Internet Censorship (SOPA) and what it means to small business...

I've censored the following, in protest of a bill that gives any corporation and the US government the power to censor the internet--a bill that could pass THIS WEEK. To see the uncensored text, and to stop internet censorship, visit:
http://americancensorship.org/posts/35537/uncensor


████ ████ ██████ you? It ███████ me. ████ if all of our █████ ███████████ ██████████ ███████ we ██████ to a ███████████ █████ or bit of █████? ████ if you got ██████ up for 5 █████ for ███████ an ████████ ████? ████ if our ██████████ (my ████████, ████ ████████, ████ mom's ████████) ████ ████ ████ ███████ a ███████████ ███████ we ██████ a █████████ law? ████ if ████████, ██████, ███████, █████████, █████, and ███████ ███████████ ███████ due to █████████ ████████████ ████████? ██████ ████ ████ ███████, █████████-████████ bit of ███████, █████'t it? It's not, it's ████, and ██████ we do █████████ █████ it, it ████ ████ in 12 ████ and ████ █████ ██████ our ███████. ████ me in █████ █████████ █████ it by ████████ ██████████████████.org and ██████ ████ in as ████ ██████ as you can. █████ you in ███████ for ██████████ ███████ and ██████████ the █████ █████████. ^_^



All that looks a fright, doesn't it? We could be in for a lot worse if this bill passes. Please go to americancensorship.org and help stop this bill from passing. And please pass this info along, we need all the help we can get. Simply put, this bill puts ALL small business in extreme danger, especially creative businesses. For the love of Etsy, Artfire, Youtube, the entire Blogosphere, Google, Facebook, and any other site in danger of disappearing, please help us fight this.

To learn more, please visit: http://www.copyblogger.com/sopa/

Ladies & Gentlemen, we have a Blog...

Now what to do with it? I started thinking about a blog months ago, but never really got around to making decisions about hosts or content. Anyone who knows me can attest to my long and terrible struggle with decision-making, and this was really no exception. Since I have a google account already set up for the business side of things, it made the most sense to me to go with Blogger. It's not perfect, but it's a start. And more importantly, now that we have a blog, I have a place to put things that are too long-winded or photo-tastic for facebook. Also, now we have a place to house contests and giveaways and announce new things and changes. ^_^ I don't promise any regularity to the updates or posts here; I'm not good at committing to that sort of crazy-making scheduling, but I'll do my best to make sure each and every post is worth your time and mine. ^_~ So without any further delay, on with the show...

There are going to be LOTS of changes this year, and lots of new things too. Let me begin with the bad news, which is that prices are going to increase a little. After looking at the time it takes me to develop each color and each product, evaluate each product, and package each product (not to mention the cost of each listing and percentage of each sale), I've noticed that I'm not being very fair to myself in terms of my pricing. Also, I want to bring out a lot more products this year and to get everything developed, I am going to need more time for formulating, evaluating, and packaging all those new things. This means working less hours at my day job, so I need to make sure I'm bringing in enough to offset those lost hours. And lastly, I've been bringing in lots of new inventory for this year and there's still more to come. All that said, I still feel bad about raising my prices, so I've decided to bring out more size options for you, like 3 gram mini jars, which will be available beginning of February. We'll also be re-opening with a sale towards the end of January, so be on the lookout for that. ^_~

I'm not going to announce all the good stuff in one post, but I do want to say one last awesome thing before closing up this first post. Remember all those luscious reds and pinks on the discontinued list? They're coming back! ^_^ The only one I'm holding back is Pointsettia, but all the others will return quite soon, I should have them all back up by March. Yay!

Okay, that's it for tonight. My work schedule is crazy this month, so when I get all the inventory done and all the formulating and sorting and sampling and everything else done that needs to happen before re-opening, I'll let you know. In the meantime, if you need to get a hold of me, you can send me an Etsy convo or email me: thechequeredlily{at}gmail.com. Thank you all for making my first year as a business owner so awesome! Happy 2012 everyone! ^_^