I'm a wife, stay-at-home mom, crafter, and blogger living in rural New England. As seen in Martha Stewart Living, Food Network Magazine, and more! | Tutorials, DIY, crafts, parenting tips, recipes, money saving tips, product reviews, local product features, New England living, intentional living, and more! |
Now through Tuesday November 30th, take 10-20% off everything in our Etsy Shop, no coupon code needed! At the moment we have a variety of great vintage finds, handmade ornaments, our new New England Lakeside Baseball Cap, and more! Quantities are limited and many of the vintage items are one-of-a-kind, so I recommend shopping early if you’ve had your eye on something.
If you’ve been following my Etsy Shop for awhile, you may have noticed I increased the pricing for most of my Handmade Ornaments this season compared to 2019 (I kept my Etsy Shop closed for most of 2020 due to the pandemic, and just focused on wholesale orders that year). In order to be transparent, I have increased my prices approximately 30% across the board for my handmade ornaments for 3 main reasons:
Getting paid for my time. These ornaments are simple and rustic but they do take a lot of time and effort… sourcing the wood from family and friends, cutting and slow drying the rounds so they don’t crack, creating the design and wood burning it by hand, drilling and stringing them, stamping and packaging them, etc - once I get the long logs in our garage I do the rest of the work solo. Last year I realized I was getting too stressed out about the amount of work and didn’t feel as though I was getting paid for the time I put in.
Postage costs. Postage costs have gone up considerably and no one likes to pay for it. In my Etsy shop I generally under-charge for shipping in order to not put off buyers, and orders over $35 always ship for free. Because of this I loose quite a bit of money on shipping costs on most orders and therefore need to charge a bit more for the items to make up for it.
Etsy fees. Etsy is wonderful for exposure and traffic which is why I’m still with them, but all their fees and listing charges add up fast and I need to account for those when pricing my items.
I just wanted to thank you all for the support and purchases you’ve made. I know these price increases aren’t easy and I likely won’t sell as many ornaments this year but I know it was needed in the long run in order to keep my Etsy shop profitable. I hope you can catch one of the sales we’re planning over the holiday season - the next one being a Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale that will run for several days straight. Keep an eye on Instagram and Facebook for more updates when that sale happens!
We have some NEW Ornament designs - introducing the Lobster and the Anchor! Huge thank you to Wiglesworth’s Mercantile in Portsmouth, NH for the push to make these happen. At the moment, Wiglesworth’s is the only place you will find these designs so definitely check them out soon on their website or in person.
I wish this was some kind of belated April Fools joke, but it sadly isn’t… I fell down the garage stairs a few days ago, breaking my foot and bruising myself up pretty good.
I will spare you the x-rays, haha.
Initially I had planned to reopen my Etsy shop later this month after getting vaccinated - up until this point in the pandemic I didn’t feel comfortable risking all the extra trips to the post office or going out buying supplies, so for the past year I’ve just done wholesale orders to keep things simple and minimize my errands. I was looking forward to reopening the Etsy shop and offering my hand-etched birch ornaments and vintage finds again, but that will now have to wait a little longer as I am currently unable to drive, stand at my saw, or put sufficient pressure on the wood burning tool for hours at a time.
I’m looking forward to healing up (hopefully soon!) so I can finally reopen the shop after this year-long hiatus. Stay tuned for more info, and in the meantime feel free to check out our items locally at one of our Stockists.
So excited to have some of my custom ornaments heading down to ACK 4170, a beautiful gift shop located on the island of Nantucket! They are currently closed for the winter, but in the meantime you can shop their store online and then in-person again when they reopen for the season in April.
I wish I could mail myself down there with the ornaments - I haven’t been to Nantucket (yet) but have always wanted to visit!
I’ve had some inquiries about my Etsy Shop this season. Due to the uncertainties regarding Covid over the next few months likely affecting my ability to get materials and go to the post office regularly, I’ve decided to keep my Etsy shop closed for the time being.
However, some of my Stockists will still continue to carry my ornaments during this time, in particular Wiglesworth's Mercantile in Portsmouth and Wolfeboro Candle Company should be well stocked at the moment.
Like everyone else I’m looking forward to a hopefully healthier, more normal spring and will reopen my Etsy shop once it’s practical. Thank you so much for your understanding and stay well!
Wolfeboro Candle Company has put together some wonderfully curated Gift Boxes for the holiday season. These are full of great New England-made products and I am so honored to have my Hand-Etched Birch Snowflake Ornaments included among them.
Wiglesworth’s Mercantile is a brand new shop coming to Portsmouth’s Market Street next month and I am so excited to share that they’ll be carrying some of our ornaments and other small crafts! The owner Anne has a great vision of making it a place catered to carrying locally-made New England products. (You know how much I love local products, and I can’t wait to visit this wonderfully curated store once it’s open!)