Feeling Foodie {Salted Caramel Truffles}

I have always described myself as a bit of a chocoholic and having quite a sweet tooth, but over the
last year I have become a bit of a sweet treat snob. No longer am I satisfied with your typical shop bought chocolates or treats, but I want more. I want exciting, specialist, innovative and completely indulgent. If I'm going to allow myself to indulge in a treat then I want it to be a special one.

Luckily for me, Chocolate Gourmet - a wonderful traditional chocolate shop - opened in Worcester
a few years back. Being a small local business with a passionate owner, they stock exciting, unique chocolate from all over the world, including very small UK-based chocolatiers. Needless to say, it has become a bit of an inspiration to my taste buds and subsequently our blog, where I intend to share my discoveries with you.

The first of our discoveries on my sweet treat adventure! First you get the bitter, powdery outer coating
of the dark chocolate, and as your teeth slowly sink in, a hit of salt dances on your tongue just before
the sweet, mouth watering caramel makes its entrance. 'Yum' is an understatement - they are ridiculously indulgent! A very special treat, recommended for dark chocolate lovers by the owner, and hand created by their Devon-based supplier.

New Creative Challenges

So it's been a while since I last found time to blog, but here I am, new iPad in hand, finally able to write from the confines of the sofa!

Being a new mum has certainly set me up with lots of new challenges - mainly the fact that I spend much of my days on the sofa feeding - a huge change from my otherwise crazy-busy days. There are some pretty obvious creative things that I have done over the last few months, like teaching Charlie how to play, smile, touch, settle - all completely magical and enormously rewarding - and some not so obviously creative, like learning how to grab a brew in-between feeds and getting rather good at using my left hand!

So as you can probably see, I am not yet at a point where I have been able to do any of those creative personal projects that I had lined up. So instead and for now, I have signed myself up for a charity event which involves a rather long walk of 10 miles. Usually this would be a piece of cake for me, as I'm fit and active generally, but having only recently fully recovered from my labour, I'd say I'm pretty out of shape by now.

Having experienced the many intense emotions that come with being a new mum - mainly how precious and fragile life suddenly feels - I really wanted to give something back. I feel overwhelmingly lucky to have such a healthy little baby, and I know that for a lot of parents this isn't always the case. The small number of charities that this walk is in aid of each provide help and support to families in this situation, with poorly babies and children. If you would like to support me in this walk, visit my Just Giving page here to find out more and sponsor me. The event is taking place on the 7th July 2013 and I will have this link up on our Facebook page shortly.

As for things at Leaff, despite the many balls that are currently being juggled, we are continuing to work hard on a number of projects, and things are developing well, if a bit more slowly than before. Our website for example, has had to take a bit of a back seat while we focus on these projects, but plans are still developing and we are as excited as ever about the future, and unveiling the many bits and pieces we have going on.

Time to get organised...

We have been using my last few weeks at Leaff before my maternity leave, to get organised and
tidy things up a bit, and this has involved making some important decisions...

Our Shop

You may or may not have noticed that yesterday, links to our online shop disappeared from our
website, Facebook page and here on our blog. This is because we made the decision to close the
shop - for the time being at least. But it was a happy decision!

Our online shop was a bit of a test at the time, when we first launched our stationery range - the idea being of course, for it to showcase our products and get them out there into the world. However, what
we didn't anticipate, was that we would end up doing so well with stockists, and having our products selling in so many beautiful boutiques and galleries around the country. After months of monitoring things, we found that in fact, our business with our stockists was actually doing better than our
online sales.

So with this in mind, along with the fact that the online shop was an overhead every month - as well
as the fact that we are turning things down a notch while I am on leave over the next 'x' amount of months - it seemed an obvious decision to make. We will instead be continuing to take trade orders
from our lovely existing stockists, as well as new ones, and to keep my creativity going while I am
on leave, I plan to be working on developing our stationery range - something we have been meaning
to turn our attention to for a while. There are a number of ideas that we have for a variety of new
products, so there really are exciting times ahead!

If you know of any shops that you think would be a good match for our cards - or if you are indeed
a shop yourself that would like to become a stockist - then we would really love to hear from you.
Get in touch here.

Our letterpressed 'Garden Bird' range.

Our Website

As well as the changes we have made with the shop, you may remember me mentioning that we have
been working on a complete overhaul of our website. This is a huge project for us, and while we had
been working hard to launch it by last month, we had an unexpected amount of projects in at the last minute which of course took priority. Alas, our deadline was missed.

We are still continuing to work on the new site, and things are going well, but we have decided to take
the pressure off ourselves a bit now, and just launch it when we can. As with anything, it is best to take the time to get it right, rather than rushing it, and since I will be on leave for a while, instead it might be lovely to have a big launch a bit closer to when I am perhaps looking to return to the studio.

I am very excited about the next year and what it will bring - I have big plans to make good use of my maternity leave, and turn my attention to tidying things up that we just haven't had time to look at for
a while. It will be good for my soul and brilliant for Leaff, so by the time I return things will certainly be bigger and better than ever!

Studio Time: Jess Green, Brand Development

For what could possibly be my last post for a little while, I thought I would share a very recent project with you all. It was a bright, fun, and energetic brand development that we created for a new Social
Media & Digital Marketing Training company - Jess Green, Digital Diva.

Jess needed a brand that represented what her sociable new business was all about - friendly, innovative, expert, proactive, dynamic, fun, edgy, exciting and sexy - and that would appeal to her young, female audience of confident and passionate small business owners.

We had so much fun developing her vibrant, memorable brand, which is every bit as energetic as
Jess is herself....

This was a great project to work on, and a great opportunity for me to channel my abundance of creative energy, that seems to have increased throughout my pregnancy. It also inspired my current love of bright colour, and stimulated a deep sense of excitement about the vibrant season ahead.

Baby Leaff - 'The Plan'

As requested by a few of our lovely fans: The most recent picture of bump, taken last month.

It is officially 2 weeks today until my due date, and I am feeling like it is the right time to release this post and outline 'The Plan' for what will happen at Leaff when the time comes. We have touched on 

this before in a previous post, but we really wanted to give full details so that everybody knows what 

is happening.

The Vital Moment

As most of you probably already know - either from previous posts or our Facebook and Twitter pages - I am still working like the clappers, and am not planning to stop until I actually go into labour. When this vital moment comes, Leaff will immediately shut, and will stay shut for the 2 weeks following. These 2 weeks will obviously be the beginning of my maternity leave and will complete Jay's paternity leave.

There After

Once the 2 weeks are up, Leaff will re-open, and Jay will be taking the reins. Having said this, Jay will only be in the studio for 1 day a week, which will be the time he will use for corresponding and working on projects, so our availability will be reduced quite significantly.

Business will be very much as usual however, where we will continue to take on projects, but just not quite as many. As long as deadlines can be flexible and we are realistic with the time we have to work 

on projects, then everything should run pretty smoothly.

As for me, I will have a set amount of 'work time' that I can use during my leave, but I will really be taking a back seat entirely until I find my feet at least. I will still be overseeing things, and working as a team with Jay, but this will be very much in the background.

The Future

I am entitled to up to approximately 39 weeks maternity leave, and whether I take all of that or not remains to be seen, but what I do know is that Leaff will continue to grow and flourish no matter what I decide and how long I take. We will endeavour to keep you all informed of developments and changes as and when they happen of course, and you will by no means be seeing the back of me, since I fully intend to use my time to blog as often as I can, and to keep in touch on Facebook and Twitter alongside Jay.

Studio Update

With 3 weeks to go until our precious bundle arrives, it's all go in the studio on our open projects
- you'd think we would be slowing down, but it's really the opposite with all of this creative energy I have!

This week I've been hard at work on a vibrant new brand for Jess Green Digital Diva, and website design visuals for Cottontails Baby as part of their re-brand, to be launched next month. Aside from
this, we have a couple of wedding stationery projects that are still in full flow, and growing more beautiful by the minute. We have so much to share in the coming months!

To top this off, Jay is in full swing with the build of our new website, which we are planning to launch this month. We're so excited about this, as it has been brought right up to speed with where Leaff is now and really shows how far we have come. Watch this space!

A New Year - Resolutions 2013

Well here we are - another New Year and so much ahead of us. Some people may be feeling the January blues beginning to bubble up inside of them, but we always find it such an energetic time of year, with so much positivity in the air.

Every New Year's Eve, we make a point of settling down to write our New Year's resolutions, and to reflect on our achievements over the past year. It is such a therapeutic thing to do, and as the clock strikes midnight at the birth of the New Year, it feels momentous as we toast to all that has been and
all that is to come.

This year is certainly going to be the biggest yet for us personally, as we are now less than 5 weeks away from welcoming our baby into the world and entering the very new world of parenthood. With this in mind, we have some really solid personal goals for this year, and we are in no doubt that these will have a massive impact on Leaff too.

Of course we feel a little anxious about how we will handle things with Leaff, and what this year will look like for the business that we have worked so hard to build over the last 2 years, but we also feel confident about where we are heading. We both thrive on challenge, and are instead feeling most excited and positive about what is to come. What could be more inspiring than watching your baby grow - what could be more of an adventure?! With all of this in mind, here are our 4 main business related goals for this year.

• To launch our new website this month.
• To succeed at keeping Leaff developing and moving forward throughout the year.
• To learn new skills that will nurture our creativity.
• To share our journey of becoming new parents while running a business.

I hope that you found a quiet moment to reflect on your achievements over the last year, and to set yourself up for the new one with a clear set of positive goals. Some may say that goal setting like this is a negative thing to do, since some may seem unachievable, but I would challenge that. In my mind the phrase 'If it is to be, it is up to me' sums it up perfectly - if you never try, you will never achieve anything, so think big! How dull life would be without a challenge.