So here's a quick and craptastic preview of just one good thing coming down the pipeline. I'm upgrading my branding and this is the first bit of it and they are looooong over due: business cards! ^_^ The reverse of these is even more stunning, since it involves a rewards program that I'll be implementing later this summer. I'm getting ever closer to a re-launch on Etsy, it's down to filling the last few jars and checking all my listings for accuracy. Samples are also nearly done, and I only have a handful of colors to remake before opening. I was scheduled to be out of town this week and next, but that fell through, so to make the best use of this time, I'll be trying to tie up all of these loose ends and push forward with this last bit of work. There will be a hell of a sale on the Etsy site (and I will give you all plenty of notice before it starts), but many quantities will be limited. I'll be listing some odds and ends that I'll not be using as well, mostly containers for anyone interested, and they will be deeply discounted. I'll post more about this later, when I have time and photos of the inventory. See you all soon! ^_~

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

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! ^_^