Red White & Blue summer. . .

I am working on a new collection of jewelry for summer Fourth of July patriotically inspired Red White & Blue through and through.  

Literally I am making bracelets with red, white, and blue rings in every pattern I can make the ring sizes work with.  😇

I made the first 4 over the weekend.  I started with my favorite helms chain and then did a simple Celtic.  I moved to European 4-in-1 variant next, then did a 4-in-1 with mixed size rings.  I was a bit disappointed that I couldn't get the Aura pattern to work with the rings sizes. 😏  But there is still 4-in-1 in 2 sizes and then 6-in-1 probably mobius twist rope, maybe boxchain. 

Although, 9 patterns may be a bit much since I wanted to do matching earrings and possibly necklaces.  Not all patterns hang right in earrings though and I'm low on wire hooks.  Necklace lengths just take so long to make them so long.  🙂

Maybe it should just be bracelet and anklets.  I am also debating putting all the patterns in one listing, just make the single Red White&Blue collection listing and use variations with set pricing for the different patterns.   It's kind of the opposite of how I usually make multiple colors of the pattern and list by chain pattern but who knows maybe it will work better. 😏

go to the source . . .

I have seen others complain about Etsy's tracking being wrong, behind, not properly updated.  I didn't think much of it at first but I think it has gotten worse recently.  The last 3 packages that I shipped have showed "label created" on Etsy until the day they were delivered.  😆

So buyers on Etsy who go to Etsy and try to track their packages are given false and outdated information, making it appear that orders have not been shipped when they have.  

The order I mailed yesterday still shows "label created"on Etsy at 9:30 am even though actual USPS tracking shows it scanned into my local post office, scanned again hours later at the city sort facility and again "in transit".  USPS tracking shows it's expected delivery date is tomorrow and yet Etsy's tracking still just shows "label created".  😆

This cannot be good overall when customers think that sellers aren't shipping on time when we are.  The annoying part is that there is literally nothing I as a seller can do about Etsy's delayed updates.  I added blurb to my shipping policies that Etsy's info is often behind and recommending customers go straight to USPS.com for real time info.  BUT it's kind of buried and I'm not sure anyone will ever find it or read it, I am considering adding it to my "thank you" note section too.  

Would you as a buyer be bothered by tracking that doesn't update?  Would you blame the seller or Etsy or USPS?

Making a few adjustments. . .

I have noticed on my last 2 orders that Etsy has notified the buyer that it will be 5 days before I ship. 😆  I know for a fact that I set my "processing time" on all my listings as either 1-2 days or 1-3 days.  

The first time I noticed it I assumed Etsy added the extra days to my processing time because we were going into a weekend, which ok but not necessary. 

This week it did it again and it was at the beginning of the week so no weekend excuse this time.  It struck me as weird and I don't really like Etsy telling my customers that I will take a week to mail something that is a finished good and will most likely be mailed the next day.  

So I am going through my listings and double checking my processing times and making them all 1-2 days and hoping Etsy stops with the adding extra days just for fun.  

BIG NEWS !!!

OMG!?!  Etsy has finally launched "guest checkout" that means you no longer have to have an actual Etsy account to buy stuff there. 😇

This is super fantastic and totally amazing, I am super thrilled. When I found Etsy years ago I clearly recall being annoyed at having to create an account to purchase what I wanted.  I know for a fact that I have friends who would like to buy a wire tree but they didn't have Etsy accounts and didn't want to have to set up an account and remember another login.  So this is perfect!!

I knew they were working on it but I didn't want to say anything because I didn't know how long it would be before they actually launched or if they would actually launch after all these years. 😏

With the launch of Studio, the new shop manager, changing everyone to Etsy payments, the combined checkout, attributes upgrade, there has been a lot going on but I an so glad that "guest checkout" did not get lost in the shuffle.

So everyone should go browse and shop Etsy now.

It's a good thing. . .

I just love waking up to find fresh new orders. 😇

Although, it does sometimes make me a bit sad that I was sleeping and missed the cha-ching.  I mean the app's cha-ching sound is so cool, cute, fabulous to hear.  I know they are really training us all like Pavlov's dog but I always smile when it cha-chings.  

Also it makes me wonder sometimes what people are doing shopping at 2 am.  ~LOL~  But I guess some people do work nights or weird shifts so to them 2 am is not the middle of the night like it is to most people. 


RainbowMaille on Instagram  I've been working on building up an instagram following and I finally broke 100, which would be woo-hoo territory but everyone else seems to have several hundred if not thousands of followers.  😏  Not sure how the do that, but my pics do get likes and the occasional comment so it's genuine interactions at least.  I wonder how many of those that have tons of followers actually accrued them organically or if they did some of that pay to play, "get a 100 followers now" kind of things.  

Right now I have to go print an invoice and a postage label so I can get this latest order off to the post office.  

new trees. . .

I really like how this one turned out, blue and gold is not a normal color combo for me but I like it.  o:-)

I spent days trying to finish this next one.  From the time I laid it out until it was actually finished until it was photographed and listed this morning was nearly a week.  ~sigh~  I kept getting distracted by life's little disruptions, you know having to stop to fix dinner, weekend RV re-modeling, the usual.  ~LOL~

This one has beads in the roots and along the trunk, I've never tried that before and it definitely changes how I have to handle the trunk twists and makes it kind of hard to do the flattening.  However, I do like the way it looks finished so maybe Ill try it again. 

pluggin' away. . .

So while Etsy screws up one thing after another and shoots itself in the foot for the 3rd time in less than a year I will just ignore the mess and keep pluggin' away with my little shop.  

I don't actually shop there much so I didn't have a hundred items in my shopping cart when they screwed everyone with the combined checkout.  I feel for all those who have a ton of stuff in their carts, just like I understand the new layout makes it difficult to comparison shop.  However, Etsy doesn't care they wanted the pay for everything at once it's an integral part of the new "Studio" stupidity, could they have implemented it better of course, could it be improved of course. Will Etsy improve it? Probably not.  :-/  Can I do a darn thing about it?  Nope.

I know lots are upset by the "forced" acceptance of Etsy payments but as someone who always had direct checkout I don't care.

They are jacking around with search results, what's new.  Stats are wrong, like that's a big surprise.  The new shop manager is glitch-y, well of course it is, it's new and they are fucking around with live code.

I'm just going to making shiny pretty things and hope one day Etsy settles the fuck down and keeps their promises about guest checkout.