Little Orchard

www.littleorchard.co.nz

Little Orchard is the creation of Charlotte Franklin – an Auckland based designer, photographer and aromatherapist who’s been living and working in London since 1998. Last year she returned home bringing with her a young family and lots of interesting and wonderful ideas.

Little Orchard stocks Charlotte’s gorgeous range of greeting cards, photographic prints, organic skincare that she makes by hand from scratch, divine organic floral waters, baby-safe aromatherapy, plus bags, pencil cases and baby clothes and accessories – all designed and made by her. Do go and have a look.

How did the idea of Little Orchard come about?
The idea for the products came about in 2000 and I was working on a range called Lottie Lello (which will be launching soon) – that’s when the whole magical product idea came about – the skincare range with gem essences – and that was the beginning of it all.

I’ve been formulating ideas, studying aromatherapy in the UK, piecing it all together – and finally having it all come together this Spring. It’s another new beginning now having it built, and with stock. It’s quite a thrill in fact! But it really is another beginning. There’s a lot of work now to get the shop out there.

When did you set up Little Orchard online?
The third day of Spring this year – it was the 25th of September 2007.

What do you enjoy most about running Little Orchard?
The freedom to create anything I like and have an outlet for it – which is great for me because I like to do so many things – photography, sewing, making aromatherapy products. I love that it’s an online shop – I am quite passionate about online communication so to be able to combine all these things I love doing in one place is marvellous.

I really really love packing the orders. I have nice boxes, japanese tape, little gocco cards that go out with each order. I love that. So more orders please – I want to pack them!

Are you involved much in the Crafting community in Auckland / NZ ?
I am definitely involved a lot with local bloggers. I’ve made contact with the people from Toggle and I’m good friends with Kay from Salvage who knows everyone. I’ve just last week got in touch with the Craftwerk people to find out about being at the next Craftwerk. So I shall be getting involved on a different level now I’ve got my products sorted and something to actually sell.

Any little interesting stories you would like to share?
For me the fact I’ve just stripped out all the table code from the OsCommerce templates and made it all css is pretty exciting.

My certified organic Lavender supplier is currently growing 250 geranium plants which we’re going to distill into geranium floral water for the skincare line – that is super exciting – and will be happening sometime this summer or autumn. Made with beautiful New Zealand mountain spring water – it’s divine.

Thanks Charlotte!

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Ricotta. And grapefruit marmalade.

It’s been a poor year for our grapefruit tree. We’ve only had about ten fruit so far and I think only another six to go. But it wouldn’t be right if we didn’t make marmalade – so I did that yesterday. But not until I’d been out to the trusty Mitre 10 in Henderson and bought myself some nice jars.

I used the recipe from the Edmonds Cook book. I ran out of sugar though and was a couple of cups short but forged ahead regardless. So this morning I jumped out of bed early to check the marmalade. It was the perfect colour, but just like sweet grapefruit drink! Off to the dairy to buy more sugar. Back home I tipped all the marmalade back in the pot and corrected my sugar levels. This time, perfecto.

Always. Follow. The. Recipe. (At least until you know what you’re doing).

Last night I also made ricotta using Campbell’s recipe.

Ricotta

• 2 litres of milk
• Heat slowly to 93° in a thick bottomed pot, scraping the bottom as it heats up
• Remove from heat
• Add in the juice of one and a half lemons
• Stir only twice – as in 1 stir, 2 stirs – that’s it
• Leave 15 minutes
• Line a small sieve with cheesecloth and scoop the curds into a colander that you’ve also lined with cheesecloth
• Leave to drain for twenty minutes
• Fini

Gorgeous together on Vogel’s toast or a nice sourdough.

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