The internet is a crazy place, who would have thought that somebody would have taken the time to set up a forum dedicated to hammocks. No great surprise I suppose when you think of all the other mad forums that people set up.

If you love hammocks and want to contribute to this forum then you need to go to

http://www.experienceproject.com/stories/Love-Hammocks/134260

Just reading some of the comments that people make about hammocks in quite interesting in itself.One person talks about going to a park with their hammock and finding 2 trees to hang their hammock between so they can read their book. The same person also comments that he doesnt have any trees at home to hang them from hence needing to go to the park.

People do get rather nostalgic about hammocks as others chatted about roasting marshmallows over an open fire and another mentioned that she could remember as a child laying in her Dad’s jungle hammock reading for hours.

When most people think of hammocks then think of falling out of them as well as the hard work of attaching them between 2 points. If you want to see a toatlly new rvolutionary hammock which is proving a massive success then you need to check out the fatboy hammocks in our store. You won’t have seen anything like them before.

Whoever said furniture has to be dull and uninspiring. These two girls are having a great old time pushing each other off the pouffe in their sitting room.

The one thing I noticed in the video is that the footstool or pouffe in question doesn’t seem to have a lot of give in it. What I mean by this is when you are deciding to buy a pouffe you really want one which doubles up in comfort so you can sit on it as well as resting your legs on it so you can put your feet on it.
If the footstool you buy is packed really hard then it won’t be long before you remove your feet from it as it will be too uncomfortable.

Here is the link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FXazksa7Fg

Most of the footstoools on the market are primarily for your feet which is all well and good but it makes more sense if you are buying a pouffe to ensure that you can use it for a variety of functions. We have many customers that will but a pouffe just so kids can sit on it.

They then realise when they stick their feet up on it that it is equally as comfortable. Check out our range of footstools on our site.

Sometimes I really dont believe what I am reading on the internet. You tend to take some things with a pinch fo salt but not this time. So what am I talking about….

There is a book written by Leigh Anne Jasheway for dogs called “Bedtime Stories For Dogs”. Now I dont know if this would be hugely popular in Ireland but it seems to have been a runaway success in the U.S.

Seriously can you imagine your dog lying in a dog bed and reading him “The Three Little Pugs,”, “Snow White and the Seven Chihuahuas,” or “Goldilocks and the Three Cats,”. The mind just continues to boggle.

Maybe I shouldn’t be so cynical as it has 4 5 star ratings and 1 4 star rating. Nobody has given it a negative review at all.

Here is what 4 poeple had to say about it

1. I was stunned at her humor and she is obviously very talented as she adapted fairy tales and nursery rhymes to a more “doggie angle.” .

2. I stuck one in the post to my sister who is a high flier in Colorado . She was breaking her sides laughing so much that she proceeded to call our mother long-distance. She then went ahead and read our Mum the story on the phone.

3. This book came to me by accident and I hadnt planned on reading all of it. However, reading one fairy tale progressed to another and then another. Each story gave me a huge laugh.

4. With Christmas fast approaching this would be a fantastic gift for anyone who is mad about their do. It is a supergift for anyone who is down in the dumps and will put a smile back on your face even if you dont own a dog.

 So if you are planning on buying your dog a present buy him “Bedtime Stories For Dogs” and read it to him whilst he is is just about to crash out in his dog bed.

It is all very well selling  a great product which is excatly what Fatboy Bean Bags is. However without customers who are willing to recommend us to friends of theirs business would be a lot harder. What we try and do from the very outset is to ask people who order from us to refer friends onto our website.

So why would people bother to do this unless there was something in it for them. We realise this and because of this we offer people cash back for any people who are referred. We have mechanisms in place to ensure that people get a commission when someone is referred. Now obviously, this will only ever work if the person who receives their fatboy bean bag is over the moon with their purchase. We also have a special discount for the person who was referred as well.

One such client who was thrilled to bits was William Ryan. Like I said in a previous post in the run up to Christmas some people have received their fatboys but havent opened them yet. The good thing though is that they are still only too happy to say nice things about the service.

Dear Geoff,

I would like to help you but as it is a Christmas present, the box has not been opened yet.  I can say, however, that ordering the Fatboy Beanbag was simple and straight forward and the website was very user friendly.  We were amazed that we ordered it on a Wednesday night and received at our door on Friday morning.  The whole service was very professional and prompt.  I would have no hesitation in recommending your services to my friends and family; which has already been done. 

If you e-mail me again at Christmas I would be delighted to send our opinion on the Fatboy Beanbag and will include a picture.

Thanks for all your assistance,

William Ryan, Athlone, Co Westmeath

Thanks William for the testimonial and thanks even more for recommendig Fatboy Bean Bags to your friends

I think I have mentioned this before to anyone who reads this blog but one of the critical things we really value is hearing back from our customers. About 4 weeks after a person buys a product from us we send out an email asking for their feedabck on the product they bought. The reason for this is  two fold.

We wait 4 weeks to ensure that the oerson who ordered the bean bags has received delivery of the product and has had time to use it. This obviously gets a little bit trickier with Christmas fast approaching . Many people order more than 4 weeks in advance so they could potentially get an email before the product has been opened especially if it is a Christmas gift.

We just got this email in over the weekend from a lady who was thrilled with here bean bag or should I say her kids were thrilled with the bean bag

This is what Joanna Wall had to say

Hi Geoff,

Thank you so much for the speedy delivery of the kids pouffe. Hannah, my daughter loves it.  This is our second fat boy… they are great.. a total winner with the kids!!

Thanks again

Joanna Wall, Dundrum, Dublin

We are really appreciate of Joanna taking the time to explain to us her Fatboy experience. It means a lot to us.

I read about this a while ago but never really believed it. If you plan on go travelling with you pet there are 7 pet
friendly hotels in Florida which you can go and visit

There is a video here which talks about all the locations

http://www.articlesbase.com/videos/5min/80431986

If you prefer to read then here is my synopsis.

All of these hotels have plush dog beds and extra special dog walking services. People in the States treat their pets like children and  spoil them so here is my list if this type of holiday floats your boat.

Newport Dunes Water Resort – It has a nice dog run, lots of grassy areas and compliemtary mutt mitts throughout the park.

Lake Arrowhead Resort and Spa – They have a special pet menu and dog bakery and lots of nice walking areas

Cliffs Resort -  Will welcome your pooch with a souvenir dog tag and really plush dog beds . For a price they will even take your dog for a walk along the coast with stunning views of the sea.

Catalina Express -  This is 22 miles off the cost and you will need to stay in the Edgewater Beach resort.

Napa Valley – You can stay in the Vintage inn which has a lot of dog friendly restaurants.

A few people have emailed in wondering how to make a pouffe which others call footstools and yet others call footrests.

Step 1 The first thing you want to do is take your pouffe out of the box to get rid of any of the residual air. Also get rid of the wrinkles and folds as well in order to ensure that the pouffe has no crease left in it.

Step 2 You need to work out what the filling is that you are going to put in the pouffe. Ideas can range from old grocery bags to polystyrene filler to my own favourite which is regular beans which you can get from any bean bag stor.

Step 3. A very critical step when stuffing your pouffe is to make sure that the zip and seams are in working condition. What I mean by this is that you dont want to go to all the effort of stuffinga  pouffe only to find out and hour later that the beans have spilt out all over the floor. the time you will have to spend in cleaning this up just isnt worth it so it is best to get it right 1st time around.

Step 4. Work out whether you want a lot of beans or just a few. It depends on teh confort level you want to experience. If it is packed too tight then you want have a lot of give.

Step 5 Ensure that you smooth out the beans in the pouffes so it the beans in teh pouffe are evenly distributed everywhere.

Step 6 Finally sew the pouffe up or else zip it up tightly. thsi should ensure that no beans fall out.

I seem to have stumbled across something very interesting when I was writing my previous article about bean bags and pregnancy. I had a few people contacting me asking me to write further articles on this topic.

Let me just clarify a couple of things bean bags are becoming extremely popular with pregnant women and new mothers. Fatboy Bean Bags are extremely comfortable and provide great support for your back and abdomen
thereby ensuring that your baby will be extremely safe as well.

As I mentioned before you can move them from one room to another so you could have one in the bedroom for that middle of the night feed and you could locate it downstairs in the sitting room for the rest of the day.

The crucial thing here is obviously the flexibility and support your back receives. The reason for this is that a bean bag is similar to a memory foam mattress in the sense that it takes on the shape of your body. This ultimately means that you and the new addition to your family will always be comfortable.

Bean bags are also also really durable as well as being very light in terms of weight. They are also extremely easy to clean which makes a massive difference as well with really young children. You dont want to be spending all your day sticking bean bags into a washing machine. Now you can do that as well if you want but it probably makes more sense to clean it with a warm damp cloth a bit of soap which will ensure that any bean bag that has stuff spilt on will come up looking like new.

Everyone thinks of bean bags as being solely for children. One of the areas people wouldn’t think of using Bean Bags is for Mums with newborns. This probably seems a bit randon but think about it for a second or two.

If you are a Mum and you want to put your baby down where do you put him or her. Well most people would just put the baby in a crib or in a rocker. Now both of these are good but a better spot would be on a bean bag. Now leaving a newborn on a bean bag by itself is probably not the safest place in the world but if the Mum or Dad is lying down on the bean bag then it is as safe place as any.

So what else could you use a bean bag for. A few Mums have contacted us recently asking us if they would be appropriate for nursing babies. I remember myself when my wife had our 2 girls that she couldnt find anything appropriate to lie down on whilst nursing the girls. A bean bag is the perfect solution if you think about it. Both Mum and baby are really happy and comfortable and you can adjust the bean bag into any shape you want.

Thsi doubles up as well at a later stage when the baby gets that little bit older. You can leave a toddler on a bean bag and they will have a huge amount of fun rolling around on it. It can also help them to walk as well as they can pull themselves up on it and find their balance.

So all you have to do is be a little bit creative to see how you can use your bean bag.

So it eventually happenned, Yahoo have accepted Fatboy bean bags into their directory. It  hasn’t all been plain sailing. Firstly I had to hand over $299 which is a fair chunk of change then had to wait for 10 days before it appeared.

I received an email from Yahoo which said

The following URL submitted for expedited review with Yahoo! Directory Submit Order #146406060 has been added to the Yahoo!
Directory:

http://www.fatboybeanbags.ie

Directory Placement. Within 2-4 days, your site will appear in our “What’s New” List at:

http://dir.yahoo.com/new/

To find your listing, enter your URL in the search box on that page. You can also browse through the individual categories or the complete list of sites added on that day.

So I waited 4 days to see where they had listed it but couldnt find it at all. So I sent off an email which said

Hi

Please could you clarify where

http://www.fatboybeanbags.ie

is located in the Yahoo directory as I cant find it anywhere.

Here is the response I received back.

Dear customer,

Your website fatboy bean bags has been added to the Yahoo! Directory. Please follow the link given below.

http://dir.yahoo.com/Regional/Countries/Ireland/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Home_and_Garden/Furnishings/Furniture/Chairs/Bean_Bag/

We are experiencing a temporary problem with directory search. Our engineers are aware of the problem and are working on it. We apologize for the inconvenience caused.

We also appear in

http://dir.yahoo.com/Regional/Countries/Ireland/Business_and_Economy/Shopping_and_Services/Home_and_Garden/Furnishings/Furniture/

Here is the listing they have given us along with the title and description

Fatboy Beanbags
Online retailer of bean bags, dog and cat beds, hammocks, and pouffes.
www.fatboybeanbags.ie

So we have eventually made it in. All I hope for now is that we generate some business after paying for it