You’ll find yours tucked inside your Regatta programme at the event which takes place this weekend, July 31st and August 1st all day on Tankerton Slopes.

And as if a little bit of Spotted Bikini for free wasn’t good enough, we’ll also be at the two-day event in person with our jolly little red and white spotty stand – complete with mascot Pru the seagull. So please come and say coooeee!

All our card ranges will be on sale, including our Whitstable haikus, along with our postcards, Whitstable magnets and charming bone china Whitstable mugs which come with a free Teapigs English Breakfast Tea Tea Temple!

So do please come and say hello. Hell – you can even bring us a doughnut/cupcake/selection of fudge/homemade coffee and walnut cake…there are bargains to be had with our special Regatta reductions and you might want to order any of our images on a canvas for the special Regatta price of £25, normally £28.

See you there. And don’t forget the coffee cake…

Perfecto, oui, for purchasing and posting and making a little bit of love waft its way through the ether to someone you are wishing is here. Or sticking on the mantlepiece at home for general admiring or a bit of a Whitstable yearning session.

We say no more, except we hope you like them, pop into any of the shops that stock our trinkets in the delightful seaside town of Whitstable, purchase and post, post, post your postcard…

So here it is, our Oyster Festival postcard for 2010 – chutchy, no?

It’s be in all Whitstable shops that stock Spotted Bikini products (look out for our stickers in their windows) by the weekend in time for the festival itself

This year it will also be available as an A3 poster for you real die-hard Whitstabubble-lovers out there!

We’ll be selling the postcards ourselves at our stall at the Whitstable Regatta on Saturday, July 31st and Sunday, August 1st – so make sure you come and say hello! If you mention Twitter to us you’ll receive a free postcard. And if you mention free cake well, who knows *what* might happen – see you there and meanwhile, enjoy the oysters…

But first of all, hope you had a Happy Easter and didn’t eat as much chocolate as Pru the Seagull who had to flap like she’d never flapped before to get off the ground after what she’d eaten! Some have said it serves her right for waking us up with her early morning squawking these last few weeks, but we wouldn’t be so unkind…

Anyhoo – two new cards to show you! First up the Old Neptune pub. A marvellous Whitstable landmark and THE place to be all year round, but especially now that the weather is DIVINE! We’ve been practically living down at the beach hut this last week and my freckles have come out to play already. So enjoy the sunshine and next time you’re down the Neppy, give Sean a kiss from us…

And secondly, these adorable gulls posing proudly just outside the Whitstable Oyster Fishery Restaurant on that little blue and white boat you see there. You see, you spot it in Whitstable and then you can spot it on a Spotted Bikini card!

Don’t they look happy…well you would too if you were basking in the glow of a Whitstabubble sunset! Speaking of which, we’ve done a new sunset card, which will appear here soon…

Our cards are available in Whitstable Museum, Taking The Plunge, Wheelers, Mosaic and Marina. And also our cards, bone china mugs and magnets are available in Copperfields.

And the busy bee-ing isn’t over yet! We’re working on designs for our jolly lucky competiton winners, preparing to serve some rather perky postcards new for summer 2010, creating our image for Whitstable Oyster Festival 2010 and a little gift for everyone who attends this year’s Whitstable Regatta. How lovely – do pop back soon and if you’re not already, why don’t you follow us on Twitter.

Gee and I have found it unbelievably difficult to choose winners as everyone proposed such juicy ideas that we wanted to do ALL of them! But in the end we had a secret vote involving some Smarties and a biscuit tin (which we hear are the official items being used in this year’s General Election) and we both agreed on the following…

The winners of our Spotted Bikini Personalised Artwork are as follows:

Business category – Three Little Pigs Gift Shop, Worcestershire www.threelittlepigsgiftshop.co.uk

Well done Fiona!

Personal category – Anne Carvel – house moving cards for her imminent move to Whitstable.

Well done Anne and Mr B!

We had two runners-up in each category to whom we are offering a 50% discount on our personalised artwork. We won’t print their names here, unless they take us up on that, as they are under no obligation to accept and we wouldn’t want to embarress them by mentioning this publicly. Emails are on their way!

Thank you to everyone who entered – we were overwhelmed, especially as this was only our second competition. We didn’t expect so many people to enter but we were delighted that you did – so thank you very, very much indeed. There will be more competitions in the future, so please keep your eyes peeled!

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!

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!

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!

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!