A message in a bottle, of sorts...

Hello everyone,

First I'd like to offer my deepest apologies for not keeping my word. I am so sorry for not keeping everything updated, and not getting the shop open on time, I am sorry for the continued delays and the long periods of silence. I want you all to know that I have not been ignoring you, I simply haven't had any time to myself. I'm taking 10 minutes to type this out to all of you so you know that this company has not been abandoned and that I am still here, and plan to be here for a long time. There have been several obstacles that I've had to overcome the last 5 months that have cut into my business drastically; some were planned, others came out of left field, but all had a serious impact on me personally and on The Chequered Lily Apothecary.

I have never had a problem dreaming big, and I had a million plans for this year. I was going to expand the business to artfire and possibly a dedicated website; I had planned to bring out a ton of new products this year and finish bringing out the core collection of eye shadows. I had 3-4 special collections that I had planned to release over the course of the year. I had also planned to expand the business out to craft shows and home demos. Unfortunately, my schedule outside of The Chequered Lily has gotten so full that I don't even have time to do dishes or laundry, which means that I haven't been able to work on anything for the business like I had hoped. Since my stress level has been through the roof for almost 5 months, my fibro myalgia (or whatever the hell is wrong with me) has been out of control and I have been in a lot of pain. Last month I kind of reached a breaking point and realized that something had to change and I needed to figure out what and do it fast. A week ago I made some very difficult decisions that I felt were best for me given my current and projected workload and what I was willing to concede in terms of my business. I am still trying to make adjustments and iron out wrinkles, but here's the plan as it stands thus far...

The Etsy shop will re-open when my work schedule slows down. I am expecting this to be in May. I still have a complete inventory to finish and a lot of cleaning and re-arranging to do before I begin formulating again. I will not be accepting requests for custom colors until further notice. I will not be releasing a spring or summer collection this year in hopes of focusing all my energies on the halloween/fall collection and and an unnamed collection due out late in the fall or early winter. I will not release any more charity collections this year, but I will continue to manufacture and sell the Domestic Violence collection and Breast Cancer Awareness collection, making donations at the end of the month to Futures Without Violence and Susan G Komen. I will have a few new products to release this year, but I still need to formulate them, so those will be announced later. I will also be bringing back a mini size for the eye shadows, but I still have to get labels made, so they will not be available until further notice. I will continue to work on the core collection of eye shadows, but only as time permits, I will give you lots of notice when new colors debut and hopefully I can work out a decent schedule on them.

I am sorry for any inconvenience that I may have caused any of you, but I am confident that things will be smoother going forward, and I thank you for your patience and support. <3

-Kim