“Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
-Lao Tzu
Flowing through the Rest of my Summer
Part of my plan to live more intuitively, is to make adjustments to how I structure – or should I say – flow through my day. For the past few weeks I’ve been making a conscious effort to ask myself, “What do I want to do now?” rather than, “I have to do this first”. Of course there are appointments and obligations that I have to keep, but aside from that I will go through a list of the tasks or projects I would like to accomplish in a given day and see what “speaks” to me.
It’s hard to resist the urge to tackle the chores that seem more important, more responsible and more pressing, so that I can get them off my plate to do what is more desirable. The better I got at listening to my inner voice and doing what I desired first, my day would not only flow perfectly, but I struck a good balance between doing tasks I enjoy and doing tasks that are part of life that need to be done. More was being completed and I felt more balanced and accomplished by the end of every day.
I am by no means perfect at it, but I found the latter part of July went much smoother than the first half. I got so much done! Once I started aligning my day by feel rather than expectation, I found even the most mundane tasks would pop in my head to say, “Okay, it is now the right time to switch to (enter chore here)”. Hopefully I can keep it up. I’m excited to see what August has in store. No expectation. Just going to let it happen.
Highlights This month:
- Engraved Awareness charms are now available on Etsy
- Tiered and bulk pricing is now live on the website
- Add a gift note to your order
- New products both on Etsy and here on the website
- Product videos – coming soon!
- Fiber braids – coming soon!
Engraved Awareness Charms on Etsy
Now Available: Tiered and Bulk pricing
I’m really excited to have tiered and bulk pricing set up on the website. It finally came to me just how I would like the pricing to be structured. Let’s take a look at it more closely as the options are different depending on what you buy.
Bulk Discounts
Bulk discounts are available if you buy 2 or more of an item. The price gets lower the more you buy. If you see an item and would like to purchase more than what’s listed, it’s worth asking me if I can make more. The price gets cheaper the more you buy.
Tiered Discounts
Tiered discounts are on products where you buy 1 item, then save on subsequent items from the same product listing. This usually occurs on products that have several options for customization. The above example is from the product listing Custom Charm Necklace with Engraved Letter Charm – Animals & Insects. You will have to add the items to your cart to see the discount. If you don’t see an option in the listing for bulk pricing, then tiered pricing will come into effect.
Discounts for Yarn and Fiber
Yarn discount pricing applies to any items purchased from the handspun yarn category. Since I very rarely have more than one of each skein, it only made sense for the discount to apply to any yarn in the category. This will also apply to fiber braids when they come available (for more on that, keep reading…).
Sale/Clearance Discounts
Any items where there is only 1 left and will be retired after sold, will be moved to the sale/clearance section until sold. I’ve also decided that any items that I create that there is only 1 of, will be available on Etsy only. I find these items better suited to Etsy as they get more views quickly.
I still will be running sales from time to time on top of the built-in discounts, or in replacement of. I wanted to be sure the opportunity was always there to save instead of waiting for a sale. If you are a small business in Canada looking for stock I can do better with wholesale pricing. Fill out this form to inquire.
Adding a Gift Note to your Order
Etsy already gives an option to add a gift message to orders, and I’d say the majority of orders I get are for gifts. I have changed the wording to the “order notes” section in the checkout to give a place for customers to write a small message to go with their order. I will include your message in a small handmade note card. Usually I handwrite these messages, but if you include special characters then they will be printed on a label and included that way. I’m happy to offer this little extra free of charge.
New Products for August
These items are also available on Etsy. The Teacher Clip on charm and Engraved Celtic clip on charm are revamps.
New Products – Etsy Only
The following products are available on Etsy only, and they are OOAK (One of a Kind) or only 1 left (usually made up of charms I have had leftover from past custom work either personal or for customers):
I’ve been catching up with photographing new products so I hope to have many more items available in the coming month.
Coming Soon
Fiber braids! I’ve started photographing my available braids of fiber (mostly merino top, with a few exceptions) to start listing for sale, and I’ll have much more once I start dyeing commercial yarn. I like to dye fiber in tandem to either test the color or to use up excess dye. I’m going to put the fiber up for sale hereon the website only first, and gauge the interest. Price is a struggle especially with inflation and Canadian shipping charges. I usually don’t get paid for my time. I hope to have a few up by next month’s update.
Finally, I will be adding a short video of products to the listings. This option is already available on Etsy, and I thought it was such a shame that I was not offering the same visual representation here on the website. Once I get it set up I’ll start adding videos to the products. It’s not for every product, particularly some of the older ones, but I’ll work toward filming those in the future. As a visual person, I know I appreciate seeing items in “real time” as video gives a better idea of size, how it moves/wears, etc.
That was one heck of an update! I hope you are inspired to try to flow through your day, if only for a portion of it.
Until next time,
