When craft stores become a spot for too many premade items

I think for some crafters we are finding that the stores that were the spots where we would pick up supplies to make things have turned into places that sell mostly premade items. Where did the supplier of arts, crafts framing floral and home décor go? 

I agree that there are going to be items that a store might want to promote a premade item, but I should be able to find the supplies available in the store to make this item myself. If you are showing me floral arrangements or display pieces, I should be able to pick up the parts of this piece to make it work for me and not just accept that the display that is in the store is the only way that this item is to be sold.

It has become a challenge to find supplies to make different items because too many of the stores think that they can just sell the item and everyone is going to just purchase it. For me, when I look at a lot of the premade items in these crafts stores, I find that there are things that I would like to change in my version, be it colour or even some of the items that have been selected. When, I am in a store that says there are craft supplies, I should be able to find the supplies to make the item that they have on display with my variation to it.

One of the things that I have been finding when I got into the specific store that I am writing about is there are just too many premade items and not the supplies to make the items. If you are going to show me the premade items, please ensure that I can pick up the supplies to make this same idea my own. I might love the overall idea of the piece but the colours that you are showing me aren’t my colours, so I want to pick up the supplies and make that same my own.

For someone that is looking for items at Christmas that are teal, it is going to be a challenge to find something premade but if you can provide me with the pieces, I know that I can sit down and make something very similar. So next time you are in a craft store and see all the premade items, remember that there are a bunch of us that would like to be able to make a version of that same item but meeting our colour requirements.

Please, craft store understand that there are going to be individuals that want to just pick up the premade item that you are showing but then there are those of us that want to make that same item our way. I like seeing the various ideas that those stores show but I would really like the opportunity to make this item my own. Let me pick the colour or items that I want in my display because not everyone is doing to fit into a mould that you are trying to fill.

Your planner

A lot of us use a planner to stay organized and see that we are getting things achieved. I know for me I have found that the planner helps me know what needs to get done as well as what I have been able to get done.

Over the last couple of years, I haven’t been able to find a planner that I liked and was the size that worked well for me. So many of the planners don’t have a lot of space to write notes for each day which makes it difficult when you are managing both work and personal life. I decided last year to set up a calendar that I thought that would work on me and I found it did so once again this year I set it up and it has been working great.

Something that I have realized through having a planner is I need to have some fun in the planner as well otherwise I am just looking at boring pages each day and that doesn’t help at all. What I have found is if I can add some stickers to some of the pages it makes such a difference. I have a variety of stickers from quotes, birds, animals and even just some borders and that makes the planner a little more me.

I don’t add a lot of stickers to the pages, but it is fun when you can do it ahead of time so when you turn a page you may see something a little different. As you can see, I have one day on a page and that gives me space to make all the various notes that I need to make without feeling like I have to write too small to get everything in.

My current planner is using the ARC books (5.5x8.5inch) that were available at Staples, and it works for me and 2026 is two books so that I have the room to flip the pages and not feel too overwhelmed with the size of the planner. Sure, I probably could have made the planner thinner by using a bigger (8.5x11 inch) book and half a page per day, but this is a nice size for me, and it is something that is easy to take with me when I know I will need to make notes in it.

Being able to have some fun with your planner especially if you use a paper planner can help a lot. You can find stickers in a lot of places so just picking up a few different ones can make such a difference to your planner. Don’t be afraid to have fun with your planner because it is something that you will be using every day so enjoy it.

 

 

When "Your Better Half" should not be used

Recently I was in a store which I have frequented for a number of years with my husband and I heard something that I didn’t think was appropriate from one of the staff. Both of us were there at the event and we were not standing together so this one staff said to my husband where is “your other half” and his comment was she is upstairs and you have probably walked by her.

Well, this staff member came upstairs and finally probably after another 10 or minutes finally decided to see me and said to me oh, I saw “your better half” downstairs. This same staff member had walked by me quite a few times before even saying hi to me and I had tried repeatedly to at least get a hello to her, but she seemed to avoid any of this type of recognition. At one point she was within maybe three feet of me and still didn’t see me and there were other times she seemed to be looking in my direction but didn’t see me or just didn’t want to acknowledge that I was there.

Hearing the words “your better half” is extremely bad and the only time “better half” should be said is when it’s from your partner not from anyone outside of the relationship. When you, someone outside the relationship, are referring to someone as “your better half” you are degrading the person you are talking to. You are implying that the other person, is a better person and who you are talking to doesn’t matter. 

What bothered me so much about this comment was I was the main reason that we go to this store, not my husband and I have known this person longer than I have been in a relationship with my husband. Maybe, now what I am seeing is what she currently thinks of me and that is fine because she won’t be getting my business any longer. I am very thankful that she no longer owns the business, and I get along very well with the new owner.

When you are talking to someone that you know both sides of the relationship, please refer to the other person as your “other half” instead of “better half” because when you say better half, you are implying to the person that you are talking to that they aren’t equal to the other person in the relationship to you.

Taking some down time

For a small business owner, it can be a challenge to take some time off when you have clients that need your attention. Something that you must do is try and take some down time when the clients are taking their break. 

For us one of the challenges of working in IT is that most projects that involve working on servers are going to be completed during the business down time which means normally around the Christmas holidays. It is something that we understand and have been dealing with since we incorporated but it is nice when things work out and no client schedules server work during the holidays.

This last Christmas break we found out that all our clients were taking the week between Christmas and New Years off. All the clients were also not going back to work until January 5^th so that was a nice break. What this meant was we were able to have some downtime where, yes, we were available in case of an emergency, but we weren’t having to do the server projects that normally happen.

This past Christmas break was so different for us because it was time where we could do the little around the house projects that haven’t got done and we enjoying doing some of the things that are normally just done on weekends. It was different not having the normal routine for those 11 days, but it was nice as well. The weather wasn’t the best but at least we were able to do some of the other things that we wanted to do.

It felt different not having the server projects, but it was nice as well because it gave us time to stay home and do things that we wanted to do. Now we will see what this coming holiday season will be like, and we will just deal with it as it happens. Knowing that there are years when all clients need help over the holiday season and then times when it is just one or none is something that as a small business owner you have to deal with, and you must be flexible.

Making sure you take the down time when you can be important, and you have to enjoy it when it happens. It may be a little different than you first thoughts but knowing that you are only around for emergencies for a few days is so nice.

Patreon and YouTube Memberships

I am finding that more people are either setting up a Patron account or setting up YouTube Memberships for their YouTube channel. It can get extremely expensive if you were to have the various memberships because if you want some of the benefits.

If you were to join a bunch of YouTube memberships and then patron accounts, it could get very expensive quickly.

Here are some examples of YouTube memberships for people that have FlossTube channels

1. First one
1. $4.49/month CDN

                                                              i.      Benefits are you get a member shout-out on videos

                                                            ii.      Priority replies to comments

                                                          iii.      Loyalty badges next to your name

2. Second one
1. $1.99/month

                                                              i.      Weekly blog

                                                            ii.      Loyalty badges next to your name

                                                          iii.      Custom emoji to use in comments

2. $4.99/month

                                                              i.      All previous perks

                                                            ii.      Twice weekly Vlogs

3. $14.99/month

                                                              i.      All previous perks

                                                            ii.      Twice monthly live stitch with me sessions

                                                          iii.      Quarterly gift charts

 

One of these Flosstuber also have a patreon account so here is one of those with the costs of the patron account as well as a count of other patron accounts that doesn’t have a YouTube membership.

1. First one (also has YouTube membership)
1. $7.50 CA/month

                                                              i.      A day in the life – weekly vlogs, weekly blog post and discord access

2. $14.50 CA/month

                                                              i.      All previous tier benefits

                                                            ii.      Hang out live for filming of Live FlossTube

                                                          iii.      Quarter Patreon Gift chart

3. $22 CA/month

                                                              i.      All previous tier benefits

                                                            ii.      Monthly Zoom chat

4. $29 CA/month

                                                              i.      All previous tier benefits

                                                            ii.      Sneak peeks of upcoming designs

                                                          iii.      Monthly Gift chart

2. Second one
1. $10.50 CA/month

                                                              i.      Monthly PDF small chart

                                                            ii.      Sneak peek of upcoming designs

                                                          iii.      Access to patron only posts, vlogs, and updates

                                                          iv.      Participate in Polls

                                                            v.      5% off purchases on website

                                                          vi.      Early access to purchase fabric via Patreon store

2. $22 CA/Month

                                                              i.      All previous tier benefits

                                                            ii.      One large PDF chart

                                                          iii.      10% off purchases on website

                                                          iv.      Monthly stitch and chat

3. 57.50 CA/Month

                                                              i.      All previous tier benefits

                                                            ii.      2 Fat quarters of fabric send 4 times a year

                                                          iii.      15% off purchases on website

4. $208 CA/Month

                                                              i.      All previous tier benefits

                                                            ii.      20% off purchases on website

                                                          iii.      A yard on Hand dyed linen per month

3. Third one
1. $3.50 CA/month

                                                              i.      Exclusive content and more

What I am trying to show is that Patron memberships and YouTube memberships can cost quite a bit depending on what you want to receive each month as the benefit of being a member. If there are a few designers that you like their designs and you would like their month benefits it is going to cost you quite a bit on a monthly and you need to think about, are you getting the real value for the cost.

I recently received an email from someone that is now changing their Patron benefits and as soon as I looked at the benefits, I quickly said that I would stick with the free Patron membership that I have as the levels where just too much for what I saw as the benefits I would get. Being able to look at the cost and the benefits that you receive is very important because it can help you determine if being a YouTube member or a Patron is worth it.

Each person must make their own decision if they want to be a Patron or a YouTube member and no one can tell you that you should or shouldn’t have a specific membership. For me, I have the YouTube channels that I enjoy and am a member of one of those channels (not cross stitch) and I don’t have any Patron memberships currently but am looking at maybe joining one to just see what the benefits really are.

When things just don't work

There are so many things that everyone would like to achieve and there are times that it is going to work and then there are times when we just need to accept that things might not go the way that we would like them. 

One of my past goals was to get a degree in Business Administration and then I started to look into this program on a part time basis I was nicely informed that all the education that I had in the past was no longer valid because it was too far in the past. So, in a lot of ways that is a very nice way of saying why are you going for a degree when you are older. Well, for some people it isn’t a matter of getting a degree for work it is just a personal goal.

Looking for part time/consulting work – this is something else that I have been trying to investigate and what I have found with every job that is listed no matter where you look, says you need at least one degree and multiple years of experience. Maybe what the job should be looking at is how much experience you have because real life experience can be far better than a degree which is only based on specific textbooks.

Looking at experience is what people should be looking for instead of thinking that a degree is a filter because a degree is paper based and not real life. I understand that I have said that I would like to achieve a degree and part of that is just a personal goal and doesn’t have anything to do with job requirements. It has been a challenge to figure out why I wanted to even think about getting a degree and so much of it is just something that I have wanted to achieve for myself.

Something that I have figured out in the last few years is that colleges/universities are not looking at education and experience for a mature student. They look at how long you have been away from formal education and say you have been away too long so therefore all your education isn’t valid, so you need to start all over again. 

For me what I have found is that education for mature adults isn’t working because unless you have education less than five years ago you are going to have a challenge to get any of your education validated. Individuals that have focused their career moving their position forward have to understand that experience doesn’t count for future education, and any previous education may not count at all.  

If you are a mature individual and would like to try and achieve a degree, please know that you are going to have to start from the very beginning and pay a university thousands of dollars to prove that you know what you know and then learn some new things.

You claim you sent me evidence, where did it go?

As someone that is both an administrator in some Facebooks groups and Moderator in other Facebook groups it is amazing how many times, I have read that someone has sent me evidence to prove something that I have never received it. 

If you are telling an administrator or moderator that you have sent them multiple pieces of evidence to prove your case, please make sure that you have sent it to the person that you are saying this too. Too often an administrator or moderator will receive this type of message only to discover that the person that is say this is sending it to either an entirely different group or someone else that might not be part of the group administration so that isn’t going to help.

There are so many times when someone has tried to tell me that they have sent me evidence and when I ask them to tell me where they have sent the information, they cannot tell me where they sent it. So, if you are trying to spend to an admin or moderator of a group, please make sure that you are sending the information to that person. It would be nice if there was a way to acknowledge that the evidence has been sent to who you think it is being sent too. There are so many times that you can think you are sending a message or evidence to someone and you are sending it to someone that is not relating to the group that you are trying to post to.

I know that I make sure that I check messages through Facebook to ensure that I can see that things that are being sent to me. If you claim that you sent me something I will acknowledge that I have received it especially if it has something to do with a group that I have administer. If you don’t get an acknowledgement that I have received your message it probably means that you haven’t sent it to me, but it has gone to somewhere else.

When you claim that you sent me evidence, please check where it was sent because if I haven’t acknowledged receipt of you message it probably means that I haven’t received your message. So, claiming you sent me evidence without proof that you sent me evidence isn’t a good thing. Next time you tell someone that you have sent them evidence, make sure that you sent the evidence to the correct person.