Addiction

Well, my brilliant idea of semi-vacation lasted about 24 hours. Then I got a look at my Google Analytics (web traffic reports) where I saw my visits plummet to just 25 visitors in one day, the lowest number in... well a loooong time!

Etsy is a little bit of a drug to me. It is such a thrill to sell an item, get some feedback or find that someone new has "hearted" me. Even getting a spike in my web traffic reports is exciting (wow, my life must be soooo boring!).

Yes. I'll admit it. My name is Molly Lee. And I'm addicted to Etsy.

I just couldn't bear the thought that people would not be able to find my shop, so over the last day or so, I relisted all my party invitations again.

So, back in business!

Featured!

I was featured today on the EtsyGreetings blog. Check it out!

DONE!

Done, done, done!

150 Italian wedding invitations, in two different languages. Done. Shipped out yesterday via FedEx to Italy.

!!!!!

I canNOT tell you what a huge relief this is! I have been INCREDIBLY stressed out during this process. I seriously couldn't sleep with all of this hanging over me. The customers have been great, however, I had promised that I would complete this order within two weeks of their final approval. When the approval process went on and on as we tweaked one thing, then another, I got more and more distressed. I have plans coming up soon (my mother is visiting me, the boys' ninth birthday is coming up the following week, etc) and having this hit me at that time would really throw all my plans into a tizzy.

Long story short, it all worked out in the end and I got the invitations into FedEx. I hate that the shipping alone is a good percentage of the total cost of the package, but c'est la vie!

In between, I sold two sets of jungle invitations (the second set is going out in the mail tomorrow!) -- I love those invitations, but, oddly, it took months for them to sell and then suddenly I sold several sets at once. 

I also sold a version of my beer-drinking card to a friend, Robin, for her husband's 50th birthday party. It's cute. The front says "Eric's Turning 50!" and as drinking Paul raises his glass, he says "Lock up.... your.... grandmas!" Robin laughed out loud when I showed it to her today. It's fun seeing people's reactions to these kinds of cards.

Okay, now I have another person on the verge of buying a package of circus invitations and I suddenly realized that I cannot handle another big order (at least after this one). 

On the other hand, I can't put my shop on vacation. I'm about to be featured on my etsygreetings team blog on Friday so I'll get a lot of traffic then. I can't waste that!

So I compromised and I put all my invitation packages on hold. No circus invitations. No spinning fish wheels. Not a single mermaid or princess to be found. Right now, the only cards available from my site are greeting cards. I can handle the onesie twosie sales, but nothing more right now.

Yeah, I know: papercraft burnout. Too many sales. Boo hoo, such a tough problem to have, but I think I'll feel more refreshed and eager to tackle things after I've had a little bit of a break. Between the cards and a full-time job, plus mothering two soon-to-be-nine years olds, I have had precious little down time in the last five or six months...

After my mom has been here and I've finished hosting the Lee family reunion bbq for 20+ people... we'll see.

A long, LONG weekend!

Our company had a furlough day (unpaid day off) on Friday (trying to get through a super tough year), so this Memorial Day weekend, I had a FOUR-DAY WEEKEND!

You might think I would spend it on endless picnicking, sunbathing, gardening and frolicking.

But, no. 

I faced 560 sheets of cardstock, which had to be printed, cut (even with a cutter, the cutting's the most tedious, time-consuming part, taking up hours upon hours) and assembled into mechanical wedding invitations. 

I show some of the steps, above. The larger photo shows some of the paper for the Italian version of these invitations at various stages of completion.

Underneath, a few of the steps, folding the back of the card (a bone folder is handy for this step), placing the wheel into position, and finally placing the front into position (after putting adhesive on the tabs).

The last step is the trickiest as you need to drop the front perfectly into place otherwise it won't pass my very strict quality inspection.

I had told my customer that I would need two weeks to complete this large order of 140 invitations, but after a REALLY long weekend (completely devoid of frolicking, mind you) (plus I forced my poor husband into forced paper slavery as well) I am all but completely done.

YAY!

This is what I'm working on ALL weekend long!

This is what I'll be working on this holiday weekend: I got approval to work on the Italian wedding invitations I blogged about earlier.

Whoo hoo!

I have to say that there were times that I did NOT think that this would happen. Naturally, the couple wanted everything absolutely perfect, so we've been going back and forth for weeks now, working out little details. 

We'd been on the verge of finalizing everything when I discovered that they also needed english versions of the invitations.

Last week, I finally told them, that given the timing of their wedding, the fact that we would have to allow for additional time to ship the invitations and some family obligations that I have coming up on some upcoming weekends (which I'd let them know about early on), that unless we had an approved design (for both versions) by the end of the week (to allow me to work on these this weekend) and payment completed, that it would simply not happen.

Thank goodness, this really focused our conversations and we had all the items done that I needed in order to get started yesterday.

Sooooo relieved! I was seriously getting very stressed out about this this week! These cards take a LOT of work to do (printing, CUTTING (even with a cutter, it takes a long time), assembling) and having 140 invitations hanging over my head ready to drop at an unspecified time was really affecting me adversely.

But I'm quite pleased with the results.

If you look at the images, above, you'll see that as you turn the wheel, little icons are displayed in the round window while details about the wedding are displayed in the other cutout.

Turning the invitation over, there is contact information for the bride and groom.

Now here's a REAL paper engineer!

Sometimes I please myself with a new mechanical card design. For a brief moment, I am quite overcome by my own cleverness and run around quite full of myself.

Then I run into REAL paper engineering artistry, like this:

Man, that is AMAZING!

The artist is Tim, from Cool4Cats -- check out his website for other videos of his amazing kits (which you can purchase!). 

Pop-up wedding invitation feedback

Some feedback from one of my

pop-up wedding invitation grooms:

"Hey Molly... I have to tell you that your invitations are just smashing! We have had nothing but RAVES about them. I have been telling everybody that it was you who did them and that they should look you up on line. Please be sure to send us some of your business cards. We can't begin to thank you enough or sing your praises from the rooftops!!! You are the best!! Thank you, thank you, thank you..."

Yay! Feedback like that can really make my day....