Back on Etsy

I have just posted a new item to my Etsy shop. I have decided to give Etsy another go after not making a sale on Folksy in 2 months.

Handmade Red Necklace

My current plan is to try and post to both sites for a period of around six months or so, maybe a year, and see which one has given me the most sales in that time.

I will do my best to promote each site equally, by posting on Twitter and Facebook, and the occasional blog post.

Easter.... yay.... *collapses with exhaustion*

Well, for saying that I have had 4 days off work for Easter, I can honestly say I feel worse than I did before we finished. I just feel so drained. I've been to church 3 times to sing in the choir (and managed to break my voice singing the descant for the final hymn), I went out to the pub with a few friends on Friday and felt dreadful all day on Saturday even though I didn't drink that much (well, 3 pints of cider, but I never felt anything more than tipsy all night....) and I've posted a few items on the Folksy shop to get it started.

Apart from a bit of housework that's all I've done. I haven't even got to sit in the garden because the weather has been a bit too chilly even though the sunshine is lovely.

And I'm exhausted. And I have a sore throat. And I have to go and supervise a rehearsal later.

At the moment I'm just holding on to the fact this time in 6 weeks, I will A) hopefully still be in bed, and B) I will no longer be directing a play.

Hell's Reality Show

I have recently been introduced to Hell’s Kitchen. The husband and I been working our way through one of the old American series on Netflix, and I have become addicted to the dreadful thing. Now we are watching this years series.

What boggles me is how on earth so many of the so-called ‘trained chefs’ are so incompetently awful at cooking. I mean, these people are all professional chefs who earn a living from cooking food for others, and yet in one of the episodes, one of the hopefuls continuously burned fish, another continuously turned out raw pork. Then we have the joys of seeing them leave hair in the food, dropping lamb on the floor and serving 'medium well done' steak swimming in a sea of its own juice. Dear Lord...

I’m not a cook, in fact I absolutely loathe cooking with a passion (I think it’s partly a confidence issue) but even I can cook when I have to (or when I graciously decide to cook something when the husband isn’t well and it’s either that or fish and chips....). I’ve been told I make a very nice pan fried salmon.

So, if I can cook when I have to (generally around once or twice a year if I can get away with it) then why can’t professionals who are supposed to cook 40+ meals every night??

This programme makes me even angrier than Don't Tell the Bride and The Apprentice.

Postal Service Rant

WARNING: This is a bit of rant. I don't want or expect any advise from anyone, I just want to vent some steam!


As an Etsy Seller, I have seen a few posts on the Etsy forums from people saying they have had customers complaining about high postal rates, and them saying there's nothing they can do about it, the postal rates are the postal rates. And that's true.

I completely sympathise with them. The Royal Mail has gone nuts just recently. The other week I sent out a ‘large letter’ for 90p, which was fine. This week I posted out a package that was only slightly bigger and only a few grams heavier. The only problem with the package was that it wouldn’t fit through the small letter slot – it was too tall by about half a cm, therefore I had to pay £3.00 postage for a small parcel! Insane.

What annoyed me was that I had already charged the young lady buying the item 90p for a small letter, and I didn’t have the heart to ask for the £2.10 back for the extra postage. I was worried I might lose the sale that way.

I have now had to go through all of my items and change the delivery cost on a couple of items because I can see the same thing happening again. My only other option to avoid losing money is to charge 90p postage for everything being posted around the UK, and put the item up for sale at £2 more than I would normally want to charge for the actual item. Either way, I might not sell the item either because it’s overpriced, or because people think the postage is too high.

I’m being stubborn and charging more for items I know will be parcels rather than letters. I’m not prepared to pay buyer’s postage just because Royal Mail are delusional and are overpricing small light items. I’d probably pay less postage on a lead brick if it fitted through the ‘large letter’ slot.... it’s not fair on anyone.

Royal mail are puddings!