Why do we love Norway?

Actually the question should be, why does Norway love Coulson Macleod?

We’ve just taken an order from our fourth stockist there. Coulson and I are thinking a trip to Norway is in order. We can visit our gorgeous-looking stockists in Oslo, Bergen, Gjøvik, and Nittedal (pictured)…

and this gorgeous looking country…

Victoria creates personalized enchanted portraits from your own photos. And they really are quite charming.

In particular I love her Family Tree…

You could have real fun posing your family. I rather like the idea of having Great Granny swinging in the uppermost branches.

Well folks, we have beaten our sales record. We have sold more prints in August than in any other month in the entire history of Coulson Macleod. And we’ve been up and running for almost eighteen months.

We have a whiteboard on our office wall. Every time we make a sale we wipe off the old number and write up the new one. I say we, but actually I usually do this, partly because my handwriting is neater, but mainly because it gives me a huge amount of pleasure. Every month we write down how many we’ve sold, whether they’ve been sold via Not On The High Street or through shops or if they’re bespoke and how many came via one of our adverts in Elle Decoration or Livingetc.

We love our whiteboard. We quite often catch each other staring at it fondly. Because every month the figures go up. And that is super exciting.

And this month, only half way through August I might point out, we’ve notched up the biggest number since our records began. To let you into a secret, we only started recording this on the board since November, which was when we started selling in serious numbers and the idea of a whiteboard sprang into our heads.

So ladies and gentlemen, tonight we may clink our glasses and say a little toast to our little booming business that we love so much.

We have a copycat.

On the one hand this is flattering. They obviously think we’re a good model to base your business on. Which we are. On the other hand, as you can imagine, it’s annoying.

When they first launched, about a year after us, they even had the audacity of producing a canvas-mounted artwork exactly the same as ours. Until we threatened legal action. Now they have something pretty similar, just not as good.

Coulson Macleod’s ‘No Place Like Home’ canvas-mounted art print

But they don’t just copy designs. Far more than that. They follow everything we do, then replicate it. Weird hey?

This copycat company has also stolen designs from other companies, then sells them as ‘unique’. At least three other companies have had their ideas reproduced.

Sometimes when we’ve written something on our blog, or our Facebook page, or tweet on Twitter, I see almost the same words the next day from this company. It’s like hearing an echo.

No doubt they’ll be reading this. But as they have no shame I don’t for one second think this will stop them.

Oh the joys of being in business!

Coulson Macleod HQ has been trying to buy shredded newspaper.

Why?

Well firstly by its very nature it’s recycled. Which is good. And it’s in keeping with what we do. Typographic packaging. Perfect.

But can I find a company that does it? No.

We recently ordered some plants from a nursery in Cornwall. Inside the box was shredded newspaper. And we thought how much better that would be than using bubble wrap to keep our art safe on its journey.

So I Googled. And Googled. But could not find anyone that sells it. I contacted our local council. They didn’t provide a solution. So I contacted the nursery and they buy it as animal bedding. But the company they buy from only supplies Cornwall. Then I found a company in Scotland. But their minimum order was 20 x 20kg bales. Yikes! We’re not farmers and we don’t have a spare barn.

So if anyone reading this knows of a company, preferably within the Midlands, that sells clean shredded newspaper, please let us know.

A mum who built a busi­ness up in 18 months has made it through to the finals of a national entre­pren­eur com­pet­i­tion cel­eb­rat­ing women in business.

The Mumpren­eur Awards recog­nise busi­ness­wo­men through­out the UK who juggle a com­pany with fam­ily life, and 39-year old Han­nah MacLeod of Ket­ter­ing, has been singled out in the 2010 awards.

She has been short­l­is­ted for the Best Online Busi­ness award for her inter­net art busi­ness, with the award going to the final­ist who has the most deserving busi­ness and most inspir­a­tional website.

Ms MacLeod, who runs Coulson Macleod with her part­ner Mark Coulson, is delighted to be in with a chance.

She said: “I was very pleased to find out I had made it through to the final. I feel proud the com­pany has grown so much since it was estab­lished 18 months ago and delighted to be recog­nised by these awards.”

The busy mum launched the busi­ness with no ini­tial invest­ment and has watched it grow – the company’s goods are now stocked in shops around the UK and Nor­way, is a favour­ite of Saat­chi and Saat­chi, and has been fea­tured in numer­ous magazines includ­ing Elle Dec­or­a­tion UK, Easy Liv­ing and County & Town House.

Because she has been nom­in­ated for an award, she is also in with a chance of win­ning the title of Inspir­a­tional Busi­ness Mum 2010, which will be judged with the rest of the awards at the Mumpren­eur Con­fer­ence on Septem­ber 18 in Warwickshire.

She added: “It is import­ant for mums to know that they can do it – they should be con­fid­ent in their abil­it­ies. Being a mum makes you a multi-tasker – and you can put a load of wash­ing on, send an email and talk on the phone at the same time.”

Found out yesterday that I’m a finalist for a Mumpreneur Award. Out of 302 entrants from around the UK, I’m down to the final six in the category Best Online Business.

So what do you think, is Coulson Macleod in with a chance of winning?

The award ceremony is on 18th September so we’ll let you know.

Limited edition canvas-mounted art print by Coulson Macleod

And the second is ‘The Rolling Stones’…

Limited edition canvas-mounted art print by Coulson Macleod

Little confession time. Our two new prints have actually replaced two. ‘The Pixies’ and ‘The Velvet Underground’. Why? Erm… well… *whisper* they were not that popular.

Could have lied and said they had sold out. But that’s lying and we don’t lie. And of course the whole reason for our blog is to record the ups and downs of Coulson Macleod.

There is no point keeping them if they don’t sell. They are a remnant of the first days of Coulson Macleod, when Coulson used to design things just for himself. He loves The Pixies. And he loves The Velvet Underground. But clearly not everyone shares his enthusiasm.

And to quote The Beatles, it really is a ‘long and winding road’.

Coulson Macleod is a teeny weeny company.

There’s Mark, he’s the Coulson half. And there’s me, Hannah, the Macleod half.

The business is built on love and driven by passion. This is true. This is not some made-up marketing spiel.

Mark and I met, fell in love, moved in together and then got bored of staring at blank walls. We knew what we liked. But couldn’t find it to buy. Or if we did, we couldn’t afford it.

Then we said, “I bet there are other people out there just like us,” (or words to that effect).

Coulson Macleod is our baby. We love it and nurture it. We wake in the night to think about it. We proudly tell others about it. We glow with pride when it does well. It is ours. And we’re on a wonderful journey.

Perhaps Mark and I are building big castles way on high. Just the two of us. You and I.

Limited edition vintage-style art print by Coulson Macleod