Happiness walks on busy feet.

-Kitte Turmell

Indeed. Since February, Sunflower had been so busy with events, updates and bazaars that we didn't had time to contemplate about being busy. Luckily we did our proper planning hence things didn't go out of hand! However, it was a very happy, satisfying and rewarding month for all of us.

For starters, we went to 4 bazaars last month! Way beyond our initial target of at least 1 bazaar/ month.

here we are at NUS, our first bazaar there, which is held over 8-12th march.
We were sharing booth with 2 of our tenants, AppleRain and Xia Letni.

I totally love our huge sunflower, ( although its such a pain to transport from our shop, which is in the farrer park, all the way to the west ! ) it never fails to brighten up our booth( and the area). Also, its become a bright and sunny( pun intended) " sign-post" for the crowd there. As we were there for 4 days, sometimes we will overhear students talking on the phone near our booth, " i'll meet you at the big sunflower ok... ? " .

Laughs, which is just brillant for us, as more crowd gather around our table.

Here are the 2 ladies hard at work...

AppleRain workshop is set up by a very talented local artist who aims to evoke our hidden dreams with her bright and cheery watercolor paintings. However, the missus is trained in jewellery design. Through this sharing of bazaar space with Xia Letni ( who handmakes a wide assortment of swarovski based and vintage inspired accessories) she is properly inspired to turn back to jewellery making.

Here's something you wont see everyday! order something and see it materialize before your eyes, that's the power and allure of customizations folks! :)

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here's a hint coming up, do look out for our huge spread in May's first issue of CHIC magazine, where you will see more of Apple rain works!

Next up, Sunflower collaborated with PUB to organize a flea market to be held at the newly opened, and widely raved lifestyle spot, Marina Barrage in conjunction with World's Water Day.
here's a banner showing us as one of the partners! A first time for Sunflower! With this experience, we will be able to move on to bigger and better things! Do stay in touch with us, we might even organize our own sunflower themed bazaar one day!

here's a picture of our booth! it was one of the biggest tables we have ever been given in all the bazaars we have ever went to, it even comes with the skirting ! We had to utilize the table properly to make use of all that space! In the end we came up with a novel way of propping up the racks and securing them with cable ties! totally novel as we could hang things both ways!

a wider range of eco-friendly products brought that day, as PUB requested for environmentally friendly items, to promote conservation of our naturaly resources such as water.

so we had solar chargers, and handmade rattan and jute pouches just to name a few.
One of our partner, Gina who joined us, Sunflower was the co-organizer in charge of collaborating with stall owners. FOC for all of sunflower's partners!

Gina specialises in hand painted pouches and shoes! Her talent has earned the admiration of many a passerbys!

Here 's a photo of Forever blooms! Their life like floral arrangements will never fail to entice a " so nice..." comment out of any customer, no matter how tight lipped!
They are also having a new collection in Sunflower specially for the fast approaching Mother's day!
here's a picture of one of my very favourite creations!

pretty ain't it! Act fast as there's only one piece for each design, so its extremely limited and exclusive!

Next we went to NUSSU-Arts bazaar on the 22nd and 23rd of March!
There were live performances this time around , hence the crowd was really thriving!

Our mini booth, this time around, we brought along our own in-house fahsion brand, the Sunfashion! Demand for it was really encouraging, and we sold out of a few designs! Were you there, if you were from NUS?

Do look out for us as we were be going to more educational institutions over the next few months.

a beautifully edited photo showing our products. This time around we brought along our famous 3D cards which were imported from germany ,and new pouches from one of our newest partner, Periwinkle Sue!

After a successful collaboration with Xia Letni and Apple rain, we decided to go to this bazaar with them again. and i must say, they have outdid themselves!

Their array of new offerings were mind boggling, from intricately beaded bracelets to whimiscal story-line necklaces.

Do check out their items in store, for both are having promotions for the up coming Mother's Day!

We also took part in the annual EARTH hour project on 27th March, 8.30pm-9.30pm. Though lights are very important in retail line, and to our sunny image, we gamely agreed to turn off the lights so as to drive the message across that all it takes is a little change on our part to be green.

On top of participating in the project, 10% of our profits from the sale of our very own Sun candles will be donated to EARTH hour!

We also managed to rope in a few of our partners to donate to EARTH hour as well ! The partner featured here is that of Hourstyle, a local based firm who specialize in customized clocks. Love photography? Bring down your favourite picture and have it printed on canvas! Just married! Immortalize your love for each other on the wall with a customized wall clock cum art piece!

Special promotions! do drop by to take a look!

So, where will you on 27th March ? Did you participate in the project as well? Feel free to comment to this post!

The shop in 90% darkness, with only our front display lights on.. Let the darkness fall!

Surprisingly, the crowd in the shop increased 3 fold compared to normal days! We're really glad we made an impact on our resolve to be a green ambassdor.

Just look at the crowd! hmmm, perhaps we should switch off the lights from now on? at least once a week, can save electricity bills as well! ( laughs!)


March is also the month in which we finally came up with our very own slogan and tagline!

Hence " Always different, Always sunny! " is immortalized as Sunflower's tagline. We will be using it in all of our media releases from now on.

- the amount of work behind was so tremendous its kind of unbelievable! Imagine waking up suddenly at 3 am because you had a sudden brainwave on the tagline, den feverishly writing them down before mooting it in our regular meetings the next day. well, at least that's what happened to me.

Simplicity is always the hardest to achieve! How do you summarize the sheer amount of hard work, passion, and our past, present and future endeavours into a mere oneliner! Through endless brainstorming, that's how!

Our creative director also came up with this lovely collage of past and present events and happenings. This serves as a reminder that we still have a long way to go ahead, with trepidation and excitement, we shall bravely forge ahead! Thank you to everyone who have always supported Sunflower!

As for our media releases, we were featured in a varsity newspaper! A two page feature in volume 5 of Good paper, which features everything good! To what we know, it is available in educational institutions and newstands and this volume has been fully distributed! Have you seen our feature? :)

A local parenting magazine also feature our bee swimsuit! It makes any baby look 3 times more adorable instantly! Perfect for that unofficial photo shoot you have been thinking of doing for Junior!

Now available in different sizes in our shop! Fits children up to 6 years old! It even comes with a complimentary bumble feeler cap! Totally kaiwaii! I can hear the mums squealing in excitement already, XD drop by today! limited pieces only! It comes in pink as well.

For little boys who want to more macho, we have an adorable frog themed wetsuit as well! comes with a zip down front for moms who want an easier time getting junior into the suit!

We are also featured in CHIC magazine march issue! Did you catch us?

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Do stay tuned to this blog! More exciting news, pictures and events coming up! We do not jest, read it to believe it! More coming up soon!

I also want to check, been thinking of a mailing list to inform you guys of updates whenever explosive new contents have been posted. Do comment to this post with you views!

Tata! Til the next post!

Always different Always sunny!

2010 with a bang

2010 started with a bang literally.

I still remembered that someone once told me that 2010 would be when the world ends. This goes to show how unpredictable everything is , ( as we're safely going into the 3rd month of the year, and nothing has happened to Singapore yet. I mean, you would know wouldn't you? as Singapore is in constant danger of getting swallowed by the seas surrounding her, should there be any upheaval of tectonic plates, aka Day After Tomorrow style.) because no one ever knows what will happen unless you try it.

Thus with that mindset firmly in place, we lept forward and tried new things for the new year of 2010.

After our successful debut at bazaars last December, we decided that Sunflower will go to at least one bazaar per month so that we can:

(1) create more exposure for our shop by giving out flyers and name-cards over there

(2) create more awareness to a different group of people

(3) be a mobile shop that travels to different parts of Singapore( usually the people who visits a mall are those who are living near it most of the time, so if people wont travel to a certain part of singapore, We will travel to them)

Hence we took part in the flea market at Clarke Quay on the 29th and 30th of January.



This time we were much more prepared. Amazing how experience can make someone seem so smart.

I remembered for the first bazaar, we started preparing 2 weeks in advance. Armed with to-do lists, research info from jaded bazaar-goers, and to-bring lists, we nervously packed and unpacked the things that feel had " potential" over in Clarke Quay.

Alas, nerves took over on the actual day itself. In spite of all the preparation, we actually forgot to bring lights and a whole lot of other misc hardware items that seem totally insignificant until we reached there.

So out came our improvisation skills and techniques, we had to " borrow" plugs and wires to attempt to light up our booth, ( no lights at night, how to sell things? )



And here we are, standing happily beside our booth.

Having learnt things the hard way the first time around, we were more careful, and with only 2 days of preparation, we managed to bring all that we need. Fhank also managed to obtain two Ikea lamps that lit up our table splendidly.

( Ikea has a brillant marketing strategy--make all your items so cheap, while knowing that all business owners who's starting up will need such items, so that everyone will get your products. Totally ingenious , I must say, for half the lamps used in the bazaars were from Ikea )

Close up of our table , doesn't the heart lights look gorgeous at night?



Here's a snapshot of Gina, one of our partners, with whom we are sharing tables with. She paints gorgeous shoes, with customization of names, lace, background and ribbons.

Not convinced of her talent? Here's a photo for you to check out. This is one of her best selling designs in the shop. The border looks so much like real lace, many customers fell in love with this at first sight.



While we were away in Clarke Quay, our retail shop is not forgotten. City Square Mall held a Haiti Haiti charity Concert to raise funds for the refugees in Haiti, and Sunflower is proud to say that we were one of the sponsors for the event.



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Also catch Boon Cheong in action on the dance floor as part of the salsa performance team during the event.

He is part of a local dance studio called Twoleftfeet.



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Not to be out-done, we were also having our biggest ever valentine day event outside our shop by our very famous partner, Lien, who's the founder of the Hugplush series.

here are more snapshots of what happened in the shop.

Lien hard at work. Her newest creations of matching handphone and iphone covers is literally flying off the shelf, both online and in store.

Next up, we went to our second bazaar of the month! Exceeding our orignial plan of at least one bazzar per month. It took place from 1-4th Feb, which lands just mere days away from our Clarke Quay bazaar.

Our poster on Facebook



It was a first for us to conduct a bazaar inside a school. This was also the longest bazaar that we have ever went to ( a record 4 days! )

And we came away from it happy and satisfied. After the bazaar our facebook fans increased from 700 to an astonishing 1229 as stated in the first post! Perhaps this means that we have made an impact on students on establishing ourselves, or perhaps it just means young people are more IT savvy?

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Throngs of excited students browsing through our items. The handmade pouches from MumluvDiy, GiveGifts and Hugplush proved to be the most popular, with many designs being snapped up in mere minutes after we displayed them out.

So mark your calendars everyone, for MumLuvDiy will be coming down this very weekend on the 28th of Feb to customize pouches and everyday items, just for you!

If you have not heard of them before, do check our their webpage through their banner below now!

A bird's eye view of our space. As we were located near to the canteen, we were ensured of a steady stream of crowd.However, one major pullback was that the area that the bazaar was held in was quite stuffy as its quite enclosed. It resembles a long tunnel with two openings for students to weave their way through to grab a bit in between classes. Hence, most of us were " suffocating " by mid-day, as throngs of sweaty students piled into the already congested area to look through the wares.

And after this experience,we realized that the old saying that " xin jin zhi ran liang" does not hold true. ( it means that if you calm your heart down you will feel cooler) Hot means hot, stuffy means stuffy, and true enough, by the second day, its the norm to see other vendors whipping out hand-held fans, and other devices in a bid to keep cool.

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The only vendor who did not do so, sells iced yoghurt. After all she had a whole fridge to herself, and business was booming for her due to the stuffy conditions. ( laughs)



For the NTU bazaar, we tried the response of different items by alternating the displays everyday. If any tenants are interested to share our future bazaar space , do contact BoonCheong for more information.



Our colorful displays of handmade goodies! Guaranteed to melt your heart! For the guys, our revolving stand of top quality 3-D cards from Germany will bound to catch your attention.Also, Encanto ( Everlasting real flowers that have been frozen in Japan,and which reacts to humidity) was doing a roaring trade as both guys and girls bought them for their significant others as Valentine day is just around the corner. ( We even had requests to buy our huge sunflower! )

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One of our partners also took a video of us in action on the first day. Do check out the video on facebook below!



All in all, the NTU bazaar was a huge success in any sense. We also caught the attention of the NTU student council who invited us to join the NTU matrix card scheme. ( Listen up all you NTU matrix card holders! )

There will be a Discount for all card holders who flash their matrix cards in our shop!

Do drop by for more items, we will have new items every single week!

or else for more updates, please join our facebook at:

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Next up, we are proud to announce that we are the sponsor for 93.3 FM's 20th Anniversary celebrations and live recording party in City Square Mall!

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Sunflower is getting star- struck again! Just that this time around, we have upgraded to international stars!

Renowned mandopop band F.I.R will be having their exclusive autograph session right downstairs in City Square mall!

Do come and soak up the fun! Dun forget to pop by Sunflower for a visit, we have just updated with new items galore!

Also, announcing, we are going to have a media feature in CHIC magazine!

Do look out for us in the first March Issue!

We will be having a mystery gift for all those who flash the page featuring our shop! See you soon!

MarchA

Tis 's all for now, but dun forget to mark this space!

Exciting news will be coming really really soon, with juicy pictures of our 3 bazaars taking centre stage!

You know you dun wanna miss it!

The start of something new

Hi everyone!

Sunflower wishes you a happy and prosperous lunar new year!

Its a brand new year , and there is always a flurry of activity and hope associated with that special date.

Technically its now the ninth day of the Lunar Chinese new year and everyone everywhere is settling back into their comfortable work-life pace again. Sighs, no more angbao's and long weekends.

However there is still much to look forward to, here's a hint from me , Sunflower will be embarking on something really new and its a period of excitement for all of us.

And since this is the virgin post of Sunflower's spanking new blog, here's a summary of what Sunflower's been through in the year of 2009!

Sunflower is started by a pair of brothers, Boon Kiat( Fhank) and Boon Cheong, ( quite similar to Charles and Keith eh) who brought their complementary strengths into this business. Usually opening a business requires a lot of unnecessary red tapes and boring procedures, but after setting their minds on it, Sunflower was opened after a mere 2 months of preparation (quite a mean feat!)

when everything was still bare and empty..

the "seeding" process, the shelves and structure of the shop emerging.

just a fun fact: Do you know that all of our construction materials are eco-friendly? Bet you didn't know that!

tadah! the " garden" is completed, now for the " flowers" and the items to adorn those empty shelves.

Official opening on the 2nd of october, we welcomed our first few tenants. Doesn't it look cosy with the yellow lightings, we are now ready for business!

A selection of our products, many of which are handmade, unique and eco-friendly.

And the giantic sunflower, which a lot of people use to recognize us. There are 4 of our giant sunflowers placed all around City Square mall, do you know where all of them are? Look our for it yea?

We also bring this sunny flower to many of our bazaars, which you'll know more about in a while .

"everyone has a sunflower day" promotion during our opening week( left)

a collage of the sunflower identity(right), there's a saying here , we just want others to know that we own the shop and not the items, the products are all from individuals who have gathered together to join the sunflower family under our banner of the H.U.E.S concept, which stands for handmade, unique, eco-friendly and Socially conscious .

Hence, its like we're a collection of special and handmade items under one roof. All the more easier for eveyone to browse with everything located in one place

in our second month, we're star-struck! see if you can recognize any of the Mediacorp stars! Besides occasional star gazing,this is the period in which we recieved the most media attention and coverage.

we were featured on CHIC magazine, and also appeared on the front cover of I -weekly 's supplement, with Evelyn , no less!

Pictures speak better for themselves, so here's some snapshots of those glossy covers!

for those who's not friends with the Chinese language, its an article on eco-friendly and green items within City Square mall which is Singapore's first eco-mall.

And Sunflower is proud to say that we have a wide variety of green items, from the organic bedsheets to recycled aluminium bottles down to bikes. Bikes? you might ask, yes, even bikes, and a retro styled, back pedal brake model to boot.

p.s, its the same one that evelyn is sitting pretty on.

This concludes her brief but exciting debut in Sunflower, She's truly real in person and is fun, friendly, interesting and really tall.( or it might partly be because of her 4.5 inch heels--she's towering over Fhank in this picture here)

and we've all joined her fan page on facebook XD

Next up, we were featured on Housewives Pte ltd, a prime-time 8pm variety show which features housewives who are also involved with home businesses. One of our partners , Lien,who is the creator of the handmade brand " Hugplush" , is the focus of the episode. And just like that, she became famous overnight, with the demand for her shooting up so much that she is constantly busy.

here's a link to the media feature on mediacorp:

Sunflower on housewife pte ltd

The show was hosted by experienced Taiwanese born host, Quan Yi Feng. It was an absolute thrill to see her in person, and her professionalism can be said to be stunning.

and of course the compulsory photo with the host:

Most of Lien's Huplush series have been sold out ever since, and even now after she have just stocked up, most of her items have been snapped up by adoring fans of her brand. But fret not, she has specially introduced a UNIQUE series EXCLUSIVE to sunflower.

hence Introducing her baa baa sheep series!

there are limited pieces left as it was launched before valentine's day. ( many were gone during the last few days before valentine's day, so many a lucky girls out there now owns part of the limited edition baa baa series! )

come get us before we're all gone! XD

we were also featured in CHIC magazine in their December issue , did anyone see it?

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Speaking of December, it was another fun packed, exciting month for us all, as CHRISTMAS IS COMING!

And what better way to celebrate it than with freebies? ( who doesn't love freebies in Singapore?)

For Christmas, we came up with new media posters and flyers that entitled the holder to discounts, as the date draws closer to Christmas Day, we gave out free Sun Candles . ( LED eco-friendly candles that flickers like real flame)

Our new media posters festooned all around our retail shop's wall

Promotions galore for the month of December, in collaboration with Royals cafe and with City Square Mall.

look at the popularity of the freebies, the queues were snaking all the way to the lift! Funny how orderly Singaporean can be? as long as there's freebies, queues will form. We even had to break up the time in which we gave out the candles as the queues were getting a little too long.

here's a snapshot of what's being given out.

pretty isn't it? The ones that were given out were that of the on/off switch version, whereas we are currently selling another version of the same LED candles ,just that it activates by sensors and will turn on and off just by a light touch.

its going for 3 for $9.90, and comes in 6 colors!

The freebies team, though tired, but their bright cheery smiles still captured the hearts of many passerbys.

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Coming up will be more pictures of our roving santa and santarinas with our giant sunflower. They have been tasked with the serious mission of brightening up shopper's Christmas. so here's to a sunny sunny christmas!

giving out the sunflower flyers with complimentary candy and discount vouchers

A happy team at the end of the day

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December was also a first for us as we started going go bazaars to gain more experience and to create more exposure for our shop. Some of you might have seen our giant sunflower in different parts of Singapore, if you do see us , do come and say hello!

Believe me, it'll totally make our day!

First we went to Bazaar En Route's Clarke Quay bazzar on 11th and 12th December. It was really hot at first as we were situated right under the canopy, however we changed our mind when night hits. The cool night breeze coupled with the laidback relaxed air all around as expatriates and locals looking to rewind mingled all around.

It was a really delightful experience and we were all sad when its time to pack up and go..

Our Giant Sunflower lights up our booth, Voodoo dolls are our specialty as well, and sales for them are always very encouraging at bazaars.

Our debut at Bazaars!

we also met our partner , Crystal Dollies, there. They make gorgeous vintage inspired accessories, and now they are currently having a promotion of 2 for $25, is that cheap or what? Own a lovingly handmade and unique necklace or earring for just $12.50!

p.s, We'll be going to bazaars at NUS, Marina Barrage and Clarke Quay very very soon! watch this space for the details! Be there to soak up the fun and happiness!

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Due to a sudden brainwave that Fhank had after attending the Clarke Quay bazaars, we started our very own mini event tables. Every weekend, we will invite any of our tenants and partners to make use of the table so that it feels like there is a " live" bazaar outside our shop. Til now, we are the only handmade concept store that organizes weekly mini events. As most of our items are all handmade, many of our partners have held live demonstrations and mini workshops at the table to the delight of many of the shoppers.

This is a snapshot of one of the events in which live flowers which are preserved forever and could react to humidity are being sold. The crowd just cant get enough of them!

The event tables are certified crowd pullers, if you had not come to our shop during any mini event, WHAT are you waiting for? we'll be having our next event on the 28th of Feb. Featuring MumLuvDiy, which is a handmade brand offering customized pouches, bags, passport covers and more in your favourite japanese fabrics. See you there!

Hard at work..

handmade= love + time, from the creator to you.

Bright smiles all around. Sunflower is glad to be able to bring the process of handmaking closer to everyone.

Recently, have heard someone commenting that even though that our items are handmade, its very good in quality. This remark saddens me a lot, since when have the word handmade be synonymous with inferior quality? I guess, if there were more exposure on how handmade items are created, this might increase more awareness about handmade items in Singapore. Overseas, handicraft fairs are available abundantly, whereas locally, handicraft is generally deemed not to be a viable livelihood. Hopefully this perspective will change over time with the appropriate exposure.

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Also, Sunflower have reached another milestone. OUR 500TH FACEBOOK FAN, which happened just after 2.5 months of operation, this is definitely something to be cheery about!

Congrats to Valerie! Thanks for supporting Sunflower, and thanks to all our fans who have joined us!

At present count, we have a strong 1,229 fan base. We could not have achieve what we have without all of your help. Thank you everyone~!

And as the year 2009 draws to a close, We were contented for just a moment , and look back at the journey we have made over the 3 months that we have been operating.

But all our success story could not happen without all of your support, so once again, with heartfelt gratefulness, we thank all of the people who have supported us from the very beginning when we were " just another shop " out there.

The next post will be a continuation of what Sunflower have gone through for the brand new year of 2010, and of what's coming up, so mark this space!

whatever happens, you know you heard it from me first!