Autumn

Boo-hoo. I can’t believe Summer is over.  Sad, but true.  I have been busy preparing for the holiday craft show season.  I am so proud of myself.  I usually procrastinate until the last minute, don’t sleep for 2 days before an event and end up looking like a crazed strung out addict by the time I get there,  having subsisted on espresso for 48 hours, lol.  Bug eyed and bushy tailed, that would be me. Kinda scary. So, I have vowed to do better.  I  actually sat down and made 10 safety chains and 15 bracelet buddies yesterday.  Oh, and 3 new Fantasy chains, in different styles. I also ordered some hot new silver products, those should be here next week.    I restocked some old favorites, and I’m introducing some very unique beads set with stones.  Very Troll-esque.  Ok, ya’ll know I’m a Troll girl.  I love and adore all of my Pandora peeps out there, I really do!  But Pandora type silver is so easy to find.  It’s everywhere!  Troll, not so much.  You have no idea how difficult it has been to hunt down the selection of products I carry, lol.  I wish I had found a shop like mine when I first started my bracelet, I could have saved ….ok, we won’t even go there.   Well, that’s about it for now.  I am off to light my torch, and try and get into the Autumn color palette!

OMG!!! What happened???

Holy Cow!  Ok, I have checked, re-checked and checked again.  The re-sellers are GONE on Etsy in the glass category.  So, let’s go back a minute, and I’ll start from the top.  I have gotten e-mail after e-mail from some very sweet people saying how much they’d like it if I’d put my beads back on Etsy, because they like it there, they are used to and familiar with it and I understand.  I miss it.  It’s familiar to me, I feel like I ran away from home.  So, after my week long adventure of opening shops on ArtFire, Bonanza and missing my little comfortable shop on Etsy, I woke up and realized, it’s the people who shop on Etsy that are important, not all the BS, and I missed them terribly.  So I started listing a few beads again tonight.  I figured I had ruined my place in “search” after deleting all my listings, so I went and checked.  And the first thing I saw was one of my beads on the first page of relevancy.  Made me feel so amazing, I can’t tell you.  But then I noticed something else.  The bane of my existence, my biggest bone with Etsy has always been competing with 3.99 re-seller beads.  There were hundreds of them.  THEY ARE GONE.  Kinda ironic, I leave, and Etsy finally boots them.  Who cares, the important thing is that Etsy looks great again.  Like it should-handmade stuff as far as the eye can see!!!!  How awesome is that???!!!  Now I am gonna go light my torch for the first time in a week!!!!

Almost Show Time, Ho-Ho(ho)

I keep forgetting to update this detail, lol! Ok, so far, I know I am booked October 15th, 2011 at the Indian River High School Craft Bazaar and November 12th,2011, Fall Craft show sponsored by The Pilot Club of Chesapeake held at Prince of Peace Catholic Church. I will be attending both shows with a fellow Artisan, Danielle, from Bent&Twisted. She does amazing wire work, she’s oh so talented!!!
Update on ArtFire: It’s slower going than I expected. The main reason is: Corrupted CSV files from Etsy. Nice. What should be a relatively easy process is a real trial at this point. Strange titles attached to beads I’ve never seen before. Guess I shouldn’t list those, lol. And to set the record straight: I have been asked by several curious people “What I did to get my Paypal account shutdown”. Ok, my Paypal account is not shutdown, closed or inactive. I made a choice to not use them. If any returns need to be made, they can be processed right back the same way you payed! No Fear, Peeps! I am not insolvent, by any means. I am trying to take a conscientious stand against a huge company that has absolutely no customer service or respect for an individual. My 14 year old child’s exact words keep ringing in my ears”OMG Mom, you can’t use the internet without Paypal”. I view that 2 ways; 1 is that Paypal is so dominant, that the younger generation thinks they are the ONLY way, and 2, how is that going to effect people as consumers eventually? I think in a not so good way, because it leaves us with no options AND is most likely the reason behind the lack of customer care. Quite frankly, they have been fine for me as a purchaser. No real issues, I suppose because I didn’t have any to address. As a seller, I found them extremely scary. Now that I am calm and more composed, I will explain. I had some questions last week and I called in. After almost 2 hours and 4 transfers, I finally got a “supervisor”. She gave 2 distinct answers to one question. Here is the final outcome: Paypal can, at any time, access ANY account you may have used in conjunction with your Paypal account, even if you have removed it from your account profile. So, let me put this in easy terms. 5 years ago, before I sold anything online, I made a very large purchase, and wanted to fund it straight from my bank account. I added the account, bought my item, payment cleared and I removed my bank account. Now, years later, as a seller, I have a bank account strictly for business purposes, which I have linked to Paypal, so they always feel they have access to my funds. Come to find out, they feel they have access to my primary account, even though I used it years ago, deleted it and really feel as though they have no right to ever touch that again. That doesn’t seem kosher. Read the Terms of Service for yourself. Now, the chances of that effecting me are slim to none. But the fact that it’s possible makes me nauseous. God forbid an error occurs, and they decide to withdraw funds and I bounce my mortgage payment.It’s just not really ethical, in my eyes. And the ease with which I was able to get a straight answer to that question showed me I would have a long wait in Hell to get resolution should I ever experience an issue. Paypal or PayMob?

Hello ArtFire!

I am very happy to have started restocking my Artfire shop again.  I am now able to process Visa, Mastercard, Discover and American Express with a convenient, no hassle shopping cart at The Glass Attic on Artfire.   They are also integrated with payments from Amazon.  I will explore that very soon so I may offer yet another option for customers to choose from.  Artfire is wonderful for the consumer, you don’t have to sign up, join, do anything at all to shop there.  Just find things you like and purchase, no strings attached.  Being that the glass is my hobby and I own and operate a very busy pet grooming business, transferring everything to Artfire from Etsy may not happen as quickly as I’d like it to.  If there is anything you see that has not been moved over, please just contact me by leaving a message here , email theglassattic@cox.net, my studio on Artfire or hey, if they haven’t booted me off and shut my shop down, convo me on regr Etsy.  And most of all, thank you so much to the 4 determined customers who purchased today and payed by check before I had Propay up and running!

No More PayPal!!!

Why? Paypal is dishonest, to say the least. It has come to my attention that they have serious issues with integrity and are involved in several class-action lawsuits. In order to protect myself and the people wishing to purchase my products, I am going to start using a different payment method. Upon starting this endeavor, even more alarming info has surfaced regarding Paypal. They have contracted sites, Etsy being one of them, and have a “no-compete clause” making it difficult to use any other payment method. That, in and of itself, disgusts me. People should be able to use the payment method of their choice, not one made by force. Etsy has diminished even further in my opinion by this behind the scenes partnership with Paypal, who is one and the same with Ebay. There is little left to the imagination as to why every cheap chinese junk shop on Ebay has migrated to Etsy, despite it’s claims of being a “handmade marketplace”. I guess they don’t care if it was the hand of a starving 7 year old child in a sweat-shop putting the handmade touch on a machine made toxic product. So, there you have it. I believe I will re-open my Artfire shop and be done with Etsy, as well.
There is a whole website on Etsy for people that hate them. Regretsy, and I’m a fullfledged member!!!! It’s fun to hate them and use them for traffic at the same time. See it on Etsy and buy it on Artfire. HMMMM….