Holiday Deadlines

Soul Eater is the only red and green item in my shop. Somehow I don't think he quite exemplifies the holiday spirit, but he does illustrate how I feel after fighting holiday crowds in the stores.

Anyway, it is that wonderful time of year when you have to start wondering whether the things that you order will arrive in time for the holidays. Oh no! I'm here to tell you that if you are an international customer, I don't know if your order will arrive before Christmas if you order it now, but I'll be happy to ship it to you anyway. US customers, you should have no worries. However, I will stop shipping after December 15th and may even put my shop into vacation mode.

Local people: I can deliver! And if you're a personal friend or family member, you can even come to my house and shop for jewelry in person, although you will have to pay a horrible price -- you will get licked by the corgis.

One last thing. Sales have been picking up, and everything that I make is one of a kind, so if you have your eye on something don't hesitate! Seize the day!

Post Christmas Shopping and Shipping!

Please note that I am in Vegas with one of my dancing friends and have only brought my phone along. I haven't yet tested how well I can comment on my blog from the phone, so don't feel slighted if I don't respond to you. I'm pre-scheduling this week's posts because I don't want my blog to lie dormant for 5-6 days!

As I am in fact out of town, I will not be able to ship any jewelry that you might purchase at this time. But if you do want to buy yourself something -- if, for instance, no one was thoughtful enough to give you handmade jewelry and you feel like you need to buy some for yourself -- rest assured that it will go out on January 3rd and be on your doorstep by the end of the week! (Assuming your doorstep is in the continental US, otherwise it might take a little longer.

So just mosey on over to Handmade Jewelry by Erthe Fae Designs and see what's waiting for you!

Farewell Medusa!

Well, I *said* I wasn't going to do any more shipping this month, but when a gentleman contacted me on Etsy asking if I could mail this necklace because it was the perfect Christmas present for his girlfriend, I couldn't say no! So off I went to the post office.

Both of my Medusa necklaces sold this year, which tells me that I had better get some more Medusa pendants from Green Girl in February, and maybe shop around for some other Medusa focals to add to my line.

And now, back to the present I was working on when I had to drop everything and rush off to USPS!

Winter Colors

I'm almost done listing gray items in my shop, Handmade Jewelry by Erthe Fae Designs. Of course, Guildmistress (shown above) also has blue and brass in it, in case you find monochromatic pewtery color schemes boring. Make sure to check out the link, there's some great close-up shots in the listing!

Now is probably a good time to mention shipping deadlines. Christmas is less than 2 weeks away... yikes! It's 79 degrees here today, so honestly, it feels like it should be more than a week until the solstice. Anyway, I'd recommend that international buyers not try to purchase any Christmas presents from me right now -- they'd likely not arrive in time. For domestic customers, please make your purchases by the morning of the 17th so I can get them packaged up and mailed out before I leave for my recital. Tucson-area customers, I may be able to deliver your items up until Christmas Eve, but please contact me to make arrangements before purchasing.

Dance goal progress: Last night's practice was divided between practicing for recital (complete with zills), doing an exercise from the Daily Bellydance Quickies e-mail, and typing with a sword on my head. I decided the last one counted as practice at least for yesterday, because my shoulder was a little too sore for 30 minutes of actual dancing. I guess it objected to the 120 push-ups I did yesterday or something. So far today I've just done a little dancing in my chair while working on Etsy things :)

Back in business!

Not only am I back from vacation, but my Etsy shop is, too! I just re-opened it this afternoon, and as soon as I'm over my airplane cold, I hope to start promoting it heavily in an attempt to make some spending money for my trip to Tahoe.

There are a couple of changes you should be aware of, however.

First, I'm no longer offering free shipping. Instead, I will be shipping all of my items via Priority Mail, for $5 for US customers and $8 for international buyers. I will have the occasional free shipping sale, so keep your eyes open for those.

Second, I have left the Etsy BeadWeavers' team. For various reasons, I decided that it was not for me. Instead, I'll be focusing more of my attention on the Fantasy Artists of Etsy team, and on an exciting new group venture that I'll be able to tell you more about soon.

Specials and Shipping!

Today's Daily Special is Turtle Talisman, regularly $175, now $150 until noon PST on 5/27.

Also, I'm pleased to announce that all of my Etsy items now ship for free to Canada. Next up, I have to get that set up on the website. In the meantime, I will still be refunding the shipping costs for any Canadian orders.

I realize that lately I've been talking mostly about business and very little about my daily life, and I'm not sure why. I'm going to try to be a little more open and chatty here on the blog, as I find that for my own reading, I prefer people who aren't all business all the time.

Upcoming Changes

The above image is the Daily Special at my website, Sacred Grove. The Daily Special on Etsy is Keeper of Mementos. Daily Specials will now begin and end at approximately noon every day.

I mentioned in yesterday's blog post that I had some more changes planned for my business, and I figure I should talk about them here. They're both good news!

The first is that I've decided that Canadians deserve a shipping break, too, so Canadian orders will now receive free shipping. I have not set this up yet, so if you are a Canadian, and you buy something, I will refund your shipping fees.

The second is that while my website was down, I started listing my crystal bracelets on Etsy at their old price of $40, instead of the new price of $50. When my website came back, all of those bracelets were still marked $50. There's no reason for something to be more expensive on my site than on Etsy, so I'm going to mark them all back down to $40, despite the rising cost of crystals. In the meantime, if you buy a bracelet before I reprice them, I will refund you the $10 difference.

I'd have already made these changes, but the problem is that when I spend too much time adjusting shipping fees and jewelry prices, it leaves me no time to make new products! We can't have that happening, now can we?

Introducing my Etsy shop!

I am pleased to announce the grand opening of my Etsy shop, which can be found at erthefae.etsy.com. You can find the above earrings at my shop, and three other items. I will be adding a lot more on Monday or Tuesday. My plan is to migrate a few things off of my website to Etsy, to help fill in the shop, but there will also be brand-new items in there at least once a week.

I am very pleased with how happy it was to set up my shop and list my items. Much easier than eBay!

I am very, very pleased with how the above picture of the Sacred Cloud earrings came out. I love my camera!

I am extremely pleased to say that I now offer free shipping from my Etsy shop and my website.

All in all, I'm feeling pretty pleased.

Shipping and Sales and Stuff, Oh My!

Ok, first of all, I spent some time today and managed to fix my shipping in PayPal. Basically I had to delete my profile and start all over. But while I was at it, I set up Priority and International shipping. I might add some more options in the future, such as a Pickup for anyone who knows me in person and wants to shop through my site. But for now, shipping should be working, which means no more Accidental Free Shipping Sale. It was fun while it lasted!

But! Don't despair! While I was fixing the shipping preferences, my awesome husband was putting the finishing touches on the latest feature for Erthe Fae Designs: Discount Codes! Simply enter the code in the box under the Add to Cart buttons on any item on my site, and the discounted price will be applied in the shopping cart. Furthermore, my site will remember your code until you close your browser, so you only have to enter it once. How cool is that?

So, to celebrate this awesome new feature, I'm having a Thanksgiving sale from now until 11:59PM EST. All items are 15% off! Just use the discount code "Thanks2007." And if you click this handy link, it should already be entered for you. How cool is that? It rocks to be married to a programmer!

And as to the "Stuff" mentioned in the title, yesterday I placed an order for a whole bunch of great findings and beads, all the better to make exciting products for the holidays! Because my findings supplier is in Phoenix, and because they have a great shipping department, my order is supposed to arrive today. Woohoo! I hope the UPS man arrives before I have to go to class. I just love receiving a box full of new supplies!

Finals are evil!

Whew. We just put the finishing touches on the second draft of our skit for Chinese. This is the first time in my life that I've ever had to do a final project, and I have to say... man, these things are a lot of work! I have so much more respect for college students now. We have to do the last draft of the skit over Thanksgiving break. No rest for the weary!

Today was super-busy, and I haven't had a chance to find batteries or an AC adapter for my camera yet, so I did not update the site. Shame on me, I know. But on the bright side, I also didn't have time to wrestle with PayPal -- don't get me started on them -- so the free shipping sale is still going on! And you can still get an ornament with every $50 purchase just by asking nicely! There should be new jewelry this week. I'm thinking Wednesday. How does Wednesday sound to you?

I am happy to announce that all three items which I sent to Anime NebrasKon sold this weekend! Hurray! Dylan-the-con-organizer said that they received much attention and drooling, which was a happy boost to my ego. I wasn't sure how my jewelry would go over at an anime convention, but now that I know, I'll have to consider exhibiting at one of the ones we have here in AZ.

Speaking of anime, I'm going to go veg out and watch some Mushishi. It's some freaky-weird show that our friends Alex and Casey insisted that we watched. I'd been burned out on anime for a bit, but this series is different enough that it piqued my interest. Afterwards it will be time to bead a bit -- I've sold 3 spiral bracelets in the past week, gotta start restocking!

The Free Shipping Just Won't Stop!

Neither Chris nor I could get PayPal's shipping system to work last night, so I had to e-mail their tech support. They say it will be 2-3 days until I got an e-mailed response, and it's hard to say whether or not that will fix it. So the Accidental Free Shipping Sale will likely continue on for the rest of the week... Possibly even through Sunday, since I won't be home on Friday or Saturday to act upon any e-mailed advice.

So, allow me to reiterate: now is the perfect time to shop at www.erthefae.com! All orders will receive free shipping and be entered into the drawing for a hand-beaded holiday ornament. All orders over $50 will come with a 30mm beaded ornament. And any order placed through Friday morning will be mailed Friday afternoon, so your jewelry will be in-hand next week!

With only a month and a half until Christmas, and less than a month until Chanukkah, it's time to think about the holidays! Jewelry makes a great gift for mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, aunts, nieces, girlfriends, co-workers, everyone! And don't forget something for yourself, to wear to holiday parties and gatherings!

Sale Continues!

I'm not going to have time to wrestle with PayPal's cart until after class tonight, so I am going to say that the Accidental Free Shipping Sale will run until at least 11pm EST tonight. That's right, there's still time to buy jewelry and get FREE shipping!

The above image is the bracelet Gloaming, which I added to the site yesterday. I don't think the image came out quite as well as Galactic Beauty did, but it's still very nice. The colors are dark, but the detail on the crystals and amethyst is superb.

I'm almost done with my secret beading project. I'm going to hopefully finish it tonight, and I'll post it on Thursday. Now I just need to think about what to pack for my dog-sitting adventure this weekend. Maybe a strand collage... I haven't done one of those in a while. I'd like to do one in purple, or maybe red. Possibly black and red.

In the meantime, I've got to study for tonight's Chinese test, print up the first draft of my skit, and take an exciting trip to the PO. I get to have all the fun!

Accidental Free Shipping Sale!

This morning I had a sale come through my PayPal cart, and it hadn't been charged shipping... So I logged into PayPal and saw that currently all of my shipping values were set to 0.00. They've apparently recently made a lot of changes to their shipping center, and must have lost my shipping costs somewhere along the way. No big deal, I'll just set them back up, right?

Oh no, that would be too easy! PayPal is giving me a stupid error message whenever I try to set up my shipping. Since I have other things to do today (like update my website), I'm leaving it as-is. That means that I am happy to announce the first-ever Erthe Fae Designs Accidental Free Shipping Sale! Every purchase made at www.erthefae.com will receive free insured first-class shipping! This sale will continue until I fix my shipping cart... And just to make things fair, I won't even try until sometime tomorrow. That means that today is the perfect day to either do a little holiday shopping, or buy yourself a special "It sure is Monday!" present. All items purchased today will be mailed tomorrow!

Don't wait! Act now! Take advantage of PayPal's inability to calculate my shipping rates!

(another update coming later today with new jewelry!)

Shipping Is Back.

My free shipping sale is now officially over! I may have to tweak shipping rates over the next month or two to fit in with the new costs, if so I'll be sure to make clear what the changes are.

I will be having another sale at the start of next month. I just love coming up with ideas for sales!

Not much else to say today, I didn't get enough sleep so I'm tired and cranky. I won't subject you to THAT!

Today's Cool Thing is a raku-fired Dragonfly! I love raku, and the beautiful iridescent blue shade of this particular glaze is just perfect for a dragonfly. This would make the perfect gift for several people that I know, and I'm willing to bet that you know at least one person who would love it, too. Be sure to check out the seller's other items. I'd like to buy some of her pendants to use in my jewelry!

Making banner ads is fun!

I just made my first animated banner ad today, and if I'd known it was so easy, I would have done it a lot sooner! In fact, it was kind of fun and I'm sitting here trying to resist the urge to make more. I need to make another in a different size, so I'll probably play with that tonight or tomorrow. Really, it's fun going through my product images and deciding which ones I think would be most likely to catch the eye of a potential customer. Of course, I'm biased. I usually pick all the green ones...

By the way, I am extending my free shipping sale until June 15th. Go forth and order! After the sale ends, I will have to raise shipping rates, thanks to the fine folks at USPS who have once again raised their rates. Costs will start at $3.50, up from $2.85.

Yesterday I finished the brown and green necklace, and man oh man does it look cool. This is definite future banner ad material! It's one of those pieces that I'm really tempted to keep for myself. Because I don't already own enough green jewelry! Since I'm not taking off for house-sitting until late in the afternoon, I should be able to take and maybe post a picture before I go quiet for the weekend.

On a completely not related to anything else note, I went and saw Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End today. It needed more sword fights (of course, I think everything needs more sword fights, but especially when there are Chinese pirates involved), but it was still pretty awesome. Definitely some good Summer entertainment. Check your rational thought process at the door and enjoy the fun. Also, enjoy the Chinese costumes, and Chow Yun-Fat rocking some awesome facial hair and a wicked over-the-ear tattoo. In fact, the movie was such fun that I'm going to cheat and call it today's Cool Thing!