Damnit Summer!

I'd really really like to bloody know what it is about the last two weeks of July and First couple of weeks of August have against me. Every year, in looking over my notes for the past ten ish years, those four ish odd weeks have always been downers. Like hard to navigate, 'do I really need to do this', nothing is getting done, HARD downer.

I fucking hate it. Last couple of years have been exceptionally hard but I think a part of that is because I'm in a steady home environment (have been the last soon to be five years in September) and so everything is going "Oh hey...we can actually deal with stuff now."   Um... can we NOT deal with it that way?!  No..... *grumble*  It's been so bad I let half of the Etsy lapse into expired listings... That's been fixed. But still....

Tomorrow is the day before Mabon. The plan is to take today and do my special music channel and work on creative projects all day, taking it easy because tomorrow (DR I love you...but I'm cleaning even while you're sleeping) I clean.  I super clean. I'm gonna bitch slap this house with cleaning rags so hard it's gonna cry.... or I'm going to be crying from the joint pain on or the other. ( Makes a note to take something with morning coffee so that pain stays away.)  Tomorrow WILL see a good house day.

So that I can spend Mabon in peace.

Why is that important?

Witchcraft:

Eh well... The Morrighan has been encouraging me to talk about this and Dagda, Danu, Anu, Cerridwen and the rest haven't exactly been quiet about that either. I've been getting nudges for the past couple of years but this year they've gotten a bit more intense....but I think that's because I'm back to a point in my abilities where I'm not straining to hear them anymore.  ....I need to talk to my sisters and  brothers about if they can see if any of my abilities are still dead and which ones are recovering and which ones can be saved.  There's one I don't want back.  Not gonna talk about that right now.

Basically it's a covenant of a kind. There's two parts that I have so far.  Grow my hair back out (which I'm keen to do because I've had it short for a few years now.  Thing about my hair is that grows really fast so by the end of the year, it's probably going to be shoulder length almost) and take better care of myself.  Man they yelled that last one so damn loud that day.

The Bullshits:
So part of my self care is learning that is okay to have bad and down days. "But those are the days I lose time on projects." Yes and that's okay. Instead of fighting those days, I need to let them happen so that they take up only ONE day instead getting stretched out over three and four days.  Yeah... bad Evie.

Makers movement:
YEEEEE!  So I visited with my parents for a week in early July.  That was so damn nice! Went fabric shopping with my mom and just got to spend some needed quality time with them. (It'd been almost five years since I'd seen them.) Mom also had several things of fabric that she wasn't going to be using in her quilting (she makes beautiful lap quilts and baby quilts for the Linus Project).

So I have a lot of new fabric.  There are:

1. Two button up shirts for DR planned.
2. At least three quilts for us.
3. Maybe close to five wall hangings.
4. Curtains.
5. About five or six vests for me (Wardrobe changes continue!)
6. At least two long sleeve shirts 
7. One more bib dress
8. Couple other indeterminate right now.

This is on top of the two shawls and one more crocheted vest I've been eyeballing making for myself.  One of the shawls...is well... special.

SHOUT OUTS:

As you guys know I have really cool people I'm friends with so we're doing two shouts out todays.

One is the Patreon account link to my friend who runs Reel Fun Studios.  Carie a wonderful geeky lady and mother to a beautiful daughter.  If you could give her page Carie Varner some love and some monthly coin, it'd be appreciated.

Also today I'm giving a signal to the newest Science based book out from my good friend Stephanie Osborn called "Kiss your Ash Goodbye: The Yellowstone Supervolcano"

Personal Stores:
Always be sure to check out what's going with my Etsy The Jade Rose Zen and my Teespring Jade Rose Zen Productions.

Time to keep today's momentum going. 

Onto the Next Project!

 After the nuke that was my last post, I figured it was nigh time to talk about something a bit more positive: Like my future. So let's talk about my goals and how I'm using them to propel myself towards to cleaning up a mess or two that I made for myself because I was a raging idiot. Some lessons about responsibility can only be learned the hard way. So there are two goals I have for this year that I'm going to be sharing. I have other smaller goals but they don't require me to advertise and try to convince you to buy my product. ;) So let's see how well I can convince you today!

Goal number one is some new technology devices, which is the more achievable to be honest and probably the one that will enable me to begin a long term project I have in mind and make the second goal easier to achieve as well.

Goal 1 A: is a brand new mouse. Hell that can be covered if someone decides to buy even just one of my dice bags.

Goal 1 B: Is a new camera.

That would be the lovely Canon Rebel. Right now I use my old phone which is basically just a Wifi device, but it is dying. It's a almost four year old phone. It's lived through two moves and two dogs and a cat. Its still working on surviving the cat....

With summer approaching and soon to descend upon The Valley of the Sun my work emphasis does tend to slide towards working on smaller projects like Cloches and dice bags.  That being said I had to find something the other day and in one of my storage bags I found about a half dozen hats that I had forgotten I had made. Yeah, bad Evelyn. Those will go up as soon as I've had a change to throw them through a dryer. (DAMNIT CHOCTAW!) 

Also coming to the shop hopefully in the next week sunlight cooperating, there'll be a poncho and matching hat, more infinity scarves with hats, and slightly better fleshed out listings in a couple of spots.

Progress on a Gold and Crimson Corded Cardigan is coming along nicely along with a Mint and Lemon baby set. There is a Lime Lively "Chunky" knit scarf that will appear in the store in the next couple of weeks as well. After that there will mostly be nothing new for a few weeks as I'll be working on a couple of commissions and trades for work. There will a dig through prior projects put on the back burner and forgotten about and a huge push to finish as many of those as I can before going on the Second Retreat.

Am I bringing yarn along on the retreat?  ....you do realize this is me we're talking here right?!

So the second goal after getting the camera is a long term goal. This is the thing I was talking about in the first paragraph about having an idiot. This is one of those mistakes where it doesn't take long to accomplish it but damned if it doesn't take you awhile to clean up the mess.

I don't plan on dumping a huge payment onto it. No, that would be stupid as there are other bills that need paid too. Like the car. 

I'm going to be putting all sales after I get the camera (so that I can get better pictures of my listings) towards paying off my credit card. (Relax, they only trust me a 3300 limit. Which is a good thing for the time period that covered. Now I'm in clean up mode.) Once I get into a steady payment rhythm on it, I know I can have it paid off in a couple of years (barring any emergency car repairs. Eep even.) and also focusing on paying off the car. Those are the two things that will be building my credit and his up the best. We have until April 2019 here at the current place we're renting, but damned if we aren't hoping to be not renting by then. Takes work though.

So that the deal. Why am I telling you guys this? Well so that you know what I'm doing with the money from Etsy purchases. People seem to like knowing it how it helps. Also helps me solidify what I'm doing with the shop. It's not just for shits and giggles. Having set goals helps a LOT.

So in summary, the Etsy are going towards:
1) A New Mouse
2) A Rebel Camera
3) Paying down the credit card
4) Paying off the Rav 4.

Brain... Seriously?

Click on the picture to be taken to this
Etsy listing!

So between two colds back to back that lasted a month and the monthly uterine rebellion, my brain has been fuzzy, over clocked and refusing to cooperate when I want to go to sleep.

So what does my brain do last night as I'm laying there in the hour after me and DR had gone to bed do?

"Hey I wonder if people look up stuff via DnD alignment types? Wouldn't it be fun to make a Chaotic Neutral series? Or even a Lawful Ebil? ...how the hell would make a Lawful ebil even work? What color schemes would I need to use?"

GAH!

I'd already been planning a series based on the core classes. The thing with ideas like this is that while it's cool and fantastical... those who would actually be enthusiastic about buying such in limited numbers and limited budgets.

Biggest drawback to being a hand crafter: Making the cool pretty shit versus the more practical every day shit that appeals to a more broad demographic. Occasionally making one of the fantasy things here and there to show that I posses the skill level to do such is okay but not at the expense of the things that sell.

The little things add up quickly. Hell one of these days I dream of waking up and finding I'm out of Dice Bags would be great! Then again I enjoy making those, so running out probably isn't going to happen anytime soon. ^_^

I found out not too long ago, finding baby and toddler boy themed blankets is a bit harder than I had originally thought. So I'm definitely going to be trying to keep a few of those in the shop from now on. 

Other than that, it's just a finish other projects day. Hopefully I'm feeling well enough at week's end to list some more things on the shop but staging, taking pictures, editing them and creating the listings can be very menial and mentally tiring. Definitely best for days when I've been staying on top of eating and other self care that's crucial for certain stuff to behave.

Oh 2018 What the hell have you done?

So here we are in the year 2018. It's been three years since I last touch this blog however even with all the shenanigans that Google has been pulling, this is the better option blog.

Wordpress while slick and shiny demands I have to have a business account if I want to be able to even have my Etsy listings show up right. 36 bucks a year for "Business" and the premium that would get them off my back permanently all year... 300 bucks.

No thanks fuckers, I barely have enough profit margin right now to be able to even afford to pay the cable.

So I'm back over here where I can advertise my stores for free and not have eat into financial resources that I don't fucking have.

Once again, this is going to be an everything blog. Talking about my personal crocheting, mental health and emotional overflow from said issues, knitting, writing, dealing with my PTSD, anxiety, depression, prepping (I don't write for BCP anymore but am still associated with them).

And yes there will be pet shenanigans. Many many pet shenanigans.

So buckle up, because this year has just started and the outline for it looks pretty damn solid so far.

Time for a change.

"Uh oh.... what kind of change Evie?"

Relax.  It's... okay yeah actually it is kinda major.

One of the things that a Witch should be doing frequently, is introspection.  Self-improvement is vital but ego is meant to be a tool, not make you into a tool.

One must be aware of their interactions in every light.

Yesterday I found myself staring back at the realization that I have a large amount of work to do... and that I can't do it with my facebook stuff still active.  We ALL know how much a time sink that place can be.

Well it's also the home of keyboard warriors and their liquid courage.  Loose lips sink ships?

Loose fingers cause episodes.

Last two months have been many micro and small episodes after scanning my facebook feed and coming away dealing with memories.  That's a little too much power over someone.  I can't keep sacrificing my productivity just be online and debate with someone.   I better things to do, than sit on the floor staring at my computer screen wondering how the fuck someone could so god damn stupid.  The site is going full on depression trigger some days.

What happens when something has too much power of you?  You remove it. Completely.

Everything on Facebook is going to be shut down a few days before Yule.  Probably will be back up online there next summer.  The Zibbit and Etsy will be on vacation from December 18th to January 15th.  They'll be online and available for your perusal after January 15th again.  However, there may not be a lot of in-stock things.

I am going to be working on a new website, one where I can have the store, this blog and everything I work on in ONE place.

Yeah, there are folks I won't know how are doing because the only way we interact is Facebook.  There's only a few of folks that I'll actually seriously miss that I only interact with on FB.  Like a Controlled Chaos and MurphyMonster's Dad...  But the site has become a source of stress, and less and less enjoyment every day.  I'm looking at Ello and maybe MiWe I think it was called as maybe a new option over Facebook, but I'm not sure on those either.

But I am dangerously close to burning out.  I can feel that crinkling sensation that seems to happen at the edge when you've pushed yourself on one particular topic for too long.

You do what you have to in order to take care of yourself.  Regardless of what others might think is best for you.  They aren't you.  They aren't dealing with the consequences of YOUR actions.  They aren't responsible for your mess, your emotions, your problems.  You can weigh their advice against a situation, and toss it if you know it's wrong.

Sometimes the only piece of advice that's worth listening to is, "Now I'm not you..."

Pass the Coffee dudes.....

7:30 am this morning....awake.

I managed to get a 15 minute nap. After that it was very clear, there wasn't any going back to sleep.  Oh well.

The to-do list for today includes working on streamlining and cleaning up the facebook page for Jade Rose Zen, which also got a slight name change.  Jade Rose Zen ThreadWorks.

Someone finally went, hey the name doesn't really say much besides being catchy.  *head desk*

Never fails, either people won't give any advice or give too much.  Thankfully my friend Erin knows where to draw the line when it comes to advice.  Lovely gal that she is.

Though last night she asked me, what the heck it was that going on with JRZT.  Etsy brings in half of my orders but zero traffic.  Zibbet brings almost all of my traffic, but no orders.  Half of my orders come from Facebook, but maybe ten percent of traffic.

*head desk; head desk; head desk*

I do plan on building a website that is my store and independent of the crapp shoots that all these sellers.  Whether or not it work out..... well, that's another ball game and one that I'm not going to address until after the move.

And of course, Jade Rose Zen Threadworks even without the spaces is too long for Etsy, but the title can have it....

*rubs temples*

How one manages to stay sane while attempting to maneuver all this shit is beyond me.   So what's on tap for new stuff coming to the Facebook page?  Hopefully by the end of today, I'll have things organized better.  I am not an ads person.  Hell, I can barely write descriptions for the stuff I make that is outside of what the measurements are.  That's all folks need right?  Along with a good two or three pics....

Seriously how the hell do some of these folks come up with this prattle that is in their items listings?

Adding four new albums to the Facebook page, including a available for custom order catalog, knitting, crocheting and a paracord catalog.

Also, I call bullshit on anyone who says the economy is getting better.  PTUI!

Go fuck a duck.  Seriously.  Last year, I was getting several big orders.  This year, I had one big one and everything is small things.  Even small things are great though, but folks just aren't spending their money.  They're holding onto it tightly because they don't know when things are going to suddenly break on their cars that they've duct taping and wishing along as pieces start rattling that really shouldn't rattle.

Hell, I know folks who are trading quarts of food they canned two years ago to shade tree mechanics to get their brakes fixed, oil changed, etc.  People are trading goods for services.   Which is a time-honored tradition by the way.  One that I fully practice whenever able.  To be honest, things are not going to be better economy wise.  There's too many bubbles, there's too many head in the sand and there's coming up probably a few years where you're going to want armed guards on the fields protecting crops.

Won't last for several years though, probably 3-6 at the most.  Americans are bred from incredibly hardy stock, from all over the world.  There's a very unique spirit there that after a time will shake itself clean and look around and go, "Oh hell.  This needs fixed, and this needs fixed...."  So they start fixing stuff in their own lives, which produces this gorgeous ripple effect.  It starts inspiring other folks to get off their asses and get work done.

Oops, there I go another tangent again... what was I talking about... oh yeah, the shop.   I'll be taking a decent number of pictures today of the paracord stuff.  There so much of it, they can literally be broken down by color.  Heck, I'll throw up a second post late today with everything in it.  Sound good?

Well, I'm done rambling for today.  Time for coffee and breakfast.  Ya'll have a great weekend okay?

More Odds and Ends...

I do believe I'm on the upswing from the bummed out episode of the beginning of the month.  Which is a good thing considering the amount of work that I'm tackling in terms of the crochet and knitting orders.  However that means I'll be cutting time online in many ways.

Outside of my music addictions that is...

I've noticed I get a weird kind of lonely.  Like not for a lot of company but one particular person's company.  Yeah him.  Heh, what do you expect?  I love him and we help each other stay happy.

Down side is I have 19 pages to type up (which are handwritten and it translates that three handwritten pages usually equal one typed page... unless you're one of those people with small and neat handwriting which in that case go fuck off.... I hate you....)

Some people are able to force themselves to write and you can't tell the difference between the forced writing and the parts that they wrote in a fit of inspiration that lasted almost all day, and yielded blah-k number of words.  Me... I can't do that.  My muse will give me weird looks when she's feeling writing lazy but wants to crochet.  Or when she wants to write and I want to crochet.

My muse is a multitask-er.  She likes that I can do many different creatives things.  She gets frustrated when I have to remind her I only have two arms. Trust me, I'd love to have two sets.  One doing the yarn work and one typing furiously down all the blasted ideas that roll through my head.

Oh to be Pilot...

I'm actually hoping that once we get the desktop built, I can get one of those write as you speak softwares.  That would make a lot of things easier because I could be on the couch working on the next project and when an idea hits, I can just start talking but keep working.  Being able to do both at once....

Hey a woman can dream can't she?  =D

Also, one more thing.  Yesterday, I grabbed up the The Giver series Omnibus.  The trailers had intrigued me so I grabbed it up.  At least once a month, I have to read a book.  Else the brain fog like I was experiencing earlier this week, just gets worse and it gets harder to get what I need to, done.

It was a pleasant read.  Four books though in six hours time is... well.... I'm a fast reader.  It's just how it is.  However, do not read the books and then see the movie.  You will be pissed.  The trailer has given me enough indications that the movie will be identical in name, character names and maybe a few elements of the story line.  THAT'S IT.

I'm a bit disgusted that the author didn't put her foot down more when they bought the rights for a movie.  There is a good story there, but the fucktards of H-town fucked it up big time.  If you're interested in the Giver series, click that link up there and it'll take you to the Omnibus, which is a better buy than all four separately.

Oh Monday, Monday...

Almost back to normal from Thursday kicking my almost-non existent ass.  All that's left is the small meals I'm eating around 4-5 times a day, mild fatigue and some still serious back muscle pain.  I'm just over here thanking the Gods that it's not spasms (!!!).

Been thinking about either doing an auction on the Jade Rose Zen facebook page or doing a "12 days of Christmas/Yule" flash sale event and having about two things a day.

Either way, I'll be cross posting to Google +  plus as well and here to the blog.  Among everything will be some of the really popular stuff, like the dolls, shawls and blankets, but there will be some surprises in there too. =)

In the meantime, I'm going back to bouncing around youtube listening to music, working on orders and sitting in my comfy chair.

In the meantime, here's something I found today.  Enjoy:

Glorious

So yesterday was eight hours in the car.  We left, I chilled in the vehicle while he dealt with a court thing and then we grabbed some .22 and 45 and started driving.

This morning I wake up in a gloriously different place from LA.  Yeap, Arizona.

"How can Arizona be better that California?"

Ah my dears, that is because you might be forgetting that everyone has different priorities.  I'm a Witch, k?

Here in Arizona the vibe...it's the difference between stepping into cool water on a hot day and looking at dirty, muddy, been tramped in for weeks on end and knowing you can't get out of going in.  The latter being California.

The vibe is just better.  It's cleaner. It's less artificial feeling to me to be honest.  Plus there's constitutional carry.  ^_^

Now onto the gross bits...

Gross bit section begin:
An update on the ongoing project of using re-usable cotton pads.  Ever since I was started my periods, my right ovary has been the real cunt of the two.  Everything from when the cramps hit of collapsing at work and getting sent home to being violently ill for about four days.  My left one is not as bad.   Hell the left one is a little angel compared to this bitch of a right one. The left one about 75% only causes cramps for about a day and 100% of the time cravings for red meat.  (The rawer, the better!)

Well since using the cotton ones I made, the right one has been reduced from four days to two days.  This is a major improvement.

Another thing I've noticed is that the tissue lining (this is what you end up bleeding during the period) seems to be having an easier time of coming loose.  I've gone from 4-8 days of periods to 3-6.  Yes this means heavier periods, however that just in the first day or two.  This means I'm back on my feet and able to be fully productive again faster.

Read that last sentence again and understand that that is incredibly important to me.  If I'm not feeling close to 100%, I can't do my crochet work.... this leads to other problems.

End Gross Part

Another thing that has cropped up that is going to be crucial to address, is the fact that I have lost my familiarity with guns.  This pisses me off to no end.  Hence why grabbing a bit of 22 from storage and 45 was so damn important yesterday.

I'm one of the girls who used to work for Oleg Volk for fuck's sake, I knew guns and they were
merely objects.

Really fun to shoot objects, but pistols and rifles held no power.  Now, because of losing my familiarity with them...they bring back a few memories that I don't need.  Like the fact that one of my first firearms teachers was also treating me like a cumbucket ("You have no concept of how to easy on yourself do you?" Nope.) and was also one of my rapist when it was all said and done.  He was a lousy fucking teacher.  Can't handle shotguns because of it.  (Fuck him by the way.  Karma ain't done with him yet.)

This is going to be one of the harder projects to work on as I refuse to let this stand.  I will be pistol packing again full time once in Arizona full time and I'm not going to do it afraid.  I will not let something that helps me be able to walk unafraid of other piece of shit wanna be humans, be a fucking PTSD trigger.

I will not be afraid.

Fear is the mind killer....

Still sick...

Not as bad though.

Still don't feel up to anything besides being miserable.

Plus side though this got done....

Oh that's frustrating...

So I get messages from time to time on Etsy from friends of friends being sent to me looking for a particular crocheted thing.

Most of the time, after they hear/see the price they almost always "Thank you for your reply."

Which among us crafters is code for "Why the fuck would I pay that when I can get it from Wal*Mart for 3.99?"

The item in question this time was a beautiful crocheted cloche with flower embellishment.  22-25 bucks.

That covers the materials (which would need to a bit finer of a yarn for the flowers and leaves) and barely covers my time.

This is one of the most... derogatory things that happens on a weekly basis for all crafters I think.  Someone asks us to make something and for how much and then what happens?  The above.

Something else that coincides with this response is almost always the fact that the person who does this, 95% of the time is the same kind of person who bitches about "American jobs being sent overseas".  Here's a newsflash for you oh stupid one, stop fucking taxing businesses out of existence.
Here's a little background for those of you who aren't familiar with how hand crafts like mine work.

We'll use a beanie, as an incredibly simple example.

The basic beanie, can be down with one thread or two.   With any of the stitches know as single, double or treble and hell all the ones in between.

It takes 1-3 skeins of yarn, depending on how nice of a yarn or color variety you want. These range in price from 3.14 for 236 yards of thread (215 meters) to 8.99 for 174 yards.

Then the average crafting time is anywhere from an hour and 45 minutes to five hours (this is dependent on skill level and experience level).  I average an hour and 45 minutes on simple beanies.

Now, let's just say that for a really nice cloche I decide to go with a finer thread for the flowers.  This finer thread costs 6.99 a skein, and I get two in two different colors.  Then one skein at 3.14 for the main hat.

Now that puts me at 17.12 already.  And I haven't even started working on the hat yet.

So we'll say there's four flowers.  Each flower takes me 45 minutes for a total of 3 hours.
The cloche takes me 2 hours to make.

So that's five hours for this hat.  Now at the higher quoted price of 24 dollars minus the 17.12 leaves 6.88.

Now divide 6.88 by 5.

That is 1.376 an hour.

We won't go into any of the other things I make.

I put five hours of time into a hat, and am only asking 24 bucks for it.

Do the crafting community a favor: If you aren't willing to pay for quality and for the investment of our time, don't even open a fucking conversation with us.

In case you're wondering what it would cost if I put in the 8.75 min wage just to give you a baseline:
43.75 and that's just the cost of the time.  Plus material and shipping... try 60 bucks at least.

Do me and the rest of the crafting community a favor: don't get snotty, snobby, condescending, arrogant, snide, rude or belligerent with me when I give you a very reasonable price, when I'm the one who knows how much time goes into my work, not you.  I know my work is going to last you for several years when that junk you buy from some chain store is going to worthless in less than a year.

Stop your bitching about sending jobs overseas when you won't even invest in small business here.

It's crunch time!

As I don't have anything off the top of my head that I'd like to rant about, talk about, etc. as I'm in the middle of a crunch time and quite possibly frogging one of the jackets (again!)  so a copy and paste from my notes on Jade Rose Zen on Facebook will just have to suffice.

"Hey everyone, wanted to give y'all a heads up.

The last day of this year that I'm willing to accept to orders for the Holiday seasons is November 16th.  There will be NO MORE ORDERS ACCEPTED AFTER THAT DATE FOR THIS YEAR.  

I'm establishing this policy because I got rushed with orders last year at the last minute and I ended up being late with a few of them.  I don't like being late, I don't like being surprised with stuff at the last minute which I'm sure you don't enjoy either.  

If you are interested in something for Christmas, start telling me now!!!!!

It takes some serious time to get everything made, because I'm working designs and ordering yarn many times for your orders.  

I've already one order that I managed to convince to let me start on it back in June (And boy am I glad they agreed!!!).   

So if you are interested in buying from for this coming winter gift giving season, LET ME KNOW NOW!  

It's okay if you are on budget, and need to put the money back, but please remember I do have a PayPal now and we can work payments if you need to.

This year (after including other current orders) I have room to start designing and settling on yarn:

• 1 Doctor Who scarf.  Full sized, or reduced, this one is the good yarn that is incredibly close to color but a bit more expensive.  Please see the Note, Product list, for pricing.
• 2 twin sized afghans
• 1 coat (I only have time left to work one right now, this might change, I'll update this note if I can take more orders)
• 12 Ma Cobb hats
• 6 dolls
• 12 baby afghans and hats
• 6 shawls
• Tote and Messenger bags - 4, Purses, sized neck to small - 10

I do not have room to take orders on the following:

• full, queen, King sized afghans

 Thank you kindly for being one of my clients, and I'm looking forward to hearing from you!"

You can still find me on Etsy - Jade Rose Zen until December 14th.  That's the last day I can ship things and (hopefully) still get them to folks on time.  After that I'm not having an open shop on Etsy.  I won't be uploading anything new there.

Now on Zibbet- Jade Rose Zen I am open there now, and will be for hopefully several years.  There is new inventory up there and will continue to uploaded through out the season.  On November 16th, the custom order option will be coming down until January 14th.  Between December 14th and January 14th... I'm taking a VACATION!

Has the search concluded?

By the Lady of Avalon, that took a while to find a new home.

But I think I have found it.

A site called Zibbet.

It took a while to get to going as I was going through the other sites.  I had been listing a test product on each of the sites, and the results on a couple of them were dismal to say the least.

However Zibbet... oh boy oh boy oh boy!

Pros:

1.  Does NOT take a portion of your sales.  NOPE, NONE, ZILCH! 
2. No listing fees.
3. Print receipts and export your transactions to offline sites.
4. You can make gift certificates specific to your store.
5. They can import your Etsy's listings over to Zibbet, and it's free to do so.

Cons:

1. The system they use is PayPal.  At this point though, I'm willing to forgive for that.

They around four different packages.

The Free Package has:

• No listing fees
• No transaction fees
• Sell up to ten items
• 1 picture per item
• Marketplace exposure.

Four dollars a month gets you the above plus:

• Up to 50 items
• 4 images per item
• More exposure on the marketplace
• Basic shop stats
• And a badge.  (I guess they're the same as like widgets or hot links???)

Then the Eight dollars a month gets the last two packages PLUS:

• Unlimited Items
• 8 images per item
• The most marketplace exposure
• Advanced shop stats
• Create coupons, gift certificates
• Discount feature

They have four main categories:

1. Handmade
2. Fine Arts
3. Vintage (20 years min)
4. Craft Supplies.

You can down or upgrade your shop package at any time.  Cancel, no-questions asked.

Has Jade Rose Zen made the move over to Zibbet?  Not fully yet.  December 14th of ths year will be my last day on Etsy.  After that, it'll be Zibbit, along with Storenvy and either I'll get it figured out how to do a storefront on Blogger or will be building a new website.

Storenvy update:
Now I mentioned in the last article that Storenvy had an option to integrate with your facebook page so that folks could go through Facebook and buy from you (no fee for using the facebook app).  HOWEVER, you have to pay five dollars a month to Storenvy for the subdomain through them...and THEN on top of that, pay whatever domain hoster you want to use for the domain name.    That was a major let down.

aftcra update:
One of the reasons I was having problems with their site was because they were updating to a brand site, with improved security, etc.  I do not have any more updates about them as of yet.

The Search for a New shop home continues....

So today I'm looking over the site known as Storenvy.

Now I had gone and checked out StorEnvy before, but it was as a passing thing, as I was still enjoying decent sales on Etsy. (PTUI!)

So joining all of these sites is free... it's just when you start wanting to list stuff that the details get... hinky.  So here we go into Storenvy!

Right off the bat with Storenvy, one of the first things you see is that there is a notice basically telling you can mark your shop open or closed.  (Hello editing listings just made easier!)

Pros:

1. You can export your orders from your shop to an offline source.
2. Creating a sale listing - choosing a category is much easier than on Etsy. You can tag a listing as on-sale or as a pre-order. On the tags though, you only get 55 characters. 
3. Uploading images: The limit is 5 here, and the size limit is 3 MB.  Instead that annoying this many pixels by this many pixels.
4. There's even a coming soon feature under listing creation.
5. You can customize your shops look more easily instead of the blanket everyone looks the same look of Etsy.
6. You link back to up to six other sites that you own or work off of under the Store Profile Tab.  (Probably best not to link back to Etsy, eh?)
7. Shipping rates are calculated for you!  (Whew, no more guess work!!)
8. You get a facebook app... and it's FREE!

Cons:

1. Their only payment system seems to be PayPal, and no news cropped up of considering other ways of paying.
2. If you want your own domain via them, it's 5 bucks a month.
3. You can't import your listings via any files. (And if there is... I haven't found it yet.)

When it comes to fees, there aren't really any that I've been able to find.  Outside of fees from Paypal, Storenvy is much cheaper than most alternatives that Etsy.

And that is Storenvy. There's a bit more customization, which means however complicated it gets is entirely up to you and it doesn't feel like you're pulling your own teeth when setting things up.

Damnit Etsy....

Every time, I hear someone say the economy is getting better my teeth and jaw start to hurt from clenching my jaw.  

Getting better my ass.

Here this week, was what we will call a metaphoric 2' x 4' from the universe.  We had been hardcore about getting the fuck out of California (Fuck this state and its policies.  Next person to tell me it's a great place to live will be told to fucking pony up and come live here for a year.  When you say no, you will be unequivocally told to Shut The Fuck Up.) but after basically getting our car stolen... I have zero willingness to even come back and visit!

They need to wipe the slate here.  Seriously.

As is such, I started digging into my Etsy store to try and see what all was going on with these damn keyword processes... and stumbled across something that made me sick to my stomach and explained why so many of my sellers and I were struggling on Etsy.

"How Etsy Changed the Rules..."

Now here's the thing, when they first announced this policy change last year, it didn't seem to make a difference right away.  It wasn't until this summer, that many crafters from all over the world on Etsy started really noticing.  Don't believe me?

Just go to Etsy, right now, and type in something in the search.  The first two dozen pages on average and store ads from "outside manufacturers".  If you want to find an actual shop, keep digging.  Some times it takes until page 36 to start finding the actual handmade stuff.

Then one of my good friends on Facebook has this article pop up on her feed:  Alternatives to Etsy .
(THANK YOU GODS!)  So I start digging into this alternatives.

First one I'm examining is Bonanza.  (And no, not the old TV show.)

First thing that struck me was they have an annual package... there is no free option for a store listing.

The most expensive is Titan Plan.  (Titan... really???) Breakdown of it is as follows:

1. $166.00 a year.  
2. 50,000 shop items spots.  (50k items?!)
3. Your items listed on Comparison Shopping Engines with 20 million + monthly shoppers.
4. Advertise to targeted Bonanza buyers during checkout
5. Account specialists review and optimize your booth
6. Live 1-on-1 tech support
7. Increases advertising page views and sales by around 3x, on 25 days per month
8. Exclude items from Ebay import by price or category; buyers can type personalized text into the item view; Your items can be promoted in site search results; Sell downloadable files like music or ebooks with unlimited listings.
9. "Magically" Item Image backgrounds 1k times a month.
10. Google Analytics: Track Visitor Behavior .....(Yeah, you just read that right.)

I could go on but I think you get the point.  Now their cheapest annual plan is of course the Gold Plan.

1. 17 dollars a year with a 30 day free trial.
2. 25,000 items per booth. (25k?! Who the hell has that kind of inventory that's a homemade crafter?  A family of 12?)
3. Everything else is identical to Etsy just about.

Now if you're a buyer, Bonanza looks great.  For sellers... best to have a decent income coming in already from a loyal customer base before becoming a seller on this site.

So which one is next?

Well let's look at aftcra.  American based crafters.  You can sell to the whole world, but if you're a crafter, you to live in the United States to sell on their site.  It's free to list, free to join, there's no annual or monthly fees.  However, they do take 7% commission out of each sale and your only option for money transactions is PayPal.  (oye)

It's an American run company, right out of Minnesota.  However, I am currently not going to say much more about them.  I got two listings to upload with no problem... then the create listing page just went down the toilet.  To save myself time, I tend to type of up item descriptions and measurements in Notepad whenever I complete a project and then upload listings twice a month, copy and pasting.  So either their site doesn't like copy and pasting or they have a create listing limit, which is not discussed at any point in any of their FAQs. I did fire off any email, so next round of seller site reviews I should have an update about them.

That's all the ones I'm talking about today.  I have at least two more that I'm going to be digging into.

So, back to what I was talking about at the beginning of this.

For a long time, Etsy for many folks like myself was our only source of making ends meet and many folks even managed to pay the rent.  Now that we're dealing with this, with Google search pulling shit with the keywords... well, this year has been a bad year.  For many, it's turned surviving to... well... not.

Why would Etsy do something like this?  To please their shareholders, who in their eyes, are not the 1 million shops on their site, that are paying .20 cents for each listing and renewal and 3.5% commission. 

Is it time for the Evelyn to the throw in the towel on Etsy?

Not yet.  I'll keep it maintained, but you bet your beer (or cider or wine) that I'll be either getting a new site somewhere else, or finally building my own website.  

Now pass one's of those beers... I need it.