To be or not to be - that's a Trade Show

Michele just before first day opening.

A major trade show can certainly give you a case of the ‘what ifs’. We’ve recently taken part in Top Drawer for the second year and had the best four days. We were alongside the giants of the industry and held our own.

As one of hundreds of vendors it’s easy to be bombarded by products and colour from every corner, to wish you had been the first to have the ideas that your seeing on other stands and our latest event was no exception.

Standing in the middle of Olympia, surrounded by such clever design from around the world, it’s easy to want everything and to be everything and to forget what inspires us. We met some amazing people from country and coast, from the top of Scotland to the tip of Cornwall and all points in between. As we talked to them and showed our product line and designs it became clear that we didn’t need to be everything to everyone. We just needed to believe in our artwork and stay true to who we are and continue growing Oyster Moon.

We took the opportunity to introduce several new products, which were all met with great comments and received some fabulous orders and requests for some different ocean art. Our Hug a Mugs, notebooks and A3 prints showed we are constantly complimenting and growing our product line.

Our Spotted Dolphin design caught the attention of a few who were surprised to find out that these amazing mammals live off of our northern shore. The watercolour was a favourite at the show and we have now designed a Really Large Mug with the dolphins around it and a Spotted Dolphin greeting card.

The World is our Oyster and at Oyster Moon we celebrate our beautiful coast which continues to inspire.

Déjà Vu

Last year we had the best time on Hayling Island photographing our products and today it was déjà vu!

Once again, March delivered and we headed down to the water. We love coming up with new things and took our latest editions to the beach today.

The misty morning cleared up just as we paid for our parking and jackets were quickly discarded - we were in for a treat. With help from our friends Q and Winnie - the photoshoot soon got going.

Our newest products are three beautiful cotton Tea Towels printed in Cornwall. The crisp white background takes our watercolour artwork beautifully and when ironed - as of course we did for the photos - almost look as if they are paper prints. We have three super designs, Ocean Collection, One in a Million and Sea Turtles and wanted to show them off to their best, but soft cotton can be difficult to bring to life in a photo - that is unless you have an amazing sun-bleached and ocean washed breakwater!

With the wind barely a breeze we draped our new Tea Towels on the wall and, with a kind offer of a quick photograph from Q, managed to capture them in all of their glory, while Winnie ran around finding driftwood, but looking very cute.

Thankfully, the playful twin labradors who decided to crash our shoot, steered clear of the table which had our beautiful Really Large Bone China mugs on and one of our shell filled Hurricane lamps. Otherwise we would still be there picking up the pieces.

We’ve also taken elements of our blue watercolour prints and made them into Giant, signed designs. Our Narwhal, Nautilus and Blue Lobster can now be purchased in large frames (53cmx53cm) and we think they look great.

So, all in all, it was a successful day and we look forward to next March or even sooner for our next photoshoot on the Coast. We really enjoy bringing new products to Oyster Moon and hope you enjoy them and seeing our photos.

Gina & Michele - Oyster Moon with our new Tea Towels

Giant Watercolour Prints

Our assistant - Winnie! - Sorry Q.

Keep in Touch

At Oyster Moon we love the coast and surrounding countryside and can't get enough of beach combing our local shore. So we've designed cards from some of our favourite finds on our days out, added a few amazing creatures from under the sea near and far and put them together with some of our other art in our new greeting card range.

There's something for everyone and every occasion.

In this day and age of Tweets, emails and Facebook comments, its lovely to keep in touch with friends and family by snail mail. Everyone loves to receive a card and we think our beautiful designs would be lovely to send or receive.

At the moment our cards are only available for purchase through wholesale, but we hope to have them in local stores near you soon. So if you see something you like, let your local shop know!

Here are a few of our favourites.

A Day at the Beach

One of the most difficult things to do with a small business is to promote yourselves. Finding the time to keep all of those websites, social media and print media mouths fed! Sometimes it's hard to make time to create new products. There just doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day. At Oyster Moon, we're still working on that.

Especially after Christmas, when all of the twinkle lights, stars and magic seemed to disappear into the shorter, grey days of January and February. Taking photos indoors never seems to look very inspirational. Or maybe it's just that we've eaten too much Christmas cake!

So when you get the chance of a crisp, sunny day - you have to grab it with both hands. We've managed to do that recently. The weatherman promised us an overcast, but dry day and in March, that was all it took. We removed the glass from countless prints (reflections are not always our friends), polished up our glass lanterns and headed for the beach.

What we got was a glorious Spring day, clear blue skies and a sparkly ocean. On our local coast at Hayling Island looking across to a beautiful Isle of Wight. They'd even put on a yacht race in the Solent. We couldn't believe our luck! 

Photographing, when you are an amateur, even with a nice camera and especially outdoors is never easy. You can't see the camera display - so you take a deep breath and press the button - lots.

Working in the outdoor elements has it's challenges, wobbly pebbles, sand, wind and Seagulls, but with that also comes great reward and with a little adjusting in Photoshop to straighten the horizon, we took some great photos in just two hours. Then went and had lunch!!

We are so lucky to have such beautiful coastline and countryside in the UK, it makes you feel so good when you can take advantage of it. All of those times, when Instagram and Facebook are nagging at you, waiting to be fed and you are desperately trying to find inspiration and photograph inside through a long, grey winter without shadows or gloom, just disappear. I highly recommend giving it a go.

Here are a few from the day!

Watercolour prints of Whales and Sea Turtle with our Hurricane

Oyster Moon

We are two sisters who both love to draw and paint and thought we should start a business. Two years on and we had no idea how Oyster Moon would take over our lives. With a lot of encouragement from family and friends and hard work we've grown from just a few ideas to a range of designs and products.

You see it all the time in the magazines "I started my small business on my kitchen table and now I'm a millionaire!" Well, not quite, but we did start on the kitchen table, in fact some of our best designs are still created there in between meals.

We first sold our designs at local craft events and then found some shops who liked what we do. We built our own website - learning along the way. One of our favourite things to do is our own photoshoots. Spending the day at the coast really gets the creative juices flowing. We are constantly learning the best way to update our social media, not always an easy thing.   

The best advice we could give to someone thinking about starting their own business is stay true to yourself, work with your strengths and love what you do, because you will spend a lot of time doing it!  Hours and hours behind the scenes creating new product, figuring out the best way to package it, ship it, sell it, promote it and most important of all, how to keep your customers happy and coming back for more. 

After two short years we certainly still have a lot to learn, but we do love it when a new design comes together. When the watercolour flows just right or you wake up thinking about a new line and rush to scribble it down into one of the hundreds of notebooks, before life takes over and the thought is gone.

Our dream for Oyster Moon - we're going to reach for the stars.