I went to the Gifts & Premium Fair the first time today. We were just curious what they are offering there and hoped that we are lucky and find something interesting for our shop. The fair was huge; so many halls. Every time I go to a trade fair I come back home with burning feet and legs. It is SO exhausting. You don’t realize it while you are there because there are so many things to see so you are totally distracted. But after leaving the premises you suddenly realize how many kilometres you must have walked. High Heels are a No-NO, you just wouldn’t make it through countless aisles of booths.

I was really lucky this time as I met a Japanese guy who is the official distributor of San-X. If you don’t know San-X, here is the official website. They have lots of cute kawaii-style characters like Rilakkuma (a cute bear) and Mamegoma (a baby seal). San-X didn’t have a booth there but the factory who is producing their products gave me the contact details. I will definitely contact them. Their items would fit perfectly into our shop.

Rilakkuma, the cute Relax Bear

Mamegoma, a baby seal

We also found a contact for a printing shop here in Hong Kong who could make low quantity of t-shirts for us. The printing quality is really good so that could be a useful contact in the future. We plan to make our own t-shirts soon. And low quantities are always welcomed. There was also a company who could make our prints on stickers, so our customers could iron the designs themselves onto their t-shirts. But I personally think the printing shop is more interesting because the quality is just better.

And here comes the 3rd order in our online shop. This time a lovely lady from the UK ordered some items in our eBay-shop. I offered her free shipping if she orders in our online shop instead. So she did She called me later because she had some questions about our payment terms. I helped her to pay and the items will be shipped tomorrow. One more happy customer

I ordered a mannikin and some body parts for taking photos of our products. Today it finally arrived and I must say she looks pretty good. Nice make up, fake eyelashes and skin colour body. I hope we will be able to take more professional pictures with this mannikin and show our products better.

Our landlord came by this morning to check out the problem in our bathroom. He left and came back with the construction worker and the owner of the office upstairs. Our landlord and the construction worker started discussing and arguing. I didn’t understand a word but it was obvious that he was angry with that guy. The owner of the upper office apologized to me many times (his English was quite good). They then started to fix the hole by pouring concrete into the hole from upstairs and painting white paint over it. That’s it. I hope that;s safe enough and the ceiling won’t come down again.

the fixed hole after the concrete was poured in

When I went to work this morning a “nice” drilling noise welcomed me at the entrance door. I thought, oh no, I have to stand this noise the whole day. After I entered the office the noise became louder and louder. When I reached my room the noise was almost unbearable. There was definitely a construction going on on the upper floor and it seems they are rebuilding the toilet as the noise came right from there. I went into our bathroom to check it out and the noise was extreme. I looked up and saw some water drops falling down! Ok, something was wrong here.

I tried to call my husband to ask what to do. As I don’t speak any Chinese I didn’t know how to talk to construction workers. Unfortunately, he didn’t pick up his phone so I tried to work for a while. Suddenly, I heard a very loud noise which sounded like falling rocks. I carefully went back to the bathroom and saw that the ceiling came down! Can you imagine that? These stupid construction workers drilled so long until a part of the ceiling broke down. Oh God! Now, I didn’t know what to do. I got my shoes and just wanted to go upstairs, as the door bell rang and one of the workers stand outside. He said something like “Solly, Solly” (= Sorry) and pointed to the ceiling. I showed him the way to the bathroom and he checked it out. After that he left me his phone number.

Finally, Alan picked up the phone and he called to that guy and asked what the hell he is doing. They said they will come tomorrow again and fix it. Oh God, this is really scary. I am afraid now that the rest of the ceiling will come down as well. Or worse, the ceiling in my office. As Asterix and Obelix said: “Help, the sky is falling!”

We just got another bunch of voodoo dolls samples from another factory. I want to check different factories for their quality as we only accept items with good quality. We don’t sell that typical china-made low-quality things. This time the factory sent me a bag full with samples. They are really generous. We got big, medium and small voodoo dolls, mobile phone straps and earrings. Especially the earrings and mobile phone straps are really cute. Anyone interested in buying them, please contact me. Wholesale is welcome too.

left to right: Bat Boy, Ninja, Dark One, Bad Devil, Zombie & Thief

lots of voodoo dolls samples

You can buy our Voodoo Dolls here: Voodoo Dolls Shop

These weeks many trade fairs are held in Hong Kong. They are just in time for companies ordering for their Christmas business. Alan and I went to a Houseware Fair and we could see lots of Christmas decoration. I must say I LOVE Christmas and seeing all these decorations, Christmas trees, Christmas candles etc. made me really looking forward to this year’s Christmas. Like every year, we will fly to Austria and celebrate Christmas with my family. Can’t wait to see them again and lots of snow and Christmas decoration.

Now, back to what I wanted to write about: We checked out that trade fair because we wanted to see if we can find anything interesting and maybe get a 2nd product range for our business. It is always wise to not just stick to one product range but to extend it and maybe even find a totally different product range for your business. I have a colleague from Germany who is exactly doing this. He is selling ducks (the ones for the bathtub) and he has another online shop selling cherrystones and other natural products.

We found 2 interesting products: One is a factory producing stickers. Stickers aren’t anything special, but they have wall stickers which can be stuck on a wall or any other big surface. It is great to decorate your room. They have designs for children rooms, adult bedrooms, living rooms, kitchen and so on. Some examples of designs: gorgeous flowers, Buddhas, Asian inspired themes and many more.

I also found a factory who makes 3D stickers for decorating bathroom & kitchen tiles, cups, glasses, fridge, MP3 player, PSP, iPhone, iPod, mobile phone and many more. They are really cool because the quality is amazing and after sticking it for example on a tile it looks like it was printed on it, not just a sticker. And the 3D effect is really amazing too. We were totally surprised that a sticker can look like a print. With these stickers it will be easy to change your bathroom, kitchen or any of your decoration within seconds. You don’t need to spend huge amounts of money on new tiles, glasses or whatever anymore. The stickers are even removable, so you can change the design as often as you want. Here is a photo of some examples, unfortunately you can’t see the quality:

I hope we can find a way to produce and sell these products very soon. We can even make custom made designs. So anyone interested, please contact me by e-mail.

I have to admit I couldn’t resist when I saw all these gorgeous candles and ordered some samples for myself. That’s one of the advantages when you have a company, you can order free samples for yourself, but don’t tell anyone.

Today we got a delivery from our factory in Thailand with lots of new Tenshi Neko bags. This time we also ordered some new items from Akuma Neko and Mimori. Both are new brands and were just released in Asia. Akuma Neko is the naughty boyfriend of Tenshi Neko, but really cute too. Mimori is a japanese girl who is always smiling and having fun. When my supplier sent me the newest catalog and I saw these bags, I just had to order them. Have a look at some of the bags here:

This is Akuma Neko, Tenshi Neko’s boyfriend.

Mimori, the japanese cute girl.

And one of the newest bags of Tenshi Neko.
Isn’t she cute as a little queen?

A few days ago I found a factory for some cool voodoo dolls. I think they will fit perfectly into our collection and I am sure our customers will like them. The factory has hundreds of designs available but i think around 20-30 designs fit to our items. There are characters like Ninja, Devil, Angel, Dracula, Batman, Mummy, Killer, Wizard, Witch, Samurai, Pirate, Sagai, Demon and many more. Today I got some samples and here is a picture of them. Anyone interested in them, please contact me by e-mail. I will write an update here in my blog when we have them in our online shop for retail orders. They are available for wholesale orders from now on.

Finally, I got the gorgeous stars scarves I was waiting for. There is a sample in black, white, pink and yellow. The colours are following the current trendy colours: black and white and the neon colours pink and yellow. The thin material is silky with some shiny silver threads. Looks great around the neck, on your bag or as a belt. Here is a picture of the 4 scarves: