Celebrate 1 year of Website

Sitting here today at the computer working on upcoming projects for the business and thinking about how this weekend (Sunday to be exact) marks the one-year anniversary of when our new website was launched. It is hard to believe that it has been a year (and what a year) and you have to wonder, just where has the time gone.

It is also a good opportunity to reflect back on how the website came about and what I have achieved in the past year and how to mark the special occasion of having the website for a year. It is funny how the website was borne due to COVID and that 18 months on, COVID still plays a huge part in how we continue to go about our daily life. It has been a hard time for us all and at times I feel we all wonder if we will ever get back to pre-COVID. What I have learnt is that we all need to take life day by day and be grateful for the positives in our life. It can be hard at times to remain positive. However, I take those small positives and focus on them – I have several community workshops booked and while feeling slightly nervous, I am also excited to be out again amongst others doing what I enjoy – crafting and sharing skills. It will almost be like being pre-COVID, except for the masks, vaccines and social distancing. But there is no harm in hoping for ‘normal’ workshops.

Community workshops

I am sitting here today thinking about the new website and how it came about. I have to be thankful for the virus and government restrictions, as I may not have achieved what I have done in 2020, if the world had not dramatically changed. Without the Saturday zoom sessions with my ‘crafting’ buddies and spending a relaxed afternoon crafting, chatting, laughing, (drinking) and putting the world to rights, the website may never have been created. From those zoom sessions, came the idea and birth of an online shop and new improved website. Months of hard work (from everyone in the new ‘Nifty Needles tech/management team) followed – research, compiling a list of stock, patterns, deciding on categories and what goes where, taking photos, inputting the products onto the website and writing up descriptions for everything – to get the online website that we now have. Sometimes, sharing your dreams and aspirations out loud to friends, and with support, you can achieve your dreams.

As a team, we discussed on the ‘right’ time to launch the new website. We agreed that it was a special day to remember and celebrate. So, with it being my birthday, I thought it would be appropriate to launch the website on my birthday to mark the occasion. Not that my birthday is anything that I wish to remember, another year older (& hopefully wiser) but it would be an easy date to remember when we launched the website.  So with my birthday looming up (ever so quickly) it means that the website has been up and running for a year. I think I would just prefer to think of the date as Nifty Needles birthday.

It is also a good opportunity to reflect back on the past year. It has been a rough year for us all, but it is best to focus on the good and achievements. The start of the year became with a long and hard lockdown, the attitudes of people changing. It was hard at times to see just how society/people changed but it was heart-warming to know that there was always that positive network of support when it was needed the most.

When I look back at what has happened this year, I am amazed that one of my dreams come true, the purchase of a longarm machine and the ever-growing need to practise and use the machine. I love being creative on the machine and seeing quilts, etc., come to life under the needle of the machine and my hands. There is still so much I want to learn and achieve on the machine. One thing I have come to realise, you are never too old to learn a new skill and extending our techniques and abilities.

I still have so much more that I want to learn and achieve, while Nifty Needles grows and blossoms.

So, I felt that the best way to celebrate the birthday of the Nifty Needles website is to have a 20% discount on everything in the website – notions, patterns, kits, clearance and so forth – from today through to midnight Thursday 30 September 2021. Just use the code – BIRTHDAY – at the checkout. I will also have some free giveaways to celebrate the anniversary of the website, so stay tuned for those.

Giveaways

Finally, I want to thank every one of you for being here with me (virtually) throughout 2020/21, supporting and encouraging me. Hopefully I have helped in some way to keep you all sane with crafting and my designs/kits.