Hobby Horse Toys
One of the pioneers in artisan blogging in Ireland have been Rebecca and Dan Hillman. They both run Irish Sally Gardens which is a fascinating view of a families attempt to live a sustainable lifestyle in rural Ireland. Dan Hillman is also a maker of sculpted wooden toys such as the ones you see above. Now when I first saw his blog, I was asking myself, is there really a demand for such toys nowadays and how is a blog about making wooden toys going to help them sell them. I didn't really think that actually, but I can just imagine a lot of people thinking this way.
Well it appears that they had so many orders in December for their pieces, that they had to close the order book. Dan even had to miss out on Christmas Fairs to keep up with the online demand. Now Rebecca goes on to point out in the next post that Dan doesn't want to turn the business into a production line and likes to keep it small and manageable. Nevertheless it goes to show what an effect a well written blog with some well chosen photographs can do for a craft business.
Although Dan also has a website, I'm pretty sure blogging had a part to play in his success.
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Hey thats a nice surprise to be greeted by Dans horses when I arrive here today!
I'd say that the blog has helped to catapult his website higher in the search engines, which may be why the internet orders are growing.
He has been approached by several high profile craft and toy shops in the US to stock his work, but he has been brave in declining so far as the very small cut for himself would make him a busy fool. However another prestigeous US handcrafted toy seller is so interested that they are currently consulting on a very reasonable deal. Will keep you posted via his blog!
www.hobbyhorsetoys.com
I have to also say about blogging that being a shy person its a very soft but effective way to put across ideas and information. However, one thing leads to another and yesterday I did my first ever live Radio show interview ... 25 minutes on the Joe Finnigan Show, Shannon side. I managed not to have a cardiac arrest! He asked all about the courses we run on pig and goat keeping, also the feltmaking course, I managed to plug Sallygardens blog and our new sustainable living forum at http://sallygardens.freeforums.org/index.php
... eh, plugged it like I just did there again! Thanks Paul.
Posted by: Rebecca (felting and living sustainably in rural Ireland) | January 12, 2008 at 08:29 AM