Weekly update. . .Happy New Year

Well, we are just days away from 2025 so Happy New Year. 😏 

I'm not all that happy this morning, but that's just because I'm really tired. We are doing some light renovations and repainting and such before we move, things are going great the new faucet for the master bath arrived yesterday 😁 when the new sink/countertop comes next week that will be one room finished. We already painted walls and ceiling, changed the light fixture, and finished the new linen cabinet. 

The first POD has arrived, so it's time to pack up the garages and start sorting the boxes for house stuff. I started in the guest room sorting excess linens, emptied a dresser I plan to give to a friend instead of moving.  

It had a couple of broken handles, so I bought some new ones and did a little rearranging. I'm really happy with how it looks. 😇 

Taking a serious look around the house and realizing that I unpacked too much. I really did think this would be a more long-term thing, kind of regretting getting so comfortable. 😔

Weekly update. . .Merry Christmas

This Christmas may be the least christmas-y I've felt/been in years, since that time my Gran passed and we had a funeral in the snow. 😔

I will be deactivating all listings and making the shop(s) inactive, for those that have followed RainbowMaille for a while you may suspect what I'm about to write. . .. My husband is changing jobs, and we are once again moving many states distance. 😏 So I will shut down temporarily while everything goes into PODS for the transition. I am not "closing" my business just relocating, again. However, PODS start arriving the 27th and cycle thru January, I haven't picked a rental or place to land yet, so I don't know how long it will be before RainbowMaille is fully re-opened. I am aiming for March, but I have to find a place, move, then reregister with the new state, so it will be a couple of months at least.

There is a small silver lining to moving over New Year, you don't have to do the part-year residence multiple-states tax return. 😏 Yes, I am clinging to any little plus I can find, since cross-country moving is such a stressful and exhausting process, if you've never done it personally just trust me, I've done it multiple times. 

Since I won't be creating or making anything, there likely won't be much social media, but I hope to still be around Maker Circle and the fb group some. 😇 I will still do the weekly updates, but they will likely be shorter without new creations or events to talk about. 

Weekly update. . . well, wow

I know the title doesn't say much and may be confusing for a lot of people, I wish I could explain but I'll have to wait because the big news cannot be publicly announced until I at least tell my Momma. 😉  

I got a lovely pair of reviews on etsy the other day from a repeat buyer who is now 3 bracelets into the rubber collection. 

And I quite agree with her, those stretchy bracelets when sized right are so light and comfortable that you can forget you are wearing them. 😎 I do love five-star reviews, although let's be real the majority of people do not leave reviews, seriously the average is less than 20% of orders. So, when a buyer takes the time to write one it's great and when they include a photo of them wearing their new shiny, it's truly special.  😇 

I will be busy and not on social media much for a while, but I will continue to at least do the "weekly update". 😉

Weekly update. . .the morning after

So, the Mistletoe Market was yesterday and yes it was very cold at setup, although not really for me because when you are alone and unloading a booth's worth of stuff and hauling distance from the vehicle to set up by yourself you can work up quite a sweat. 😏 

Overall, it was a decent day, it warmed up quick and after a bit of a slow start there did seem to be a decent crowd. Unfortunately, my booth was at the very end and I saw many people not even walk all the way down before turning around meaning me and the other vendors next to me didn't get the traffic that the central booths got. 😔 Watching people barely glance in your direction and turn around 20-30 feet away is disheartening. That's not to say that my booth didn't have visitors, I had some lovely chats and a few sales. I also had a couple of challenging moments, one was a lady who looking at my chainmaille dragons said something like "I've seen a lot of these cheaper" of course in reality she has never seen a Chainmaille dragon she was comparing them to 3D printed plastic, not that it mattered because she wasn't at all interested in my booth or anything in it she just wanted to cut thru my booth to exit the event space. 😕

This "passing thru" happened more than once, at least most people asked and in the cases of the elderly on scooters and with canes who couldn't make the step up the high curb to the sidewalk I didn't mind, but that doesn't count as real traffic.  

In unrelated news I've decided I'm done with Michaels "makerplace". I gave it a year plus and I've not been happy with several things, there have been tech issues not surprising happens everywhere but with Michaels money and staff some things that should have been easy have taken a year or longer, and some things have just been ignored. However, my decision to cut ties is based on their practice of constantly having sales. I've had RainbowMaille for many years and early on I tried having "Black Friday" and other big sales and it never worked. I've offered discounts and joined etsy's "site wide" sales in the past but etsy's were voluntary you had to agree to participate you set your discount, Michaels just puts sales on your listings that they fund and you have NO say in. I've been told by other sellers to not complain because after all "Michaels is paying the discount you still get your money" but for me that is beside the point. I posted a lengthy FB post on the business page about how my handmade business cannot do 50% off and days later Michaels put a 50% off promo banner on all my jewelry listings for its' sale. 😐 I deactivated every listing that had a red sale showing, other sellers are all like "I wished I had known I would have promoted it" while I'm like I wish I had known and could have opted-out of it.  

Indulge me a moment while I explain why I dislike the constant sale concept . . .Back in the day I loved my Bed, Bath and Beyond coupons, there once was a craft store called A.C. Moore that had a similar constant sale/coupon system, both have gone bankrupt. Michaels, JoAnns and Hobby Lobby have fallen in the pit of constant large discounts, massive continuous email spam campaigns, not only does it personally turn me off as a shopper it makes me wonder how long they will last. Now consider Michaels has already been sued over this questionable business practice, they settled one years ago that cost them 1.8mil, there is another lawsuit active, I had hoped that "makerplace" would be independent of Michaels and not do these things but here we are. 😐 I have deactivated all my listings, but I am hesitant to delete my shop because I don't want anyone else to use my name. I know on etsy once a shop name has been used it cannot be used again, but I do not know if makerplace has the same limit in place.  

I'm not upset about it, I didn't really need a 3rd platform. 😅 Not every platform is a good fit for everyone that is why there are so many to choose from.😉 I don't sell on Amazon or ebay either, no big deal. 

Weekly update. . .it's December

Well, it's December, this year has flown by and it's hard to believe it's almost over already. 😦 I have one event left for this year, hoping it will be a good one and hoping the weather gets better because it's an outdoor event and currently it's actually cold outside. 😏

I am working on refilling the Christmas color HP 3-in-1 display, along with restocking a few other things before Saturday. 

In annoying news goimagine has been under spam bot attacks. So, if you are a fellow seller just know: Goimagine's message center system is designed to let shoppers contact shops, because goimagine is a public marketplace anyone can create an account and message a seller. These spammers are using the "contact" button on your shop they do not have your email or phone number. The notifications are real the message is spam. 

Goimagine site support will NEVER use the message center to contact you, why would they, they have your email.

Goimagine does not process payments, if there was ever anything wrong with your shop's ability to process payments you would need to log into Stripe (the payment processor) and they will never message you in goimagine's message center because they have your email.

When you get an email notification it says, "a customer on goimagine has messaged you" in the subject line, the email says "You have a new message sent to you in goimagine." When you get the text notification (if you are signed up for them) it says "You received a new message through goimagine". None of them say the message is *From* goimagine, so never click any links inside message center messages that claim to be from "support".

Actually, just don't click unknown links, even if you receive an email from stripe or paypal or whoever do not click the link just go log directly into the site. If you do click one of these links and end up on a page asking for personal/financial info even if you do not enter info you should still run some anti-virus, anti-spyware checks, because the link itself may have some tracking or logging attached. 

It's scammer season, they ramp up in volume this time of year because they want to catch people not paying attention, they know we are distracted with holidays, family, travel, events, etc. so they try to take advantage and use fear tactics "threatening" your business don't fall for it. I know it's annoying to get a notification and get your hopes up that it's a sale only to find spam. I know it's frustrating that they just keep coming no matter how many are deleted there is always another. 😒 Now just for a moment put yourself in the shoes of goimagine staff, continuously monitoring the message center, chasing and tracing all these bots/spammers IPs blocking and deleting as fast as they can, constantly bombarded with reports, trying to respond and assure sellers that they are on it, all the while message boards are blowing up with people saying they don't do enough. 😟 I think they are humans doing the best they can against bots that don't sleep. I also think we should all try a little patience and grace this holiday season for all our fellow humans. 😇