Hello there. How are you? Mmmm, I see. Yes, well, I have some news that will make you feel a little less, you know, like that. So here goes…

Spotted Bikini is launching a really rather special competition. You can win one of our bespoke artworks either for your business or for your own personal joy. So, really that’s two competitions! Generous, us? Yes, we like to think so. See these three images and read on…

So obviously, these are examples of some commissions we’ve undertaken since Spotted Bikini began in May 2009. The first is for a girly dress shop in our lovely Harbour Street – Marina, run by the lovely Sue. Sue gives these sweet postcards away with each purchase. The image at the bottom was for a gorgeous cafe in our High Street – Rendez-vous, which was recently taken over by Kate and Richard. They commissioned us to do their menus and postcards – the latter of which they gave to their customers after they re-opened following a rather chic refurbishment. And in the middle is a private commission we undertook. This was for Robert and Sara who moved to an extremely beautiful house here in Whitstable, saw our cards in the shops and loved them so much, they asked us to personalise some for them to send to their friends to tell them about their new address – which they had printed on the back.

So what will you win exactly and what do you need to do?

Businesses first: Email us at spottedbikini@yahoo.co.uk and tell us in about 100 words about your business, why it would benefit from our artwork and what you think you’d like to do with the image. If you win, we’ll create your image, email it to you and you can use it wherever you wish at your cost. You can put it on your website, your business cards, on badges, your pillowcase, on a massive canvas in your place of work or on your car/private jet/hot air balloon…

All we’ll ask in return is that wherever you print it, you include the phrase “Image created in Whitstable by www.spottedbikini.com” and mention it on your website/blog/Facebook/Twitter/company newsletter – wherever you can! (We are reasonable people and would discuss with you how big this needs to be…depending where you put it!)

We’ll also give you 50 postcards FREE of your image for you to distribute wherever you like. And of course, if you win, we’ll discuss your exact requirements with you. So if you have a shop, while you might like something similar to the facades above, if you hire vintage caravans, run outdoor painting classes or create bouquets for brides – you might want something different to that. And we can do that too! We’ll treat you exactly as if you were a paying customer and work with your ideas to create something perfect which you will love – including our unique handlettering, which will be crafted into a phrase just for you or can be as simple as your business name.

Want to win for personal use? Same rules apply. Email us in  about 100 words and tell us about you and why you’d  love one of our artworks with unique handlettering. Maybe you have a holiday cottage you’d like to promote, or you’ve retired and would like a lovely image of yourself pootling down to the seaside in your cheeky red convertible! Maybe you’d like a lovely image of you and your dog frolicking on the beach or your family sharing a special day in the beach hut. Or you’ve got the home/kitchen/garden/dressing table of your dreams and would like to put it on a canvas…the possibilities are endless and jolly exciting! You might even like to do it as a gift for someone special. Once again, we’d work with you to create something you will treasure forever and give you 50 free postcards of your image to send to friends and family.

As with the businesses, all we’ll ask in return is that wherever you print it, you include the phrase Image created in Whitstable by www.spottedbikini.com and mention it on your website/blog/Facebook/Twitter/company newsletter – wherever you can and if you don’t really used these things (being as you’re not a business) then we’ll relax in the knowledge that you love what we’ve made for you and that will be enough for us! (We are reasonable people and would discuss with you how big our website address needs to be…depending where you put it!)

Also, everyone who enters will automatically be put into a draw to win bespoke Spotted Bikini artwork with a whopping discount of 50% for personal artwork and 30% for businesses. Prices vary – depending on the image – but are usually between £200 and £400, so we’ll let you know what yours would cost if you’re a runner up. There is no obligation to go ahead of course and if you’d rather not, we’ll offer it to the next person out of the hat.

So start thinking and send us your emails – clearly marked Business or Personal entry! (You can enter both but please do so seperately)

The deadline is 5pm on Monday, March 1st and we’ll email the winners and announce who they are on our website and Twitter by 5pm on Monday, March 15th. We plan (barring catastrophe/illness/flooding of the Spotted Bikini beach hut/lack of tea) to have the finished product with you during May – or as soon before that as we can manage it. Our decision as to who wins is final and if we think of anything else we’ll add it here – so keep checking back – as we’ve not done such a big competition before and might have forgotten something major. By entering in this competition you agree to displaying our company name in the way stated above. The competition is only open to UK businesses and residents.

Good luck! Can’t wait to read all about you and create something gorgeous just for you!

…here in Whitstable town.

Yup, here are our next three Valentine cards. These will shortly be on sale in Marina, in Harbour St, run by the lovely Sue – a good friend to Spotted Bikini. We love these cards and hope you will too!

As this is all about love we are offering personalisation of our Valentine cards for FREE and FREE postage! Just email us at spottedbikini@yahoo.co.uk telling us which card you’d like, what message you’d like us to add and we’ll take it from there. Because love, is in the air…

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again – all Spotted Bikini artwork is available printed on canvas. Contact us for more details. And best of all…the handlettering can be personalised…now, wouldn’t that make a gorgeous gift!

…here in Whitstable.

Yup, we’ve recovered from Christmas (divine) and are now onto St Valentine’s Day. Mmmm….lurve!

So here are our scrumptious cards, which are on sale exclusively in Mosaic in Harbour Street. There are five in this range. Pru is featured of course, flirting again – but with a Valentine card as opposed to the mistletoe of a few weeks back. Then there’s a bucket (and spade) filled with delicate hearts and a tug sailing out of our dinky little harbour with a few special Spotted Bikini touches, naturelment. Finally, a couple flying a kite on Tankerton Slopes and the last one, a heart made from the prettiest and most delicate shells I have ever seen.

I think you’ll agree that as usual, Gee’s artwork is sublime! So do pop along to Mosaic because they look even more beautiful in the flesh.

But of course if you can’t get to Whitstable then please email us spottedbikini@yahoo.co.uk and tell us which card you would like and we will send it to you postage free. Because love is in the air…

More Valentine cards will be posted soon! And will appear in the Valentine window of Marina in Harbour St. Don’t forget, all of our artwork can be printed onto canvas and both the artwork and the handlettering can be personalised in anyway you choose. Delicious!

Sunday just gone (December, 6th, 2009) it was the Tankerton Christmas Market in jolly old Whitstabubble and Spotted Bikini had their first public outing – a stall of naughti-cal gorgeosities! Gee was unavailable, which was a shame as she didn’t get to hear everyone ooh and aah over her fab artwork. So I, Marnie, held the fort with my good chum Lisa and of course Pru the seagull – seen proudly posing here:

I, on the other hand, am not posing, in fact it’s fair to say that I have been largely papped unawares, but still – you get the idea! We were delighted with how the stall looked – quite jaunty in our opinion, we were also delighted with the weather, which was mild and sunny. But more than this we were delighted that our Christmas cards, non-seasonal cards and especially our Whitstable fine bone china mugs sold like the proverbial hotcakes! We even sold out of our Whitstable 2010 calendars so had to take orders, which we’ll be delivering this weekend.

If you’d like to buy our mugs, which would make a very special Christmas present, then do pop to Copperfields in Whitstable where they are being sold. Our calendars are also being sold there, as well as in Taking The Plunge and Wheelers Oyster Bar.

Here’s what it looks like:

Our Whitstabauble cards sold well too. These are tiny scenes of Whitstable in Christmas baubles in cards hand-finished with gold ribbon and handwritten by yours truly – we’ll upload some pics of these later today.

All in all, a very nice feeling to know that we’re making something that makes people smile. Not much point otherwise, is there!

Spotted Bikini are thrilled to announce the names of the six winners of our Teapigs competition. They are:

Stefanie Quinn from Whitefield, Manchester, Kathryn Moody from Brackley, Helen Tulett from Southsea and Sara Benkoula, Rachel Jones and Helen Jefffries, all from London. These six lucky ladies will receive their boxes of Spiced Winter Red Tea very soon! Thanks so much for entering everybody. We wish you could all have won! We’re planning more competitions so please keep following us on Twitter, reading our blog and watching this space!

If you’re still in competition-entering mode, then you have until November 19th to win two beautiful Whitstable mugs by Spotted Bikini All you need to do is hotfoot it along to the Teapigs website and answer this question: In which English coastal town do Spotted Bikini create their (cheeky) seaside images?

…are these totally scrumptious Whitstable mugs…

…now finished and posing proudly here on the balcony of the Spotted Bikini beach hut. Please excuse the paint splatterings, Gee got a bit over-excited. Anyhoo, you don’t want to know about paint splattering and excitable artistic temperaments, do you? Nooo! You want to know how you yourself can be supping tea, coffee, brandy or that new Baileys with Coffee from one of these delightful bone china mugs. Well, if you’re on Twitter, then sign up to follow @teapigs as they’ll shortly be running a competition to win a set or two. Visit www.teapigs.co.uk to find out more about them. And if you’re already a fan of teapigs, then why not enter our competition here to win a box of their Spiced Winter Red Tea. But if you’re not a Twitterette then email us with the code BLOG at spottedbikini@yahoo.co.uk and tell us how many mugs you’d like and we’ll do you a cheeky discount of £1.50 off per mug – taking the price from £8.50 to £7. Plus our first 50 customers will get free postage and packaging (unless you order 100, then we’ll have to have a chat about boundries). AND, AND, AND, just when you thought we couldn’t get any more generous – each mug comes with a FREE Teapigs Tea Temple. Mugs will be ready on November 19th. Christmas really has come early…

And not just any old prize but a box of super delish Teapigs Tea Temples (15 of the blighters) in Spiced Winter Red Tea flavour no less – perfect for supping in the current rather nippy temperatures and gorgeous for Christmas!

The lovely people at Teapigs have teamed up with us Spotted Bikinisters to win this magical tea which they say (and we believe them) has captured the best bits of winter. “Mulled wine and mistletoe. Winter coats and rosy cheeks. Log fires, happy cats and old movies on the telly. Tea and warming spices. A blend of orange peel, cinnamon and cloves on a red tea base, perfect on a crisp frosty day or with brandy at bedtime…”

Crumbs, sounds good and from where we’re sitting, this tea smells pretty darn good too.

So what do you have to do? Simply answer this question: “How many types of black tea do Teapigs sell?” and send your answer with your full name and address to spottedbikini@yahoo.co.uk by 5pm on Friday November 13th. We recommend you visit www.teapigs.co.uk because you might find the answer there (helpful aren’t we?!), but also because soon you can then enter their competition to win a set of our all new, all singing and all dancing Whitstable mugs in which to drink your flingin’ flangin’ tea! Have a nose here…

The six lucky winners will be chosen from bits of paper chucked into my red beret with blue anchor (which I bought from this lady Zara Carpenter known as Chatham Girl) in the week beginning Monday, November 16th and will receive their tea shortly after that. Thanks Teapigs, thank you for reading and thanks for entering!

…now that we have your attention, please visit HERE to view our smashing Whitstable Christmas cards. Email us at spottedbikini@yahoo.co.uk to order yours – POSTAGE FREE throughout November! Oooh, we’re good to you Ducky!

Well, two samples anyway. So we’ve put the kettle on and filled the teapot here in the mildly soggy beach hut and are regarding our babies with lumps in our throats and tears of pride in our eyes! General consensus…just a few adjustments to make – Gee and I are both lunaticly (if that’s a word) perfectionist and then we’ll print ‘em and they’ll be on sale – each one with a free Teapig Tea Temple. Does life get any better? Probably not, especially as it’s raining too hard to leave the hut so we’ll have to sit here all day, drinking tea and eating Paul’s Patisserie pistachio macaroons. Do let us know what you think of the mugs – and email us at spottedbikini@yahoo.co.uk to place an order or two…well, you’d need both wouldn’t you? (And they’d make lovely Christmas presents)

And as well as the free Teapigs we’re offering free postage and packaging to our first 50 customers – so what are you waiting for?

Thanks Paul! www.paul-uk.com

P.S. That jaunty spotty scarf that the mugs are artfully nestling on I, Marnie, bought at a jumble sale in Whitstable last Saturday – what a joy!

…mug! Yep, that’s right, Spotted Bikini has been speaking with the lovely people at www.teapigs.co.uk who make the most marvellous teas! And in a limited run, we’re going to be giving away their tea with each of our new gorgeous Whitstable mugs.

We’ll let you know as soon as the mugs are available and whether you buy them here on our website or at Copperfields in Whitstable, you’ll receive a sumptuous Teapigs Tea Temple! What a TeapigSpottedBikinitastic treat!