Christmas is only a few weeks away

Christmas shopping on nanookie

Practical jokes & Fancy dress

The warmest of welcome to nanookie's newest store Chameleon.

Jokes and Fancy dress accessories

Here's a taster of the jokes & fancy dress in their shop:

(Loads of items around £1 & next day delivery)



The Diet Plate and the inventor appeared on CNN TV headline news in 2002 having just won “female inventor of the year.” A study conducted by University of Calgary in Canada found that a diabetic was 3 times more likely to lose weight using The Diet Plate and Bowl, than under general GP care for the condition.

Female Diet Plate with Calorie Controlled Bowl & Booklet found on nanookie.co.uk
The World's first and original portion control plate. It is tangible portion control plate for women with less than 5-6 stones to lose. Made from beautiful handpainted fine earthenware, it is microwave and diswasher safe like all of our ranges.

A portion control solution that does all the calorie counting for you, therefore losing weight has never been easier, just cook what you love to eat! Serve food directly from the cooker, no weighing, no guessing, no mystery, no fuss - it's great!
Inlcuded is the Calorie Counted Breakfast Cereal Bowl, which gives the user a 200 calorie serving of any dry weight cereal, including 125ml of semi skimmed milk. The good news is it doubles up as a soup bowl, with so many recipes a rule of thumb is used. If the soup contains starchy carbohydrate and protein, then serve to the green band. If it is a free vegetable without added cream, then serve to the pale blue band. A crusty cob, or two pieces of bread is allowed to compliment.

. 

Please visit nanookie.co.uk

Businesses can sell their products commission free and harness the power of social networking all on nanookie

nanookie Sellers

nanookie allows sellers to harness the power of social networking so that you can reach a vibrant, passionate online community.
When you sign up to nanookie, you have the opportunity to:

• Promote your business with your own unique online store
• Personalise your own custom URL to increase traffic (e.g. www.nanookie.co.uk/yourstorename)
• Access nanookie Share and target relevant groups with products that may interest them
• Create your own blog, write articles, and update your seller profile to connect with your audience
• Interact with shoppers who are interested in your products

There are a range of store packages for you to choose from: nanookie’s free listing service also allows you to try selling your products with no obligation, whilst our various paid packages give you the chance to explore the huge possibilities that nanookie can open up for your business.

What is nanookie and how does the social shopping work?

Combining the personal nature of social networking with the possibilities of online shopping, nanookie allows users to Shop, Chat, and Share – all on one site! You can browse stores across dozens of categories, exploring exciting products and sellers whilst chatting with your friends and sharing your latest finds with other nanookie users.

To learn more about the benefits for shoppers, head over to the why join nanookie page. To find out what nanookie offers sellers, just visit the set-up store page!

nanookie Shoppers

Shop for your favourite products and discover new products recommended by other nanookie users

• Enjoy free access to a one-stop, secure shopping mall
• Buy from trusted sellers who have been rated by the nanookie community
• Benefit from our full search facility - browse by product, business, or category

Chat with old friends or find new friends who share your interests and hobbies

• Talk to nanookie users about the products and businesses on the site
• Ask questions of sellers and receive product-related advice
• Send emails and links to other users about possible purchases

Share shopping ideas and opinions with other shoppers

• Create a profile, upload photos, and write articles on your favourite topics
• Rate sellers and send product information to other users
• Send flash adverts and links to your friends, whether they use nanookie yet or not!

To find out more and create your own nanookie account, click here.

spring collection nanookie.co.uk

Nanookie has a vast selection of independent trusted stores. You can enjoy our unique shopping community experience. Shopping with a difference! Nanookie allows you to interact with the store owners, read their blogs and articles, so you can gain trust and confidence in them for an enjoyable shopping experience. Interact with the stores, as if they were on your local high street.

Weight loss ready for summer

British summer time is officially here and like many I’m looking towards warm, sunny days.  I’ve already dusted off my patio table and chairs and taken them out of the dark corner of my garden shed and put them in the usual place on my patio.  It wasn't too long before I started to imagine sitting on them with a nice cold glass of white wine as I relax in my garden in the warmth of the evening sun.

But this time of year means something else for me and many others (and largely why The Diet Plate would work for me).  As the days grow longer and warmer I get that holiday feeling and, like most people, I want my figure to look good when I’m on the beach.  The dark cold days of winter makes me reach for too much of my favourite foods and this has obvious unwelcome side effects on my waistline, which I seem to bother more about this time of year.

So what do I do? I search through my draws and cupboards for my gym membership card, which has had a sabbatical for at least six months, give it a wipe down, and get down the gym.  This is all well and good, but the trouble is, when I get there I see everyone else has had the same idea.  As I wait impatiently for a particular exercise machine to become available I realise that I am in the epicentre of a huge gymnasium surrounded by people in a state of what I call ‘panic training’, including myself.  There we all are in a mad rush and frenzy to remove the unwanted excess of our winter habits in time for our summer holidays.  I hear people telling others where they are planning on going on holiday and what their goals are for that perfect body before they go.  To be quite honest that’s the sort of thing that’s going through my mind at the same time.  The fact of the matter is that we are all in the same boat with the same objectives.  That is to lose weight, get fit and have that wonderful beach body in just a few months.   Every year I myself, and others I meet, seem to think this is totally achievable.  I see pictures in health magazines of perfectly toned bodies and work out plans that seemingly promise to give you such results in a matter of weeks.

In reality those people in the health magazines live their lives a lot different to me.  They constantly watch their diet (calories eaten) and exercise throughout the year.  They have earned what they want from their health and physique through many months and sometimes years using sensible training programs and attention to their everyday dietary intake. 

When I stood back and thought about it I soon realised that everything we do has a consequence, whether it be positive or negative.  For me, my winter months of eating too much had the undoubted consequence of weight gains and a flabby unwelcomed waistline.  So to me this is a negative consequence.  If this year I decide to watch my diet and give attention to amount of calories I should be eating and making sensible decisions on healthy foods and portion sizes, then surely there would be a different sort of consequence to my body.  The consequence will undoubtedly be a healthier body that looks and feels so much better.

When looking at it in this way it’s so much more clear to me that weight loss, and becoming healthier, is about lifestyle decisions and choices we make every day of our lives.  It’s about our everyday attitudes. 

Do you know what? I’m going to make that change this year.  I’m going to keep my diet healthy with attention to portion control through the winter months.  Then hopefully I won’t be one of those panic trainers trying my best to overdo things in the gym next spring, as a result of overindulgence during the winter.

For some, though, weight loss is more of a necessity than simply reaching beach body status.    

The World Health Organisation (WHO) states that since 1980 obesity has more than doubled worldwide.  1.5 billion adults, (age 20 and over) were overweight in the year 2008.  Even more shocking is that in 2010 almost 43 million children under five years old were overweight.  See how The Diet Plate can help children.

The good news is that according to the WHO, obesity is preventable.

I had heard about Perfect Portion Control Ltd some time ago and was truly amazed with what they had achieved.  Their products ‘The Diet Plates’ are outstanding, by how they have helped so many people lose weight sensibly and make lifestyle changes.  You can imagine how pleased I was when they wanted to join nanookie.

The Diet Plate brand

By Kay Illingworth

The Diet Plate® was created by Kay Illingworth.  Kay needed to lose weight for health reasons, to look and feel better and fit into her favourite dress! Traditional methods of counting calories or attending slimming clubs did not appeal to her and she thought she could do better, invent an easier option.

One night, Kay set about calibrating a plate and bowl that would give her between 1200 – 1500 calories a day. And, using it lost 6 stones in 7 months reducing her dress size from a size 26 to a 14!

After patenting this original idea and registering the trade mark, The Diet Plate was launched into the public domain and the rest as they say, is history.

The University of Calgary in Canada heard about Kay after she appeared on CNN headline news in 2002 having just  won “female inventor of the year.” Dr Sue Pedersen an Endocrinologist with the University conducted an independent clinical trial of the adult Diet Plate weight management system, for the control of Type 2 Diabetes with insulin based patients. The conclusion of the published study, in her words were “outstanding and groundbreaking” as it proved that, a diabetic was 3 times more likely to lose weight using The Diet Plate and Bowl,  than under general  GP care for the condition.

Testimonial s for general weight loss are even more impressive, Kay’s biggest losers so far, are James Dennis who lost 17st 7lbs in 2 years and Paula Simpson who lost 9st in 11 months.

The Diet Plate is available on Nanookie but the company also sells to some pharmacies, the Primary Care Trusts and it is used in many of the hospital weight management groups.

For more information please email me

Nanookie brings social networking and shopping together, making it the next generation of online shopping.

Nanookie brings social networking and shopping together, making it the next generation of online shopping. Whilst in recent times we’ve seen the coming together and partnering of independent shopping websites sites with independent social networking sites, what nanookie offers is a one-stop shopping website with its unique social networking system specifically designed and build (bespoke) together as one. Being designed and build in this way means that all of nanookies functionality and usability works together to give a unique online shopping experience.
Nanookie ‘Chat’ is where people from all walks of life come together to give and receive knowledge and recommendations.  For example, if a user has purchased an item recently from one of nanookies independent sellers, then they can give recommendations about the product (and the seller) to others as well as rate and comment on the item itself.  Nanookie is quite unique in that each user can set up a personal profile (and upload images) and tell others a little about themselves to help get to know each other.  Advice and recommendations can be sent via private, or public, messages and there’s a specific area to include all of the users hobbies and interests.
These, along with the users profiles, are visible to others and can become an interesting talking point between two or more people.  If someone sees your profile and has a particular interest in common with you they can request your friendship.  If you accept, you can chat at length and pass on stories, knowledge, advice etc, and importantly, recommendations of nanookie products and sellers.  If one of your nanookie friends has purchased and item related to your interests (for instance if you play golf and someone has bought a golf club) then this is a fantastic place to get recommendations from your friend before you buy one yourself.  Speak about it privately or have your opinions pasted onto your wall for all to see.  
As well as being a useful wealth of information nanookie allows you to make lifelong friendships.  Maybe you share a hobby with another user and would benefit from each others experience and knowledge! Or maybe you would just like to know the best nanookie stores to buy something for your hobby.
Take things one step further and Blog about your experiences with your very own nanookie blog space.  You can keep your nanookie friends updated regularly on your interests and experiences.  Your friends can view your blogs with just one click from their own profile, making it very easy for your blogs to be seen.  If you want to reach further then create regular articles about your interests and hobbies and capture interest in others.  Become someone to whom others regularly view.  Promote you as a person and have other users views and comments on your articles and blogs.
At the click of a button, share your profile, blogs and articles with your friends and followers on other well known social networking sites to further increase your popularity.  If you like another users blog, article, profile, or a nanookie shop or product, you can save it to your favourites list.  As many as you like!
Another great functionality of nanookie Chat is that shop owners themselves also have Chat profiles.  This means you can read their profiles on a more social level and get to know them (and trust them) as though they were your local high street shop.  When you view a shop owners profile you’ll see the words “shop owner” at the top of their profile, and if you would like to view their shop and see what they have for sale then simply click “view shop” from their profile.  If you become friends with a shop owner then you can receive updates on their latest and greatest items, which will give you a chance to be one of the first view and buy them.  
From a sellers point of view this is great!  If buyers are interested in requesting friendship with you then they are very interested in you and your products.  They can view your blogs and articles and see your images.  They will feel like they know a little more about you and your products and feel much more at ease purchasing from you.  
This really is a great way to show our wonderful ‘Chat’ users your great items and show them your sincerity and trustworthiness.  Above all, it’s extra free advertising space and a place where you can give and receive valuable information from ‘Chat’ users and other shop owners.
Arguably the very best way to gain trust is undoubtedly recommendation (word of mouth).  When people recommend your products you are far more likely sell them, which is why many sales professionals would tell you that in today’s Facebook and Twitter era, social networking has become a vital ingredient for successful selling.  This will only increase in the coming years and give you far more elbow room to buy and sell products, which is why we value our 'Chat' section so much. 
When you sign up as a buyer or seller you automatically receive a ‘Chat’ account! It really is well worth filling in your profile and using ‘Chat’ for all its worth.  In the long run it really will give you so much back in return.

www.nanookie.co.uk

A selection of the sofas and furniture on nanookie

A selection of the sofas and furniture on nanookie.co.uk For more sofas please have a look at our website: http://www.nanookie.co.uk/Shop/Categories/sofas/439.aspx

nanookie's unique Chat community

February so far and looking forward to the future

Hi everyone,

I hope you all are well! I wanted to write a blog that reflected my month so far.

February has already become a very busy month, with keeping up with my children and the business. My four year old seems to have a busier social life than me, with all of her parties, sports and friends houses after school.

The community on nanookie is really beginning to build now. We have got more and more shoppers signing on to nanookie and creating their own profiles. Our nanookie partners are blogging and writing articles. Here are two of this months blogs from their nanookie stores:

Welcome to the wonderful world of Nanookie - 09/02/2011 11:04 by Rachel Bloom

Nanookie could well be the cutest site for new business start-ups...once we get the word out

A&V Designs at the Courtaulds Gallery Shop, London- 03/02/2011 23:50 by Gaye Weekes

Have been extraordinarily busy since before Christmas fulfilling an order from the Courtauld Gallery Shop, Somerset House, The Strand, London WC2 who had spotted some bags and aprons they loved on my website and asked for more

I am so pleased with the progress so far and I do hope that the nanookie community with keep building, and I am always looking for shopping ideas.

I do love the weekends to relax with my family and enjoy the countryside. I find this is a great way to clear my mind and enjoy the time with my children. I have included some photo's of my favorite spots where I live.

Very best wishes

 Ann

Persistence paid off

Driving home from our local super market one day my husband and I were having a conversation about the possible pros and cons of starting up an internet business.  To cut a long story short, the subject soon moved on to an idea we both had for the last several years.  We wanted to create a shopping website with a built-in social networking system.  We thought that if users could network with each other and recommend products and sellers then this would give people so much more elbow room to make the best decisions on the items they bought and bring about a unique shopping experience rather than simply a process.

We knew many shopping sites already had capabilities allowing them to share with social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Digg etc, which is great, and so are these sites!  But we came to the conclusion that most people use this type of media mainly only to socialise, and don’t always a shopping at the front of their minds when using them.  

If we could create a site that allowed its buyers to sign up as social users, then these users would have signed up with buying nice things in mind.  This meant that when people logged-in to their accounts they would do so to socialise and communicate to others about buying and selling.  

At this point we believed we had something different and started to make a business plan and came up with the name ‘nanookie’.  

 Knowing we were in the middle of a recession, we wanted to make nanookie beneficial to small/medium businesses and help them find an excellent further revenue stream without costing them the earth.  We set about evolving nanookie to benefit sellers and buyers alike.   

After much thought, we came up with a business model that allowed small to medium businesses the opportunity to sell their products, whilst only charging them a subscription fee, and no commission charge on any sales!  We were also adamant that there was going to be a free subscription package that would allow users to upload and sell several products (as well as creating their own shop front) free.  We wanted to give sellers the opportunity to come and test nanookie for free.  After testing, we were sure they would be totally smitten.

At this point we had a great business plan and model, but absolutely no finances to take the project to the next stage.  We had come so far with the planning, and we had wanted this for so long.  So we just came to the decision that we were going to do it!  Of cause, we had no idea how we were going the raise the many many thousands of pounds to finance everything.  We only knew in our hearts that we were going to.  

 In the following few weeks we were turned down for a loan from our own high street bank, followed by the other five local banks.  I went online and applied to 13 different loan companies and was flat rejected by all of them.

We had to rethink.  One particular evening my husband and I were having a brainstorming session whilst having a cup of tea in front of the telly.  

As we thought on, the same thoughts circling round and round in my head, and I found it quite difficult to think outside of the box.  I’m pleased this was the case now, and that I wasn’t too far away from reality.  Because I looked up at the ceiling and thought “ the house”.  I remembered back when I read Duncan Bannatyne’s book (anyone can do it).  He mentions when he had to sell his car, house and his ice-cream van fleet in order to peruse his new venture of building and running care homes.  Rather than sell our home we wanted to try and convince a mortgage company to give us a remortgage large enough to finance the project.  

So off we set.  Yet again, however, we found the same problems.  Refusal after refusal, until one company in particular seemed quite interested.  Several weeks thereon of convincing them, we had the funds in our bank account.  It felt unbelievable.  It was all down to persistence.  All that needed to be done next was to sell the car to add to the funds.  This went a lot smoother, and we wasted no time in hiring a web designer and marketing specialists to get things moving.  We’d found the web design company on the internet, who looked very good indeed.  We contacted them and they sounded great.  They asked for half of the total web design cost up front in order to start the project.  We duly paid them and the project began.  Several weeks later we found some absolutely terrible complaints and reviews about the designers on the internet, which quite frankly alarmed us to say the least.  

Apparently the company was using designs made from templates and sourcing their work out to India even though they said they were UK based designers.  It wasn’t a problem that they sourced out to India.  I think that’s great that there are jobs created there.  The main problem was that they weren’t up front about this and if they were using templates then nanookie wouldn’t ever be the site it needed to be.  It needed bespoke design work.  That’s what we paid lots of money for.  Another thing that alarmed us was that as soon as we approached them with the design proposal they registered our domain names in their name the very day we handed over the money.  When we asked them about this they said they would sign them over to us at the end of the development.  

A project of this size needed to have some face to face meetings to get the best out of the work and get some important points across. As much as anything else, we wanted to meet the people who were making our special new site.  But every time we tried to arrange a meeting they said “we could meet but not at our offices, there isn’t enough room.  We will rent a meeting room nearby”.  This obviously was the icing on the cake and we soon realised that if we wanted a website with the sophistication we dreamed of then we could go no further with these designers.  The marketing and PR specialists we had hired agreed and backed our decision.  Unfortunately, in doing this we lost all of the many thousands handed over to them, and despite legal advice there wasn’t anything we could do.   We also had to change the company name because web designers owned the domain names.  We were basically at rock bottom again.  We were knocked down, but we had to put it down to experience and get back up.  The only thing we could do is try again.  After all it worked the first time.  Giving up was no option.  If anything we were twice as determined as before.

We approached the mortgage lenders again and after a couple of weeks of contact and agreements we had managed to add to our funds.  Brilliant!  Believe me no more mistakes was the order of the day, and that is to say the least!

Our marketers soon go us in contact with another web designer, who this time came recommended.  We again wasted no time in getting things moving and paid for the web design work and marketing in increments, after registering the company’s domain names in our own name.

One year later and many of nights with very little sleep, we had launched our new dream.  Nanookie.co.uk was the world’s first Social Shopping Site where users can Shop or beautiful products, Chat to other uses with the same interests and Share products and shopping tips.  With the site now live and the fully integrated payment system in place, we were now ready to mass market nanookie.

Unfortunately one week later disaster struck again when there was unforeseen issues with the payment provider, and the system was disabled.   This meant that all the time and thousands of pounds integrating this specific system had been wasted. So at this point no users could buy or sell items on the site.  But the way we saw it was that it was good that this happened in the very early days before a lot of transactions were going on throughout the site.

The only thing we could do is get right back onto it and get a new system implemented as quick and efficiently as possible so as not to inconvenience nanookie users.

At last after several months and many more begged and borrowed thousands of pounds later, we are so pleased to say we have a new extremely reliable payment system in place and are thrilled to say we are live and operating as a Social Shopping Site.

We have so many businesses and consumers already on board our unique friendly shopping community welcome so many more each day.  

If anything all that tried to stop us only strengthened us and made us want nanookie more than ever before.

It’s a dream come true, and it has all been down to determination and refusing to let resistance overcome our persistence.    

            

www.nanookie.co.uk

My journey to managing my time

Hello and welcome to my first blog,

Please let me first of all induce myself, my name is Ann and I live in Staffordshire (UK). I have a wonderful family, a husband and two young children. I am like most with a family, if I am not running around after my children, I am working. I do feel very lucky that I can be a little flexible with my children and I do most of the time get to work round them. I have learnt from running my own business and trying give my children what they need, that I have to use time management very effectively. I have tried many things to try get everything done in the day and I have got to say not all have been effective. I have felt at times very frustrated that I needed to do things and really should have done, but time has some how disappeared. I felt a bit like a headless chicken, running around and not getting anywhere fast. So with a lot of trial and error. My latest and got say working well at the moment is reminders and lists. It does sounds a little crazy and my husband has made quite a few comments about them (as they do go off quite often), but I remember to get jobs done. This all began by writing list of all the jobs I had to do that day and then creating time slots for each job. I have now developed on this and put hourly reminders on my phone for the daily jobs and therefore beeps at me when I should be completing different tasks. I do get a lot of work done in the evenings and before I go to bed I write a list tasks/ jobs for the next day and time each for task. I am siting hear and it does sound very controlled (and very crazy), but I feel that I am moving forward everyday with getting thing done and most importantly sorted.

I would love to hear other peoples ways that they manage their time or any tips/ ideas anybody may have. 

Very best wishes
Ann
www.nanookie.co.uk
Follow nanookie on Facebook