Busy, busy bunny bunny ...

Things are quite 'happening' at The Warren these days.  We all headed out to Winchester Handm@de on saturday last.  The Moveable Meadow was covered in a lovely blanket of snow (seasonally appropriate) and I can tell you that we didn't half shift some bunnies!  Everyone wanted one.  People wanted two.  Some people even came back for three!  Result = The Bunny Maker needs to get a shift on and make some more!

I have also been up to things.  Covering and sticking things. Without much know-how and planning I decided that the fabric stash had to be used for something and that most notebooks are way too dull .... so, I got out the PVA...

 .. and covered some of those notebooks.  I've started to help people with their websites and found that it is easier to have one notebook per website.  All those notebooks kinda need to stay together too so .. i did some sewing too.  I made them a nice mushroomy bag to live in.

I KNEW I bought all that fabric for a reason!  Now I am all organized - with all the website login, logon, admin, user, email, html stuffy stuff all laid out and easy to find.  I can kid myself that I am organized so easily.

That's it for the moment really.  Well, actually there is more stuff but I need to get some pictures off my phone (forgot the camera) and dig around for some other bits and pieces.  More bloggage soon ......

In which The Bunny Maker gets all tangled up again. Ho hum

If it's not the CE Testing getting me all confizzled and confuzzled it's blooming Trade Marking.  I'm ignoring the CE problem at the moment and have buried my head in the proverbial sand.  Trade Marking has been bothering me for ages.  But what does it all mean?  Sit down and I will tell you.  By the way, how long have you got?

This might be something that a Widget and Friends trade mark could look like ..

Oh headache.  It's all a headache.  Every single thing I try to do with all this handmade, selling thingy malarky, involves first teaching myself all about it.  Which means googling, reading, head-scratching and asking. Luckily I have a weakness for books and the staff in my local Waterstones greet me by name.  Sigh. 
Now - I could apply for my own Trade Mark myself.  I've done all the research I can, read all the books - and i'm still not 100% certain of what I am doing.  I 'get' doing the UK registration and doing it myself would cost me around £300, and that is just for protection in the UK.  Getting someone to do it for me will cost me around £600. When I have UK protection I can then apply for European and international protection

I THINK (and don't quote me on this) this can be done via something called the Madrid Protocol, which is an agreement that lots of countries signed to show that they agree on something. 
As far as I can make out it is done country by country - and if I tick them all I clock up £1000s.  So which ones do I choose?  I have no idea.  Anyway, I have had a quote for registration within the EU for about £1,400.  So, we are up to £2000 already.  SOB.

Why am I bothering?  No idea.  I will just hate myself forever if I walk in to Clinton's Cards and see their new Easter range of sock bunnies, all looking exactly like one of mine.
I already have design registration and that, combined with a trade mark, legally prevents anyone making and selling anything looking, resembling or eluding to one of my bunnies or my company. You know when they ask on Dragons' Den?  About protection?  This is what they mean.  Not that I would have any money whatsoever to fight a large company anyway BUT at least I couldn't kick myself for not having done as much as I could.

I may be going nowhere but it's MY design, MY idea and MY hard-work.  Grump.

Everything you need to confuse yourself is HERE >>>> www.ipo.gov.co.uk

NEWSFLASH UPDATE:  I've done another U-turn - scared at the last - decided to abandon the above idea and spend some money at Fabric Rehab instead (and buy a new pair of jeans).

Halloween at The Warren

So, what goes on here at Halloween?  All sorts of things.  I found myself in a rather strange, very appropriate and not at all contrived, position last night - on the very eve of Halloween itself ...

Is this some sadistic ritual?  Is The Bunny Maker not all that she seems?  What on earth is she doing?
Yup - sorry folks, its just a custom order for a Skelly Bun in progress.  Off to France no less!

And as for this lot, I've not idea who they are or what they are doing .....

A few Thock Thakes insisted on posing for the picture too, before they were shooed back to The Burrow workroom.   Just for the record - we did eat the kids.