crafty synergy interview

the sweet patricia zapata, talented crafter and cards designer of a little hut (go check out her web shoppe!) has set up a blog of interviews she does with various artists and designers all over the world at crafty synergy! in her own words -

"Crafty Synergy is a blog about creative women and their businesses. It is a place about understanding what these artists do and why they do it. As a graphic designer, and owner of two small businesses myself, I find that I want to know more about others carving a niche for themselves. My hope is that these interviews are inspiring and help some of you move forward with your dreams as well"

so many of our favorites have already been interviewed, and i too was graciously invited to do an interview with her sooooo long ago (thanks!!) but you know me... i lose track of emails.... until the peeved sender emails me a reminder (x__x) ... oopps! so sorry for the long long delay, patricia! haha but i'm sure she wasn't peeved at all... i hope!

anywaysss... my interview can be found here
http://craftysynergy.blogspot.com/2006/11/littleoddforest.html

thanks so much! and here's cheers to the holiday season to all of us busy bees!!

back to worky work...

forest seedlings totes

weeeee....!!!
the super-long-awaited forest seedlings tote restock
starts today all the way till next week!
so don't say i didn't tell you!

only 6 - 12 pcs of each combination is available!
after this batch, there will be no more restocks of the forest seedlings tote till mid-jan 2007

ENJOY! xoxoxo!!

lof updates!

don't you just love the smell of december?? i do!! i feel energised and happyyyy just waking up everyday! (^__^) SO! anyways....

=================================================================

• all sizes of our new tanktops have been fully re-stocked

• very limited quantities of our sale tanktops have been re-stocked as well

• our new bags collection are being listed slowly but surely, they are all in limited quantities, so once gone, are gone forever, don't miss it!

=================================================================

expect last minute shoppe updates in december! i know many of you get money for x'mas and can shop only after x'mas, so don't worry, we will be stocking up the shoppe all the way til january 07. that way, everyone will be happy, yes???

my sewers will be on their 2-week x'mas holiday break by mid-december, so all outstanding special orders will only resume in january 07

so pretty please... don't harrass me with tons of emails (hahaha, you know who you are!)... there's only so much i can do.. i want a holiday too, you know??

okay, i owe you (janice), and you (steph), and you (amy), and you (lucia), and you (customers) emails... i know... will get back to it as soon as i can cute peeps!! xoxoxo!!

i love the internet

because we get tons of sweet reviews online, there are wonderful people out there in the world wide web who like and appreciate what we do! yayy!

Fashionista Diaries
Written by Melvin Ryan Tan
A review article on the recently ended Singapore Fashion Week 06
(our review on page.3)
http://www.youth.sg/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1535&Itemid=29

Oh Great Avalanche!
(a cute customer of ours who bought herself a snotty bird bag)
http://ohgreatavalanche.blogspot.com/2006/11/snotty-bird.html

BussBuss
(our littlemogu pouch in red was featured in BussBuss's holiday gift guide!)
http://www.bussbuss.com/bussbuss_articles/articles/001060.shtml

Fashion Fotog
(a fashion blog by a girl named Alexis)
http://fashionfotog.blogspot.com/2006/11/bag-lady.html

grateful thanks to all of you!

shoppe alert! shoppe alert!

You have been warned! Lots of RE-STOCKS and NEW ITEMS will be trickling in from today! Wooppee! (^__^)

All re-stocks are of course LIMITED so don't miss it! So pretty please, no hate emails regarding a sold-out item you had wanted... We really appreciate your understanding that we are not some huge factory churning out gazillion wrist clutches everyday.. (x__x) L.O.V.E. has to be injected into all LOF creations, and injection takes time...really!

p.s. to those of you who have been taking time to drop us super sweet emails, thanks so much! I'm thankful beyond words for all your encouraging words and heartfelt comments. As we say it in Mandarin... jia you! jia you! jia you! (go! go! go!...??) hmmm.... xoxo!!

and more LOF lovers

i'm really thankful to all of you, this is fuel for me to kick start my crazy day, everyday...

"Ms. Spinach is a fashion writer, photoblogger and rampant overspender currently living in Asia. Fashion is Spinach dot com is her blog focusing on interesting design, quirky finds and personal style—just like its namesake book. Sort of."
fashion is spinach dot com
http://www.fashionisspinach.com/2006/11/holiday-gift-guide-little-odd-forest.html

"We are crawling the web for the best and most amazing products and inventions - so you don't have to. From funny to geeky stuff and extraordinary design to amazing technology - we just pick everything what's cool!"
cool picking
http://www.coolpicking.com/50226711/huggables_from_little_odd_forest.php

" A budget shopping blog as one girl attempts to find essential, cool and stylish things in"
afexion.com
http://www.afexion.com/20dollars/home_decor/little_odd_fore.php

snort me

hmmmm...

Your Personality Is Like Heroin

You're capable of the highest highs and the lowest lows. Addicted to feeling good, you'll do almost anything to avoid pain. People seek you out, even though you can be quite moody. They're hooked on you!

What Drug Is Your Personality Like?

why fuck with me?

a lesson learnt.

recently we had to deal with a horrible wholesale buyer / stockist, the only one i had to deal with thus far, out of the total of 35 stockists in my 2-year history of business, and hopefully the only one EVER in my entire life

she curtly demands for stock on the spot and purposefully asks me for a solution after saying that my long turnaround time is costing her her business and blah blah blah. so, the ever-accomodating and obliging stupid moi even removes stock from my web shoppe just to pacify her pushy requests, had to push back other wholesale orders in the long queue just to squeeze in her order, and even offered her free partial earlier shipment for the first batch of ready-now stocks. the b.i.t.c.h. seemed happy. whatever.

because just ONE week after she paid for this particular order (she's a 3-time repeat buyer) she sends us this email

"Well, I have some unfortunate news. We have recently decided to close the store due to a new business direction we have decided to take. So, because of this we wont be taking any new merchandise, so I am going to have to refuse the order you already sent so you can get it back as soon as possible. When it comes I am going to refuse it and it should come straight back to you. IF you have any questions or concerns please let me know, also please let me know when you can refund my money for the purses."

wtf???????!

when i first dealt with her, i had yet to draft out our wholesale contract in detail, and thus had missed out on sending her a copy. shit. now this shit is falling on me. because when i replied -

"I'm so sorry to hear about this. We have a no-refund policy unless fault on our part. You confirmed your order on 21 Oct and made payment just less than a week ago. I'm sorry about this situation but am unable to do any refunds, so please do not return us the merchandise."

i got bit in my ass.

"I have copied and pasted the only thing you sent me about your policies....at no time did you mention a no refund policy. Also, the order was refused already before I got your email. I checked all of the emails and information you ever sent me, because I save all of my emails from vendors. At no time did you state your policy."

i'm really paying for business tuition fees while doing this. not the money, but the bad experience. and this was all i could say before caving in :(

"I guess I had missed out on sending you our wholesale policy when we first liased. My website has its policy stated clearly here - http://www.forestprints.com/ReturnPolicy.html. This has never happended to us before and it's really bad. It is most unfortunate that you have already rejected the package as we had to lose a couple of businesses and rush for your order, which you had initially so hurriedly and insistently requested for, and we had kindly obliged. It is really bizarre that you could change your mind in just a week about the orders you had rushed to place. Your refund will be processed only after the package has safely arrived here, minus the exact extra shipping and handling charges we have incurred on our side."

so for those of you in the same line of business or thinking of starting one yourself, please draft out allllll your contracts first and make sure the other party agrees to every detail before proceeding. if you've only done so now, make sure you send it to all your previous buyers as well, you will never know when they might want to screw you up too.

thanks for loving LOF

grateful thanks to these nice cute peeps for loving what we do here in the littleoddforest!

by Cuteable: a Mon-Fri dose of cute stuff for you and your home!~
http://cuteable.com/an-odd-little-forest/18

feature by Anissa Mook, Editor In Chief for indieshopping.com~
http://indieshopping.com/blog/?p=167

by the rather mad jac ~
http://jac.liquidblade.com/?p=462

back but will be gone again..

.. because it's the year-end busiest period and i'm running a race over here... got huge orders to complete, and you know, most buyers aren't usually the most cooperative bunch of people, they will order last minute and will want quick deliveries regardless of what i've repeatedly mentioned and even put down on paper black and white... uurrgghh..

the trade event this year wasn't as good as last year's, it was okay for me nevertheless, but yeah, no more local fashion trade events for me! the market here is still too young and inexperienced, and the event organisers really do not know how to do up a good successful fashion trade event. it wasn't done in a very fashionable fashion... it was pretty boring sad to say... not just visually boring, it was boring in almost every sense... in singapore, the only trade shows that sells are either the I.T. fair, food fair, john little/robinsons sale, or cheap stationary fair. sigh. tsk tsk. all thanks to our beloved unfashionable government :p bleurgh

for those of you who aren't my flickr pals, here are some pics to share with you!




















































i'm aiming for trade shows overseas next year, maybe the usa or australia or somewhere. i think it should be fun. holiday cum trade fair. hhmmm... if any of you know of some good ones in your own country, drop me an email! i'm open to sharing booth space as well >.<

anyhow, grateful thanks to all you sweet peeps who turned up all the way at the expo to say hihi! lana, pat, joel, adeline, mandy, casey.. and all my other regular customers who turned up to show support and some even with gifts!! uh! i'm really touched and happy ^.^

i apologise if i wasn't entertaining or attentive enough as i only had 3-4 hours of sleep everyday for the past week... brain processing speed was super slow... hugs and kisses to you all!

be prepared to be bombarded with lots of new goodies making their appearance in our web boutique!

p.s. biggest biggest hugest kudos to my beloved b who specially took 3 long days leave to help me out with this, even though he suddenly had a whole ton of shitty stuff to clear at work at the very last minute, and he too, had only 3-4 hours of sleep and still couldn't finish up his project at hand for work today... :( hugs