Tuesday, 25 August 2015

Musings and a Commission Hiatus



Update time!

I know a number of people have been waiting for me to reopen, however, my wrists are still not 100% and I don't know exactly what is causing the problem.

With that in mind, I've made the decision to close my custom shop for the rest of the year to give my hands time to heal properly, and to give myself the time to devote to other important things in my life.



In regards to sewing, I will not be stopping entirely, unless advised to do so again by my doctor, but I will be cutting down significantly. Instead of commissions, I will be doing some ready-made items and working on props and things for my own dolls. I will make an announcement here and on Instagram when I have things available, so check back from time to time in case something you want comes up.

I have a lot of plans for my dolls that have been put on hold for quite some time, so it will be nice to have a break to really dive in to some of them. :)

Hopefully a longer term hiatus will also give me the time to figure out if I can actually continue to take commissions without doing permanent damage to my health.

I hope everyone is doing well. We shall see what the next few months have in store. <3

Tuesday, 21 July 2015

Working, working...



Blah. -.-


I've had a number of emails recently asking when my shop will re-open and realized I never mentioned why it's taking so long here on my blog. Time to fix that!

The first thing is that I hand-sew everything I make. Because of all the work I put in preparing for Doll North, I ended up straining the tendons in both my wrists/arms. They're currently taking a VERY long time to heal, so all of my current orders are going super slow. I'm finally nearing the end (I hope), but it's still a while away.



The second thing is that I was really looking forward to working on my own projects for a little while after these orders were finished, before I started up again. With the current delay, I don't know if that's really feasible anymore, unless I stay closed for quite a bit longer. This is something I really don't want to do - but I also know how rough burn out can be and don't really want to go through that again.

Since there are days where I simply cannot sew at all, I've been working on some non-sewing personal projects and drafting new patterns on those days, but there is still a backlog of things I want to do. Mostly this consists of prototypes for new designs but also long-planned items for my own dolls. Since I can't sew, they're just getting further and further away as I concentrate on finishing orders. Unfortunately, this is squashing my ability to bring out new items like I'd planned.

Honestly, I'm not really sure how to deal with this without making myself crazy....

inEssence Creations - handmade alpaca wig
Alpaca Wig I made while I couldn't sew. :)




 




Finally, the third thing affecting when I reopen is that I've recently gotten engaged to my wonderful fiancé. So now I need to spend lots of time planning non-doll things. :)

All this said... I'm working very hard to get at least one new item done for a very soon release. Hopefully some people will like it. ^^ In the meantime, I'll keep plodding away at everything else and take things as they come. Crossing my fingers my wrists heal up properly soon!

Saturday, 30 May 2015

Leftover Doll North Stock



Good morning everyone!

Now that I've had a few days rest to tidy up and recoup from Doll North it's time to list the leftover stock. Please send me an email if you would like to purchase anything. I only have one of each thing listed and they are all first-come-first-served, but I do have more of most of the fabrics if you miss out on something you wanted.

Butterfly Cardigans: ($15 USD)
inEssence Creations - Minifee Halter Tank Dress and Butterfly Cardigan
Large Bust Halter Tank Dress in Fuchsia Rings
 and Butterfly Cardigan in Bright Aqua
Short, 3/4 Sleeve in Baby Pink
Short, 3/4 Sleeve in Electric Blue
Short, 3/4 Sleeve in Bright Aqua
Short, 3/4 Sleeve in Lavender
Short, Long Sleeve in Lilac

Halter Tank Tops: ($25 USD)
Small Bust* in Green Leaves Batik
Small Bust in Sakura
Large/Glamour/Full** Bust in Antique Rose
Large/Glamour/Full Bust in Amalia
Large/Glamour/Full in Navy Puffs

Halter Tank Dresses: ($28 USD)
Small Bust in Mellow Stripes
Large/Glamour/Full Bust in Fuchsia Rings (--->)
OOAK Large/Glamour/Full Bust in Butterfly Wish ($30 USD)

Spring Dresses: ($26 USD)
Small Bust in Daydream

Simple Skirts: ($23 USD)
Waist Style in HELLO!
Waist Style in Chrysanthemum
Waist Style in Annelisse
Waist Style in Sumomo Plum


* Small Bust Halter Tops/Dresses will also fit Large and Glamour bust, but are a bit more revealing.
** The Large Bust size fits all three of the bigger MNF busts, I don't have one in each size.

Friday, 29 May 2015

June Orders, New Fabric, Prices and Temporary Discontinuations






Hello everyone! First off, thank you for being so patient with me while I prepared for Doll North this year. <3 I know a few people have been waiting for my shop to open up again, so I wanted to post an update to let everyone know that I will be doing things a little bit differently going forward.





I want to thank you all for the overwhelming support the last few months, I never really expected to get so many orders! However, because I still hand-sew every item I make, it obviously takes up a lot of time. And while I love making things that people want, it also means I can't release new items as often as I would like. So when my shop opens again on Monday, there will be a limited number of order slots and once they are gone, I will be temporarily discontinuing a few things to make room for new items. Don't worry, they will come back in a few months once the new items have had a chance!

Affected items will be:

As some of you may have already noticed, I have also decided to raise my prices a little bit. It's not much, and I apologize in advance if these changes mess up anyone's plans, but hopefully the new stuff will make up for it. :)

In happier news~ While I was in Spain I picked up some beautiful knit fabrics that are perfect for cardigans, and to add to that, my mother and I spent the day in Toronto a few weeks ago, and I picked up even more! XD So, there are now 10 new colours to choose from and a restock of three that were running low (Chocolate, Black, and Turquoise). Cerise is a beautiful match for Little Bit and Sumomo Plum. ;) I hope you like them!



Tuesday, 26 May 2015

Doll North 2015 Wrap-Up

The last two weeks have been a complete whirlwind. Between preparing for Doll North, packing, attending, and all the clean up afterwards, I'm pretty exhausted. -.-;

Doll North 2015 - Masquerade - Minifee Chloe as Rose Tyler
Minifee Chloe as Rose Tyler

I didn't actually get to see much of Doll North this year, but I enjoyed the parts I did. There were a lot of nice entries in the Masquerade this year - I think my favourites were a tie between Rose Tyler and Snow White. I didn't end up staying long enough to know if either of them won anything, but I hope so.

Doll North 2015 - Magic Mirror Sinead
Magic Mirror Sinead
Saturday I was selling for basically the whole day, so I didn't get a real chance to browse the market, just a few glances here and there, but there was a huge selection.

My sales went well, but I do have some stuff left over, which I'll be posting on Saturday if anyone is interested. I wanted to so a special shout-out to midnightferret, who is just awesome, as well as the girl who bought on of my Bisou Ai dresses for her Obitsu 25. I didn't catch your name, you are the sweetest. <3

Soom, Loong Soul, Enchanted Doll Eyes, Batchix, and Nanyalin (Magic Mirror) were in attendance as well as a whole bunch of other awesome vendors. Off the top of my head - Milk+Honey, Eleanoranne, SteampetalHighPriestessIce, and Du-hast.

Doll North 2015 - Soom Glati Blossom of Earth Limited


Directly across from me were two girls who had some seriously high-quality stuff. I think it was seasaltt and blumen-lippe, but don't quote me on that. If I had boys I would have been all over it. Thankfully the one dress I was eyeing got snapped up pretty quick, so I bet it's gone to a really good home. :)

Soom had a bunch of Teenie Gems and a few of their big guys. They had a limited edition Glot and Glati pair that just killed me. I don't really like the YoSD size... but I was so sorely tempted. Those outfitsss. DX They also brought along a Doll North special Cutie Pie Beaver named Tinn designed specially for Canada. I didn't get any good photos of him, but it was such a sweet gesture!




Doll North 2015 - Cafe Zephyros Alphie
Cafe Zephyros Alphie

I think the highlight of the market for a lot of people was the Cafe Zephyros table. Run by the same man who came with Bluefairy in 2013, Cafe Zephyros had some ridiculously adorable little Alpaca Dolls that were a huge hit at Doll North.

For me, my favourite part of the weekend was meeting up with resinmuncher, blindflower, starsarerobots, and artemiselani for Minifee fun times. We kind of took over the Kinton Ramen set for a while and filled it with minis. XD

Doll North 2015 - Minifee Mir
opalescent_raven's Minifee Mir, Opal















Overall, I had fun, though I think I could have spent my time more wisely. I missed out on meeting a bunch of people - especially Cats10/micaeverywhere and her doll Kaine. Serious fail there on my part. DX

I don't know if I'll be back again next year, and probably not as a seller, but if I am, my top priority will be actually getting people's names. I met so many awesome people this year that I can't contact again because I never got their names. *sigh*

I hope everyone else had an awesome time at Doll North 2015 and I apologize if I seemed all over the place. ^^; <3