the manufactory temporary closure

Dear customers

Thank you for your understanding during my brief period of illness. You may have been past recently and seen the 'sorry folks, the boss is ill' note that my husband kindly fixed to our front window.

Or, you may have been one of the few, who in my ill-attempted opening of the shop on Tuesday morning still purchased items despite my obvious illness! A special thank-you goes to those customers.

So, until I can speak again and not just grunt and point like an episode of 'Black Books', we will remain shut.

At this stage, I hope to re-open the shop this Friday and Saturday, from 10am. I cannot however guarantee that we will remain open until 5pm!

Tropfest Winner 2012

The winner of this year's Tropfest is the whimsical Lemonade Stand, directed by Melburnian Alethea Jones.

This is the 20th year for Tropfest, the world's largest short film festival, which started in Sydney and is now held internationally. Look out for the Tropfest Signature Item (TSI)in the film, which changes each year. The TSI for Tropfest 2012 is a light bulb.

Lemonade Stand is a 7 minute film about a family business, starring a grandpa, his grandson and their lemonade stand. A real beauty, even if it does include a tyrannous 'Council' worker...

http://www.youtube.com/embed/9JL82j-l6hM?rel=0

Warning: this film contains some coarse language

May there continue to be many more small Aussie businesses just like this one (...well maybe not EXACTLY like this one!).

Our Fobjects are in this Sunday's Age

For those of you in Melbourne, or with access to the Sunday Age, our own fobjects will be featured in this Sunday's 'M' magazine.

More than simply timepieces, fobs were for everyday use - from measuring voltage or amperes (voltmeters and ammeters), to counting steps (pedometers) or holding pennies! We are looking forward to opening Sunday's magazine and finding the article, just in time for Valentines Day...

See November 6th's post for our fobjects picture.

Vintage find alert and our upcoming newsletter

VINTAGE FIND ALERT

For those of you with a keen sense of style, the Planet lamp is an iconic Australian. These lamps were first designed in the 1960s and seem to occur in just about every retro shop. Although a little newer in era than our usual vintage finds (c1920-1950), we have a beauty in store. Retrofitted onto a metal base, this lamp is ready for you to plug in and admire! Sorry this item is now SOLD.

OUR NEW NEWSLETTER

We are starting a seasonal newsletter. When you're next in-store, sign up to have yours delivered directly to your mailbox, or your email inbox, whichever you prefer.

The Summer edition will feature:

- a discount voucher (for you and a friend)

- vintage finds

- new stockists

- our handmade products

So now you can hear about what we are stocking before anyone else!

3 Month's Young

It's hard to believe this week is our 3rd month anniversary. Hooray!

To help us celebrate, you are welcome to print out this discount voucher and come into the store. Using it is simple - just chose anything from our current stock this week (14-18 September 2011). Sorry, no lay-bys with the voucher.

10% Discount

Because we're 3 month’s young

the manufactory

810 High Street

Thornbury VIC 3071

(03) 9484 6001

To be used between 14-18 September 2011 only. Sorry, no lay-bys.

Customers

Customers are such fun.

When these two started playing with the steampunk wares and taking photos we didn't mind at all - as long as we got a photo to put on the blog.

Positive press

Not that we want to brag...

But WOW - we got good press in the online broadsheet.

(And the shop looks great in the photos too).

http://www.broadsheet.com.au/melbourne/arts-and-entertainment/article/manufactory-opens-thornbury

Meanwhile - our customers are loving the range of goods, we are getting in new old stuff and some old new stuff (just to balance things) and Cliff is busy making more ray guns to meet our many clients specific world domination needs.

The signage is up

And the opening date has been set - we will begin trading at 10.00am on Thursday 16th June.

Another full day for Tanya and I getting the shop ready, Today Mitch came over with the signs so we put them up, I like the lettering on the window - very classy.

Tanya was busy all day stocking shelves and pricing items, I got the ugly air conditioner pipes covered over with a big plastic pipe, and I made some shelves out of old timber and put them up.

Just got a couple of pieces of display furniture to find (old bookcases are not all that common) and a couple more lights to put up and we are set.

So we are now less than a week away from opening!

Close to opening now...

We are back from our sunny break and busy in the store getting it ready for the opening.

Good news was waiting for us when we got back, we now have our second hand dealers licence so we can trade. The plan is to have a 'soft open' on Friday 17th June and trade for three days, then have an official opening the following week.

The signage goes up tomorrow!