#355 So Thirsty Puppy

#354 Root Vegetable Party

#353 We Are Monsters

#352 Crowd of Ducks, Inspecting

I’ve been having lots of printing problems recently – which is unusual, as my printers usually treat me very well – and finally realised that the trouble always occurs right after I’ve printed some recipe cards. The cards sometimes have slightly rough edges and I think they’re damaging the print head, or at least bumping into it so that it goes wrong for a while.

I haven’t found another suitable substrate for printing the recipe cards on, so I’ve discontinued them immediately. Usually when a product disappears I give a little bit of notice, but I’d really like to avoid any more issues with my printer, especially since it is relatively new. My apologies! (Outstanding orders with recipe cards in them are fine, of course, everything pending will be mailed later today.)

If you need a replacement source for recipe cards, may I recommend the beautiful ones available from boygirlparty in Squirrel/Bunny or Owl designs; or Wild Olive’s printable cards featuring Food Friends, Baking Ingredients or Baking Tools!

Life has been very busy lately. We nearly bought a house a couple of weeks ago, but the building inspection uncovered some structural problems we weren’t willing to take on. It was a lovely villa, with original polished floors and high ceilings and a claw-foot bath tub and a cute little garden, and I was quite sad when we had to let it go. Now we have an offer on another house, which is less of a “character home” but still quite charming, plus it is much bigger and has been recently refurbished. It’s actually more suitable for us than the first one, but we won’t know for at least another week if we have got it or not. I’m trying not to get too excited, but it’s hard to avoid starting to mentally arrange the furniture… plus, on top of all that, our apartment is being auctioned tomorrow! We’ve had lots of people through so I hope it sells! Ack! Nerves!

#351 Fishy Reef

I really love displays of colours – artist’s palettes, embroidery threads, eyeshadows, paint charts at the hardware store, websites like Colour Lovers – so I made a few palettes from some of my illustrations while I ate lunch today.

From Cosy Barnyard

From Wash ‘n’ Dry

From Orchard Snacktime

From Pencil Nibbler

From Burpy Bear

I didn’t realise how often I use “spring” colours until I saw these all together!

I’ve been getting a lot of enquiries about amigurumi lately, specifically queries about why I don’t make very many of them and requests for custom work.

Amigurumi is tricky business-wise because while I LOVE the process, it is extremely time-consuming. I feel a little uncomfortable talking about money, but to explain my position it’s important for you to know that after the cost of materials and Etsy/Paypal fees are taken from the sales price I make around $2/hour for the time I put into each piece. That’s okay when I’m just doing a little in front of TV each evening, which is how my amigurumi are currently made, but it means I really cannot afford to take time away from other aspects of Nut and Bee to work on them!

I’ve been hesitant in the past to take on custom requests because I feel that if I accept one project I must accept them all, to be fair to everyone, and then I wouldn’t have any pieces available for general sale. I’d hoped that making the update time known in advance would make it easier for buyers, but actually it just meant that the octopus sold even more quickly than usual, and I received more disappointed emails.

I’ve been thinking about this all day and the best plan I can come up with is:

1) Raise the amigurumi prices a little, so that I can afford to spend more time crocheting. From now on owls will be $30; jellyfish and ghostysquid $32; octopuses and acorns $34; and if I make more complex things (I’m working on a couple of new patterns!) they will be priced accordingly.

2) Accept one custom project per month. I can realistically complete two amigurumi per month without compromising my other work too much, so that will leave one for general sale. I’ll schedule requests in the order they are received, so if you make a “booking” I’ll be able to tell you in which month I can complete your piece.

I hope that sounds okay… it’s the best plan I’ve been able to come up with so far! If you’ve emailed me about amigurumi in the last couple of days I’ll be getting back to you this evening.

P.S. I’d be interested in hearing from other craftspeople how you handle these kinds of situations!

Now available are:
Aqua Octopus Amigurumi
Sunny Camel Letterset
Candy Pig Write-On Labels
Assorted Buttons/Magnets

Hope you enjoy!

I’ve had a few requests to give advance notification when I’m going to make amigurumi pieces available, as they are one of a kind and tend to be sold very quickly, and that seems reasonable to me! So, I will be doing a product update tomorrow with one new amigurumi creation, as well as new stationery and buttons/magnets.

It will be uploaded at:
4pm Monday in New Zealand
2pm Monday in Sydney
5am Monday in London
9pm Sunday in Los Angeles
… and you can use timeanddate.com to figure out the local time if you live elsewhere.

I haven’t tried to have an update online at a precise time before, so please bear with me if it’s not exactly on the hour, I’ll do my best. And I’m sorry I can’t pick a time that’s optimal for everyone – I’ll try and do each update at a different time of day in future. I hope that’s helpful for those of you who are keen on amigurumi :)