Do you ever take the time to sit back and really appreciate what you love most in the world?

If you don't you should!

I did, then I made a happy list.... here it is, my list of things that make my head happy:

Hanging out with my dog/friends/boyfriend (now husband)
Shopping
Making stuff, be that painting furniture, making cards, moulding or just making a mess really!
Perusing things from years gone by.... furniture and trinkets in particular.

So that’s my list, I wrote it a back in 2015. It was a miserable Monday, I was on my commute home from work, the train was crowded, the gentleman next to me smelt of cabbage, my skin felt plastic from the lack of oxygen in the carriage and my feet were killing from wearing this season’s 'hot platform' trend!

So a few months later trying to stick to my list this is the story..........

I looked at that list for a while and it was very apparent that my day job didn’t really entail any of the points on the list. I worked a long day, usually up and out for 5.30am and then home for 9pm, which left very little time for any of my happy list after work. On pondering this for a while I felt disheartened, I had spent the last decade building my career up and being proud of succeeding but had this cost me succession in my personal life and my pursuit of happiness – it was certainly looking that way! I started thinking I needed to focus, focus on me.... so I started another list of things I wanted to achieve for me... not for work, for me... this was the list:

Pay my mortgage off
Get another dog
Start doing lunch with the girls
Dedicate more time to my family
Read more (Actually read a book somewhere other than a beach)
Develop my hobbies
Set aside some selfish me time
Go on a date with my Tom once a week (Tom's my boyfriend, he doesn’t know about this list, or any other list)

Eight points in I was doing the math and this list wasn’t going to work; with work I would already be about 30 hours over the number of hours in a week. I thought about applying KPI's to my personal life (Key Performance Indicators, you can't take the retailer out of this girl). Could I set targets on time spent with friends? Grade myself on my progress in a hobby? As I thought, I realised how ridiculous I had become so I did what any other overthinking woman would do.... made another list.... so my third list of the day was in full swing...

START DOING WHAT I LOVE

The list was short, but it said it all... the next step of course was wine and Oreo cookies! But after that I sought out one of my oldest friends, we had been at school together since we were four so I knew Jo's happy list was identical to mine – so she helped me develop the branding and then Ivy Joan was born!

Ivy-Joan is about being different; it’s a place to find products that you'll fall in love with, products with personality – be that fashion, homewares or gifts – the only criteria is that it’s an item you'll love!

At Ivy Joan we specialise in antique & vintage items, these objects are the things that transform a house into a home. We understand how hard it can be to find one off items so we do all the legwork – so you don't need to! With a varied background in upcycling, design and retail the combination makes sure you, the customer, gets something really special.... Finding gems is tricky and it makes far too many people go mainstream. Ivy-Joan can put a stop to that!

As well as superb products we also promise a real service experience. With a business named after our nannies, we are serious about old fashion retailing – just because there is a WWW. In front of our name doesn’t mean we can't keep those old fashioned values....

Join with us on the Ivy-Joan journey.... they'll be lots of fun and some serious stuff to buy on the way!

When we started out our journey was all about car boot sales and auctions but over time it has somewhat changed.  We now do all our buying in France, we go over three times a month to hunt down treasure.  As the business has developed so have we, we very much specialise in pots and paintings now which happen to be my favourite finds!  Tom still very much helps me with the business but he was upgraded to Husband half a decade ago and with that came our three employees of the future....... Huckleberry, Rosehip & Buzz.  My happy list remains the same but I never did get that extra dog, it turned into four chickens instead!