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.

Why purchasing something out of your country can be an issue

We had a friend that was coming to visit us from outside of Canada, so I thought it was a good time to take advantage of maybe purchasing some yarn and getting them to pick it up for me and deliver it. I knew that I was going to be incurring the exchange rate, but I figured given it was going to be delivered at no delivery cost I was willing to deal with that.

Here are the steps that I took:

1. Emailed the company to make sure that if I ordered it for a local pickup that someone else could pick it up for me.
2. Received an email from the business to let me know that it was possible and there wouldn’t be an issue.
3. Confirmed with friend that they could pick up the yarn for me and it wasn’t an issue.
4. Placed the order and said it was for local pick up knowing that I had already communicated my name and it was going to be picked up by someone else.
5. Received an email from them asking me if I was going to be visiting that location so that I could pick up the yarn. (This is probably when I should have realized this might not work out as I hoped).
6. Sent our friend the information and said that when it was ready they could pick it up.
7. Let friend know that it was ready for pick up and they picked it up for me and looking the receipt confirmed that they got the four balls of yarn that I ordered.
8. Never received a confirmation from the store that the yarn had been picked up.

Here is where I am going to start to provide words of warning. Yes, the yarn was picked up by our friend, and I understand that they are not crafters, so it isn’t up to them to ensure that the yarn was what I ordered. They confirmed based on the receipt it was the order that I had placed and I figured that was all that was needed to be done. Over this last weekend I did receive my order, and I was excited to see four skeins of fingering weight yarn. I ordered two different colours so that meant that I had two of each colour and I had figured out what I would make with each of them.

Once we were home and I could really look at the yarn that I received I saw that there was an issue, I had received 2 skeins of fingering weight of one of the yarns and then 2 skeins of sports weight yarn for the other yarn. This upset me because the person that filled the order was the business owner so that was frustrating because this wasn’t what I ordered. I also confirmed the receipt and the original order to ensure that I hadn’t made the mistake before I reached out to the shop.

Early the day after receiving the yarn I emailed the shop to let them know that what I received wasn’t what I ordered. I understand that there is time difference between our and the shop so I figured I would get it probably within 24 hours of sending the message. I did receive a reply and that was 29 hours after I sent the original message. Here is the message that I received from business owner:

I'm so sorry! That was my mistake. 

Normally I would ship the correct yarn and swap out this yarn, but since this is international, I will instead offer you a discount code for your next order. Hopefully you will be able to use it. I can do international shipping on orders over $150 USD. The last shipment I sent to Canada was about $40 USD for a small package under one pound, so hopefully your deliverer is willing to bring yarn on another visit. 

Please enter XXXXXXXXXX at checkout for 25% off. 

So, what I was offered when it was clearly the owners mistake was 25% off a future purchase, but I also had to purchase over $150 USD to even qualify to receive shipping and also pay a crazy price for shipping. Well, given the exchange rate and the cost of shipping which was also is US dollars I don’t think I will be making that purchase. What this was doing was telling me the only way I could receive compensation for her mistake was to make another purchase of over $150 USD and then pay the postage. I don’t think this is going to happen. I can find locally dyed yarns for a lot lower price.

If you make a mistake you need to figure out a method of compensating the person that incurred the issue and not make them purchase anything else. Do I think that there could be a possibility of another error, yes, I do because I don’t think this owner really checks what she is doing. Our friends probably won’t be coming back here for quite some time and given this isn’t an easy trip I won’t be purchasing from this store again. Will I recommend this store as an online shop, no I wouldn’t because I wouldn’t want someone to have to deal with what I did.

If you are a business that sells to international customers make sure that you have a method of compensating them for your error. You don’t need to compensate for a customer's error, but you should be able to compensate for your error. A discount code for a future purchase of a high value isn’t compensation; it is just please shop with me again.

When you say you are allergic to foods

I recently was listening to a presentation, and the person was talking about being allergic to all these different foods. She never said the type of reaction that she had and later in her presentation she then said, these symptoms were undiagnosed. Well, if you are saying you are allergic to foods make sure that you can identify the symptoms from these reactions and you have been diagnosed with food allergies. 

• Food allergy - symptoms can include a wide range of reactions, such as skin issues (hives, itching, swelling), gastrointestinal problems (cramps, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea), and respiratory issues (wheezing, shortness of breath, a tight throat, or nasal congestion). Other symptoms can include an itchy mouth, dizziness, or a drop in blood pressure. Other symptoms can include an itchy mouth, dizziness, or a drop in blood pressure. These symptoms typically appear within two hours of eating the food

• Food intolerance - symptoms are typically gastrointestinal and include bloating, gas, abdominal pain, and diarrhea. Other common symptoms can also include headaches, fatigue, irritability, and rashes. Symptoms may appear within minutes to up to 48 hours after eating, making them hard to pinpoint, and are often dose-dependent

So, quite a few people will say that they are allergic to specific foods when it is an actual food intolerance and that can get very confusing when people are trying to deal with actual food allergies which could impact their life. It can be very difficult to explain to someone the difference between a food allergy and a food intolerance but when you see someone that as a food allergy attack you will understand the difference.

You cannot self-diagnose food allergies yourself especially if you are having issues with your throat closing. If your throat is closing, that is when you need to have allergy tests to figure out what is wrong and what foods you are specifically allergic to.

The presentation that I was watching was talking about stress and burnout and yes, they can impact allergy symptoms. Stress can cause or worsen allergy symptoms by increasing inflammation and triggering the release of chemicals like histamine. This can manifest as skin issues such as hives, which are itchy, raised welts that may appear on the face, chest, or arms and can also worsen existing conditions like eczema and psoriasis. Stress can also intensify respiratory symptoms like nasal congestion, sneezing, and difficulty breathing. 

So, when you say you have food allergies, please understand what that really means and if you haven’t been diagnosed with allergies get diagnosed. If you are just saying you have allergies it can affect others because people will look at you and how you react to specific foods and they could think everyone will react the same and everyone is different.

Stress can impact how you react to specific foods and it can make your symptoms worse, but first make sure you get diagnosed with food allergies, so you first know what you should be avoiding and how to manage those reactions.

Homeless and Fast-Food locations

It is becoming more common when you go into a fast-food location you will find at least one homeless person taking up either a booth or a large table and sleeping there. It must be difficult to manage this because some homeless can be aggressive while others will just move on without saying anything.

The other issue with homeless and fast-food locations is the homeless use the washrooms as a place to wash themselves, so it isn't such a great location to have to visit if you are needing to go to the washroom yourself. I know that in Niagara Falls especially on Clifton Hill it is an issue at least in the Tim Horton's to find one or two homeless individuals sleeping in booths. Security can only do some much and it might be that Tim Horton's has to request the individuals be removed. I know that when we were there for the Friday for breakfast, security came in and removed one individual but when we were there on Saturday there were two booths occupied by homeless and no security was visible.

I understand that people are homeless for one reason or another however it is difficult to accept that they are being allowed to occupy booths in a fast-food location while there are paying customers looking for a seat so that they can enjoy the food that they just purchased. The Tim Horton's on Clifton Hill is always busy and there is also someone looking for a seat no matter what time of day you go so having a booth or two occupied by someone that isn't purchasing anything from the location, doesn't help either. There needs to be a better way to manage how is sitting in the store and for how long because there are lots of people that want to sit down even a few to just eat their food and then head out carrying their beverage.

So, when you are out and in a fast-food location and you see people that are taking a space of a paying customer, maybe mention it to management and they can do something about it. I totally understand that the homeless need a place to rest but when a location is busy and they are sitting taking up a table or two or even four people that can be difficult especially in the locations that are extremely busy all the time.

Update: When I wrote this blog the Tim Horton's on Clifton Hill was open but it has since been closed. I have not edited this post because this happens in a lot of locations.

Why I craft

So many people ask me why I enjoy both cross stitching and knitting and I can very simply say that it helps me stitch my mind back together. That might sound very odd to a lot of people but let me explain what I am trying to say and maybe you will understand it a little better. 

For me finding that time each day to do something that makes me happy and helps me focus on everything that is going on in my life helps a lot. There are times when I can sit and work on a project either cross stitch or knitting and I can figure out the solution that I have trying to figure for quite a while before I sit down and craft. My crafting can help me regain the focus that is needed to resolve an issue that has been something that I have been dealing with for a while.

It has been interesting to see my crafting life through the years and I can say that crafting has helped me through high school, college and every other part of my life because it gives me an escape from the things that are happening in my life. My crafting has been able to bring me join when I wasn’t sure how to be happy especially when going through the exam times of both high school and college. The challenges of those times were difficult but being able to find that little bit of time to sit and craft helped me regain my focus. 

During Covid, so many people turned to crafting as a means of handling being at home all the time but for me crafting was just something that I did because it was a normal part of my life. I might have done more crafting during the time we were required to be at home, but it didn’t seem to be something that I only did when we were in lockdown.

Later in life I have found that crafting has helped me stay grounded when things has seemed to get overwhelming. Being able to focus on my crafting even for a little bit each day has helped me know that I can get through anything that life continues to throw at me. I know there are there are times I am going to need a simpler project, but I normally have one of those ready to go and then there are times that I need a challenging project.

I craft because that is part of my life and that is also what makes me happy and it something that I find helps me relax at the end of a crazy day. Maybe crafting isn’t something that everyone would want to do but we need to understand that crafting may help someone find the peace in their life when life just seems to get out of control.