar?

Join us in our little shop for a virtual cuppa www.thebiglittlebadgeco.com

LITTLE BADGES - LET'S ALL SAVE NORBURY LIBRARY

www.thebiglittlebadgeco.com

Hi

The virtual kettle's on..... So while I let it boil I just have this to say

thebiglittlebadgeco.com proud to be supporting SAVE NORBURY LIBRARY.....AND NORTHAMPTON....AND KINGSTHORPE.....AND......WELL ALL OF THEM.

BUY SAVE NORBURY BADGES HERE

I spent my young life in local libraries, my college years in libraries and my later years in libraries researching my family tree (oh please let one of them be a rich land owner and not a farm hand) so for the life of me....... I cannot for the life of me think of one good reason why local authorities like Croydon council and many others across this once great country would want to close them down... not one.

I can think of many bad reasons...but will come to them later.

I could not...and cannot imagine going through life not being able to read and write. It would be like having a blank spot in my life. Trees, would seem less green, simple tasks would become mammoth and unbearable tasks, street signs would be unreadable...oh yes and those pesky ballot papers would just be a blur. Maybe that is why they have the little logos on the ballot paper.

My first experiences of libraries that I can remember are when we used to go up to the Whitehills pub car park (I never said I come from a classy area) and climb into, what seemed like then, a MAMMOTH mobile library van. It was magical. Well technically it wasn't but it felt like it. Giant pictures of the Hungry Caterpiller, small tables for us little ones, low sections of children's books for our little hands to grab, and towering shelves to the roof of the wagon with more adult fiction. Books which would later be available to me because of my ability to read.

Yes I know with age, things become rose coloured.... dog mess was white then, and you could buy penny sweets for a penny... but without this service my whole life would have been blighted.

I would not have developed an imagination (some say over active), I would not have developed a craving for knowledge, I would not be able to write these words now, without the wonder years of learning behind me.

Such books as Roald Dahl's The Twits, Swallows and Amazons, Stig of the Dump, The Hungry Caterpillar, The Hobbit, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fungus the Bogeyman, The Railway Children, Tom's Midnight Garden.... would have all been just titles on a shelf.

The local library was somewhere for us to meet and interact with other kids.... for my mum who had the unfortunate job in life of looking after me and my sister, a break to chat with fellow mums.

The thing about books is....once you read one...you want to read another...and another. You are like a sponge and let's face it, there are so many books in the world that I will never read them all in my lifetime.

From the mobile library, we were lucky that Kingsthorpe got it's own Library. I moved onto Dr. Who books, Tin Tin, and was able, due to their extensive stock, to work my way through them all. The Cybermen were scarier in my mind than on the television.

And when Kingsthorpe library no longer had the stock I needed, I was fortunate to be able to go into the town centre...to the mother of all libraries. Such a stunning building (always thought I was going to see the librarian ghost from Ghostbusters in there) it demanded respect from me.

Northampton Library was the elder brothers of all the other libraries... I learnt respect, I learnt manners, I learnt to interact with the professional librarians who were only too happy to help you further your reading. I also learnt to use the reference library, which helped me understand the past and history of where I was born. To complete school projects with a vast array of knowledge, a place to lose yourself and really concentrate without the buzz buzz and beep beep of modern life.

I later returned from London to Northampton on various trips to spend happy afternoons in the library researching my family history. Where oh were will this amazing reference material disappear if our libraries disappear! Lost forever, or transferred to computers that can......FAIL.

Between college and my first job...I used the library to photocopy the jobs pages from the advertising industry magazines, and sit in the library and write to all the job applications. For £1 I could get the information from 5 different magazines (Creative Review, Campaign, etc.) which would have cost me well over £12 if I bought them all.

And when I got my first job in Advertising (as the internet had not been totally rolled out then) we had an account with the local library near Great Portland Street.

So like I say....I can think of no good reason to close libraries.

In Norbury...that is all we really have from Croydon council. All our council tax goes into trying to keep the white elephant of Croydon from financially sinking, and into projects to deal with the problems of Croydon. In Norbury...or 'Forgotten Norbury' as I like to call it, we do not have the big businesses, the shiny buildings, the cleaner streets, the transport links that Crydon enjoys.

You can count on your hands the amount of times Norbury has benefitted from Croydon Council money.... we have finally got more than one bin on the high street, and that is only due to the persistance of local residents associations.

But, the council believe that we in NORBURY can do without a library.....and could have book tokens to buy our books as that would work out cheaper than keeping a library......

See article on Councilor Sara Bashford: http://insidecroydon.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/bringing-crass-councillor-bashford-to-book-over-library-costs/

The thing is... apart from being wrong about the cost of books compared to the cost a library can purchase and lend them for.... we don't even have a BOOKSHOP in Norbury! Pure Croydon council logic at it's best. Instead they keep giving out shop permits for restaurants and fast food chicken shops...because it's more important to eat unhealthily than to educate our youngsters.

The main reasons we may well lose our Norbury library are that we in Norbury are under a Labour run ward....And Croydon Council is a Tory run Council. Plus the library currently sits on some very valuable land that the council would like to get their hands on for building more flats along the London Road to meet their quotas. It is nothing to do with the library being underused. It is always busy with parents and children, retired adults, jobless and students......

...It is due to Croydon Council's short sightedness, for a quick buck..... Once these libraries are closed, they will never reopen! Full stop.

So I urge you all to join library read-ins across the country this Saturday 5th February and show these cultural neanderthals at Croydon Council and your local councils that destroying a generations quest for education and personal improvement is one step too far.

For more details of NORBURY library READ-IN go here:

NORBURY GREEN RESIDENT'S ASSOCIATION

So much for this trademarked 'BIG SOCIETY'

Well, I can hear the kettle has just finished boiling so

Milk and sugar?

Join us in our little shop for a virtual cuppa www.thebiglittlebadgeco.com

LITTLE BADGES - JANUARY BADGE 'O' THE MONTH

www.thebiglittlebadgeco.com

Hi

The virtual kettle's on..... So while I let it boil I just have this to say

Well that was 2010. How was it for you. For us it was fast and December was lovely and busy.

Christmas came and went in a blink of the eye. We did the family thing for Christmas, going to the 'outlaws'. And then back to it, a build up of orders to rush out before the New year.

Then before we knew it it was 10mins before midnight on New years Eve and we all stood laughing at me covered in champagne having narrowly missed taking my eye out with the Champagne cork. I felt like a Formula 1 winner. We are proud to announce that we have a cork dent in the ceiling now.

So here it is 2011. I'm not a big fan of New years celebrations...I am normally found in a corner all melancholy thinking, well yeah after a bit of a giggle and a celebration we will all wake up with headaches and look forward to the inevitable tax rises, and monetry squeezing that is on it's way....because we are all in this together! But I must admit for some reason I enjoyed the prospects of 2011.

I am looking forward to meeting and helping all our new customers and helping all our current customers with their badge needs. We are also planning on a little expansion in 2011.

So as I am normally a bit gloomy....We introduced our 'JANUARY SMILES' offer this January and we will be looking to repeat with more offers this year. It was our take on the January sales...but hopefully without all the pushing and shoving and stress related to January sales on the high street.

We offered BUY 3 get 4th FREE on our little badges which are normally buy 5 get the 6th FREE.
And we are happy to announce that the 'JANUARY SMILES' offer helped put smiles on our customers faces in January going by the feedback we received.

So it was with no surprise that JANUARY'S BADGE 'O' THE MONTH was a little smiler. Granted it was a strange 3 eyed smiler but hey...we are a little odd here at the big little badge co.

We also had a lovely virtual window display of badges with smiles on...so the welcome page featured any smiley badge related badge that we have in our shop. It was nice to be greeted by a smile everytime you entered the shop....It made us smile anyway.

So although.....it is now February already!!! wow the years go fast, we are pleased to share with you January's very smiley 3 eyed smiley badge....

**Smiles to oneself...it's infectious**

Well, I can hear the kettle has just finished boiling so

Milk and sugar?

Join us in our little shop for a virtual cuppa www.thebiglittlebadgeco.com