Just An Update

Just after making my last post our family got knocked down by a very nasty flu bug that's been hard to shake. With 6 kids & both parents sick at once, it actually wasn't too bad - everybody pretty much stayed in bed & slurped up soup & tea the whole time.

Now that we're all better, I'm going at 90 km/hr trying to get caught up on a lot of projects that got neglected during that time. I've still got until the end of the week to get my crochet pattern for the challenge done. I'm thinking that I might just be a bit late though, as I have a massive cook off that I have to do tonight with the kids in preparation for a 4-H fundraiser that they are participating in tomorrow. Somehow, I always seem to get in over my head with these kinds of things - LOL!

There's also a few vintage crochet patterns that I'm in the middle of making into digital files for sale at the Wee Designs site and my Etsy store. I have so many patterns in my home, it's unbelievable - serious PAS (Pattern Acquisition Syndrome) - and to think, I gave away half of my collection 5 years ago, and I'm back to the same amount again already! Another project I'm doing with vintage is taking some older public domain images (such as botanical sketches, book plates & Japanese prints) and making them into derivative works such as cross stitch charts & knitting graphs.

The Wee Designs site has been updated to function a bit better, but I'm still needing to figure out how to have a reliable way to sell both physical items and digital items on the site with the same platform. Currently, I'm using Mal's E as my shopping cart - it works great with sending the files to the buyer's email, but ideally I'd like to have the download link available to the customers as soon as they pay right on the sight. So far, I've only looked into E-Junkie as an alternative, but I think that maybe I can find better if I keep looking around. In the meantime, I'm selling the physical items on Etsy & now my Bonanzle store too (see link on the right).

There should be a few cross stitch charts coming to the site over the next few weeks as well - I'm just about finished one that my daughter Deborah & I collaborated on. She had painted a cute little ducking in watercolors that I wanted to capture permanently, so with her permission, I scanned it in & interpreted it for needlework. Meanwhile, she is trying her hand out with the cross stitch software again and may be having her first original chart up in the Etsy store within the next 2 weeks. Way to go Deborah! :)

Fabulous Friends & February Challenge

I'm so thankful for the new friends that I have met on Etsy over the past month. It all started with a sale that I made to a wonderful lady named Helen of Helensharvest. She was kind enough to tell me about a great team on Etsy called the Christian Artists Street Team, or CAST for short.

I had thought about joining up with a Team on Etsy before, but with homeschooling & mothering 6 children, and having read the requirements for others, I didn't think that there was any team that I could commit to. Many teams require a specific amount of listings or postings made to their blogs per month, which isn't really a big deal, but I didn't want to be obligated to add more to my already full workload. Whereas on CAST, the only requirement is having faith in Jesus. Since I'm already on board with Him, that requirement was easy enough!

What a bunch of wonderful people to "meet" online & share encouragement, prayers & Etsy related ideas with. If you want to find out more about CAST, you can check them out at the CAST blog or look them up on the Etsy forum under "Teams". Thank you so much Helen for letting me know about CAST :)

Another great friend I've made recently on Etsy is Abbey of stitchesandscribbles (who also just joined CAST) - I met her on a regular Etsy forum posting called Fiber Friday. Yup - For Fiber Friday I found a fun & fabulous fellow fiber fanatic :) (bet you can't say that 10 times fast!). We are embarking on a challenge to each other to get one new pattern written down a month - this being our first month of the challenge. I look forward to keeping accountable with each other to get some new patterns out for our customers to enjoy.

Then, I had an awesome customer service experience with another CAST Etsian - Kelli of desertsoapstone. I made a bit of my own challenge to try to buy the items that I need from my fellow Team members, so I was really glad to find a soap maker in our midst. I asked Kelli for a recommendation for what she had that won't irritate my skin (I have mild eczema), and went for two of her glycerin soaps - Leaves of Grass made with shea butter, aloe & hemp oil, and Lavender Vanilla made with aloe, coconut & palm oil.

I received my soaps within 2 weeks from the time they were made (considering that I live in Canada & Kelli is in the US & they were sent first class mail is really good), and I was so pleased when I opened up my package. If you think they look yummy online, wait until you smell them - WOW! Absolutely delicious! Just be careful to wash with them and not eat them ok?

Even better, when I used the soaps I had no reaction to them - something that usually happens to me within the first 15 minutes of most other soaps. Some other handmade soaps have caused me problems - not as severe as store brand soaps (which really are just detergent in solid form), but enough to get a small reaction within 30 minutes of use. So after I reached the 30 minute mark & no problems, I knew I had found a great source of soap for me. Kelli's soaps are "bar none" in my books ;P

Disclaimer - while I might possibly make money if somebody reads this post & decides to buy off of my own Etsy store, I do not make any money promoting CAST or its members. I'm just very happy to have found & joined them & with Kelli, I'm just a really happy customer of hers :)