#shop notes

I was prepared to feel a little threatened (lol I've never had great self esteem) but I can honestly say after seeing them that I stand by my own work with confidence. I really need to get back in the swing of posting the portraits! I counted recently; how many I had done, the ones I planned to go up vs which are already uploaded, and portraits I have on my to-do list... There's still a lot to come! I'm hoping to spend time this month editing some portraits (I want to add details to Shireen & Tyrion, for example) and actually painting them too as I'd initially intended to be doing.

Not sure if one of these already exists, but I made a google spreadsheet comparing different host sites for anyone considering setting up a shop/ selling art prints+products online.

It’s pretty rudimentary at the moment, especially since I only looked up the sites I’ve heard about relatively regularly. Also was intending on adding a section of outsourcing sites for people who want to maintain more hands-on shops but need a service for producing charms, buttons, stickers, etc. Eventually..

Help me fill it out? :

I didn’t feel like this deserved its own shop notes, so feel free to ignore. I’d’ve tagged this as shop notes, but I’ll have proper September notes and stock updates done up tomorrow.

First, I want to thank a lot of people who’ve messaged me over the past two weeks congratulating me on my acceptance to my masters program.

What I didn’t tell a lot of people was that my acceptance was congruent on passing a prerequisite exam; an exam I took this past Friday and failed. The program was nothing but supportive in allowing me to start on time as long as I completed that test with a passing score by the end of this month, but was very clear I could not continue with the program unless I had that prerequisite completed. I’ve been withdrawn from the masters program as of yesterday. I’ve chosen not to appeal the decision as the prerequisite is a state requirement for teacher certification and chances of winning an appeal are laughable and time consuming.

Second, I wanted to apologize if I sounded short or curt in communication in the past three weeks. Stress of starting orientation and then having this other deadline imposed on me, I realize my emails in response to inquiries were rather short and to the point and rereading some of them I come off as rather. Um, sarcastic? Probably not the right word, but I’m sorry if I made anyone feel like their business or patience wasn’t appreciated.

More arpakasso in the second hand store.

I’m not going to offer a pickup of these. Someone questioned the authenticity of the baby series I’ve sold in the past because it didn’t have the shiny sticker and I just don’t feel like dealing with people over babies or explaining I’ve never, ever sold a bootleg alpacasso or arpakasso.

Last week of July, I was super busy with pickups. On the same day, I picked up around 20 bags and Roos and Rabbits across 4 different Disney stores in the morning, mailed them shortly after collecting them, and then ran over to Tokyo Big Site for another pickup. I then had a work thing that night.

While exhausting, I forgot how much fun it is. Japan Post in Yokohama actually went very smoothly, much to my surprise; I was invited to sit down and enjoy an ice coffee and then told that I could go and come back later to pay at my convenience. Compared to the horror that was the week before, I was in shock.

For those who participated in the honey pot pickup, thank you for taking the time to mail me to tell me your items arrived. I’m so happy.

For those of you scratching your heads over the 7/24 shipping tracking numbers and what the INCOMPLETE meant, it should be fixed now. I had to go back to the origin post office and sign forms they should have had me sign on the day of shipping. I’m so angry they didn’t even bother to call me about it; I had to hear from someone who was worried about their alpacasso and then go in person almost a week later to find my packages still sitting in a crate for mailing, as no one bothered to call me. If your tracking still says incomplete, please let me know.

A big typhoon is coming Friday, so the most recent orders in the past week I’m trying to get out now and tomorrow to the post office. I cannot ship when there is a typhoon; your packages will get destroyed as I’m a fair walk/ride to the post office, and my breaks on my bike do not function properly in rain. I’m going big packages to small packages right now, so if you’re a small package, you might not get shipped until this thing blows over by Sunday. I will try to make as many trips as I can today, but I’m rather exhausted from this morning.

For those of you who asked about Louis, thank you. He’s doing much better, but it’s so hot and out of the other kittens, he’s not doing so well with the heat and he becomes dehydrated very quickly. At least with the typhoon, it’ll cool off this heatwave some. Lucky me doesn’t have AC and we’re experiencing average temps of 35degrees, feels like 41degrees.