Monday, October 30, 2006

New and improved website!

Finally finished the new layout on the site! It's nothing drastic, but each item now has its very own individual page, and the three category pages are now links to them, rather than packed full of all that information right there. Take a look and let me know what you think! I'm happy with it so far.

Two November shows lined up:
Sat-Sun 11/11-12 - Assumption Regional School Christmas Craft Fair, Pomona, NJ
Sat-Sun 11/18-19 - St. Stephen's School Annual Christmas Festival, Pennsauken, NJ

And definitely more to come. It's getting to be holiday season, so it's time to get in gear. And speaking of holidays, I am now offering free gift-wrapping on any purchases. Just make a note in the comment box at checkout which items you'd like wrapped, and you're good to go!

Just received a four pound package of beads on Friday, so I'm getting tons of new things made :) Lots of pictures to come, but here's one I made a few weeks ago and just photographed yesterday to hold you over:

Heart of November Bracelet

(click to see more information on its very own brand-new item page! :D )

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!@$%@$@

So I thought it was strange that I hadn't received a single email since the 6th. Not even a piece of spam. Not a word from at least four people that I'd been expecting to hear from. I let it go for a few days, thinking it must just have been a slow week. But when today came along, marking the fifth day since I'd received a new message, I started to get worried. So I sent a test email to the account to reassure myself that everything was fine.

Well, it wasn't. It bounced backed immediately, saying it was a permanent error: mailbox is full.

MAILBOX FULL! I am such an idiot. I must look just super to anybody who's tried to contact me this week. Like either A) a con-artist who up and cancelled her fly-by-night account to anyone who didn't read the mailerdaemon message fully and only saw the words "permanent error," or B) an unprofessional moron who doesn't deserve her own business to anyone who read closely enough to realize exactly why their message bounced back.

Or maybe I'll get lucky and they'll think, "Oh wow, her mailbox is full! She must be incredibly busy and popular to get so many messages! I'll just try again later and hopefully I'll be lucky enough to get through!"

Oh man. Actually, if I'm REALLY lucky, anyone who tried to reach me will just happen to read this and see for themselves exactly what happened. And if that just so happens to be the case....

Here's a message for you: I fail at life and I am truly sorry. Please forgive me, and I hope this little mishap does not tarnish your thoughts on my humble business, Deepshade Creations :( To make it up to you, and also to anyone who was kind enough to read all the way through this pathetic entry, please accept a discount code for 25% off any total purchase (any amount, sale items included). It will be valid until October 31st. Just enter the code BadStacie into the discount box at checkout.

And I promise it will work.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

On Westfield and Maple Shade craft shows.

Well, Maple Shade was today and Westfield was last Sunday. Today went pretty well. It was actually supposed to be yesterday, but we got rained out and weren't notified by phone like we were supposed to be until we'd already arrived.

"Hello, I'm calling to let you know that the Maple Shade Craft Show has been postponed until tomorrow due to rain."
"Yeah no kidding, set-up was scheduled to start an hour ago, and I just received this apparently insignificant piece of information from some cranky guy in a raincoat five minutes ago, but thanks for the heads up anyway, lady."

That reply was what went through my head anyway, the actual response was more like a "'Kay thanks!" Oh well. But anyway, despite the not so fuzzy first impression we got, it actually went fairly well. The weather was gorgeous, a total 180 from the gloom and doom we had Saturday, and while it wasn't incredibly busy, we still made enough sales for it to be worth it.

Now, Westfield on the other hand. Westfield last Sunday was AMAZING. Hands down the best show we've done yet. It started out horribly, with a rainy, foggy, dark drive up, but by the time we'd finished unloading and setting up, the sky had somehow become a beautiful clear blue with white clouds and plenty of sunshine. How that happened, I'll never know, but I'm thankful. It was awesome. And so was the actual event. It was PACKED, with both vendors and shoppers. And Westfield is such a cute little town, we had a lot of fun looking at all the shops, as well as the other booths, while we were there. Particularly a chocolate shop called Brummer's that I plan on driving up and visiting again for Christmas presents.

Here's a few pictures. This first one is what my display currently looks like. We kicked it up several notches for these last two shows with the autumn leaves around the edges, the gift wrap display, the framed signs, the two new earrings stands, and the wooden table with the flowers and candles. It looks SO much better than it did before those changes. I've never been fully satisfied with it before, but I'm happy to say that I finally am now.

Manning the booth with dad and boyfriend (click for full size).


These next two are things that we picked up in Maple Shade today. A jewelry box with handcarved wood ornaments on the lid, and a cute goldfish print, which will most likely be going in our kitchen. I LOVE picking up handmade things, it's such a breath of fresh air from shopping at places like Walmart or even the mall. I just wish the two artists had websites of their own that I could link these pictures to. (Though now that I think about it, I should mention that I got a really nice lotion and lip balm in Pitman from a crafter who goes by Frogtown Soap, and who hopefully won't mind me linking her!)




And that's all I've got for definite shows for now. Haddonfield ended up putting me on a waiting list, so I applied last minute for Autumn in Moorestown on the 14th instead, but haven't heard back yet. I haven't applied for anything past that. All of the big outdoor festivals are ending within the next couple of weeks, so I'll most likely just be doing small shows at local schools and churches until things pick up in the spring. I may also be doing Rice's Market outside of New Hope, PA. We'll see! And that's it for this enormous post!