Postage Changes!

Hello my friends. Today I went to the post office and found out that rates had changed across the board. Unfortunately this primarily is going to affect my international (outside of the USA) customers.

In the past I’ve always calculated postage with the price of the item, but now things have changed enough that the international shipping is so much more than the US shipping that I can no longer do that, So I have to add the international shipping fee, which is 1.50$ for any package outside of the USA.

Inside the USA the shipping is still going to be free and it will include delivery confirmation automatically. There are still priority options for both USA and International, Prices did go up on both of those and my shipping rates reflect that.

I chose to begin this policy rather than just do an overall price hike on the items that hit the shop. I hope you understand!

Thank you so much for your time and support. The new prices are going into effect with the next update.

<3

 

Work In Progress

So as we learned this morning…notifying about the updates is a bit disastrous. I’m still waiting on the final statement of statistics from my host, but clearly its a problem. I have intentions to as soon as possible rectify the situation regarding the hosting because like you, its frustrating for me when things bog down to the point of malfunction or just not working.

My goal for this site is that it can handle the traffic. I’ve finally found a software that completely eliminates the fear of double sales..(unless I’ve had a bit too much red wine and forget to insert quantity to the inventory control box >.< ) ahem. Barring my human error, the shop software actually is really great from this side of things. While the site itself was getting bogged down and drowning in traffic, the shop was moving smoothly for me from the backside, updating items quickly etc. I know that some people prefer a ‘sticky cart’ type of function but funnily enough when I fought for it on Artfire, actually putting it to use it was a disaster. I can’t tell you how many times I had to disable an item in order to get it from its lost place in cyberspace…and people were left refreshing for and hour waiting for a product to return back into the shop after someone failed to checkout with it. Believe me, it happens!

Ultimately finding a shop software that can actually handle the inventory has long been a goal of mine and that has finally happened.

I had some great people that I consulted with, who e mailed me, who gave me advice today because really I don’t know what is normal traffic for a website, I don’t know what are the things that trigger things like the site crash today…and I’m not exactly sure what I need. I’m really not a technical geek in any form. In the past I’ve trusted friends who I believed to know more about me than the situation. Anyhow,anyway, ultimately this comes down to a hosting solution and I’m in the process of sorting that out the best I can.  In the meantime we’re going to have to make do with what I have which means for now I can’t post notifications of when the updates are going to be and I’m going to have to be a bit more stealthy about it. Tonight when I dropped in the rest of the helmets, they actually were there for a total of 5-6 minutes before each one was gone. The site worked fine, the pages refreshed for me and I refreshed the shop myself to see if it kept up with the traffic. Cake walk. So for now…this is how it is, but I promise you all, that I’m doing everything I can to get the hosting resolved so that we can wreak havoc on a server and make a real barn burner some day!!!

I thank you ALL from the bottom of my heart. Your support and goodness and graciousness never ceases to amaze me, humble me, and keep me sewing!

A great Helmet update!!

*I wasn’t joking when I said wild ride. We managed to crash the site and everything. Finally we have managed to get it all into the shop in spite of 2 crashes. Thank you EVERYONE for putting up with the chaos and the heartache! <3

Good Evening! Happy Martin Luther King Day everyone! I’ve had a busy weekend preparing all these lovely helmets and today I finished them up, got their labels installed, got all the final photographs and now they are ready to fly to their new homes!! So what we have in store for us is a morning update. Sure to get all our hearts in palpitations and our adrenaline pumping for the start of the week right!?

For those of you who don’t know or are unsure of my time zone, I’m located now in Seattle at Pacific Standard Time. I have installed a handy clock there to the right near the top of the page for you to be able to keep track of what time it is for me locally.

So, the update will be tomorrow morning as soon as I wake up. I have an army of helmets up for grabs!! I hope there is a little something for everyone. Please keep in mind the purchase limits.

Without further ado I leave you with a picture:

Already a week into the new year!!

*night time update completed…thank you all and until next time!!!

*morning update is now done. Thank you!!!

This means we are long overdue our first update!!! I have  been working on stuff and I have a little stash of stuff ready for updates, so i was thinking of splitting them up. One of them on Monday morning and the other one on Monday Evening, so we can hit all time zones. I’m still finishing up more and more of the little helmets so I don’t have photos for both updates, but I do have photos for the update that is going to come up tomorrow morning when I wake up.

please remember the limitation. Lati helmets are their own category, Middie is its own as are the dresses their own. Feel free to ask questions as always I’ll do my best to answer before the update. Thanks so much,and hey, happy new year!!

 

Here is what to expect tonight:

The ones below are the ones that went this morning :)

Tonight,Tonight…(Wednesday the 28th)

Hello friends! I’m going to have 9 little helmets coming up tonight as soon as I get back in from errands.

I think this is going to be the last update of this year! Friday morning early I’m heading out to visit my family on the farm for the New Year’s Celebration…What a great year this has been.

There are a couple of the helmets for Middie also, The tonttu style one also fits Lati just right. Anyhow..I’ll catch you all later! if you have any questions regarding the update, please leave them here and I’ll be glad to answer them!

(btw, i realize the picture can sometimes be large for my format, but if you click the image you can see it full sized)

Coming up!

Hello Friends! I trust the holidays treated you all well. Our holiday was low key but nice <3 we are enjoying our home and getting settled in. I continue to knit and sew and make EuroTrash happen in the middle of it all.

Thank you for all your support and encouragement over the last update and ebay auction! As always, everything I do is really out of joy and love for what I do.

Thank you also for being patient as I too learn how to best clarify the ‘rules of the shop’… >.< my last update I did not clarify so well that it was 1 item period be it cape or dress…oi! Of course its not always easy to have contingency plans…well, live and learn :)

So onward and upward! I’m going to update tomorrow morning, so that is Tuesday Morning. I have ready for the update a set of petticoats. 2 petrol/turquoise, 3 pink marshmallow fluff and 3 lavender fluff ones. Then I have 4 dresses each unique and featuring different trims and finishings.A  few of them of vintage fabric, one from Liberty of London fabric. This time I will clarify that its ok to purchase a dress AND a petti in the same order. but not 2 of each,blah,blah..again just leave a question if you are not sure. We are all learning together and of course with the internet its DIFFICULT to always make ourselves clear. I’m also working on some Lati helmets tonight but I’m not sure if I’ll get them ready or not.

So without further ado I leave you with the photo of what is up and coming and eagerly await the morning when I will be sitting with a cup of coffee spending it with YOU!

I figured it was time for a morning update since lately they all had fallen on the evening time…

The Grand Finale for 2011: Kitty Liberty

Hello old and new friends,visitors and more. Thank you for the fantastic year in 2011. Its been a big one and many of you I was able to meet at the various conventions attended throughout the year. I am ever grateful for your support, also for your generosity in many ways. This year saw so much generosity from you my customers AND friends here in the community. We’ve given to charity this year over 1,500$ !!! Amazing. I sincerely do not regret donating portions of each auction I’ve done to a good cause. I feel like its been a good direction for EuroTrash to go.

So, without further ado, I leave us with a holiday auction (item270879381688) to delight the heart. While in London I was able to pick up at Liberty of London some of the coveted collaboration fabric with Hello Kitty. So this was the inspiration completely for this set. I wanted to share it with you all and its delicious colors just were a fantastic source of inspiration. The set is five pieces that consists of : dress,cape,helmet,stockings and petticoat.

We have a beautiful countess babydoll dress with puffy angora/wool blend sleeves and gauntlet cuffs of bamboo/linen blend that has a beautiful sheen to it in chocolate brown. Trimmed in a satiny raschel lace in ivory on the cuff. The cuff has 2 red glass bead accents on each one. The body of the dress is made out of the famed Liberty of London cotton Tana Lawn. Silky smooth and such a perfect light weave you won’t believe how fine it is until you touch it! It closes with a metal snap in the back and has cotton lace trim in a golden yellow at the neck and hemline of the dress that is from the Czech Republic. The bodice has 2 pearly plastic red buttons down the center for the perfect finishing touch.

The cape is a beautiful wool blend in a woven herringbone stripe of two tones of aqua blue. Super soft and super plush with a faux fur collar of dark chocolate brown,fully lined in a red/orange check microfiber/synthetic blend fabric. It has metal hook closure and then a bow tie closure that you can tie yourself in the front for a striking fashion statement. Versatile that you could pair it with any other clothing as well!

The helmet is hand felted natural brown wool with embroidery of variegated tones of red,golden yellow and teal blue. It also is accented with glass seed beads for sparkle. The closure is a vintage italian button of red plastic with a mother of pearl grey shimmering center. The finishing touch that binds this all together is the dotted red bow at the same location that Kitty wears her own bow! Charming!!

Last but not least we have the petticoat and stockings. Both with elastic cased waist bands. The petticoat has a top yoke of petrol gauze and fine bridal veil tulle in a beautiful petrol blue (same color as PAM’s hair) in soft fluffy layers..(4 of them!!) for volume, fluff and a color splash. The tights are of a double knit japanese cotton in a luscious cherry red and white stripe. Sewn for extra strong seams to handle wear. an extra high waist band to avoid bulk under clothing. They have been tested and this fabric will not stain your dolly.

As always a portion of this auction will go towards charity. Thank you so much. If you have any questions, ask me any time via the auction site or you can leave a comment here too!

*My dolly Earl is not included in the auction and nor are her shoes. The listing includes 5 items as follows: Dress,Helmet,Cape,Stockings and Petticoat.

*I ship worldwide.

Coming Up! :)

Completed already. Stay tuned for the next one! 

 

After a good week of work,getting settled and still getting the work shop sorted out,slowly and surely it all comes together. I have some wintery festive dresses coming up, a  Little Lati Helmet in a tonttu design, which WILL fit a middie if you really stretch the chin strap. Its possible. But tight. I also have some winter capes for this update too! Lots of nice wool textures with cotton linings.

*just a little reminder to read the new shop policies if you are not familiar with them :)

next update!

*done/over…sorry for the delay in this, I completely forgot to update this…its all new for me too!*

Heya! In light of some of the questions I’ve been asked regarding how you may know what I have ready for the update, what items are going to be included in the update, etc.etc. Before each update I’m going to post a mosaic, right here on the front page of the site into the blog, and then at the end of each update when its all over I’ll leave a comment letting you know that it IS all over. That way if you come late you can see my comment and know you shouldn’t wait around for any updates. I cannot guarantee how long from the time I post here, that it will take me to prepare the update for the site as often my updates for the site depend on me finding a block of time in my day or evening that I can dedicate/devote to being online for a minimum of 2 hours solid, sometimes more. Each update requires a minimum of 4 photos per item so you can see all the details,then the creation of the mosaics,uploading,downloading,descriptions,insertion into the shop format and finally the invoicing. I will continue to post the photos to Flickr as I’m doing the update. I always post the photo to flickr about 30 seconds before the item hits the shop. I also always finish the update with some sort of plain photo,dolly photo,life photo from my day to let people know, ‘Thats it!’..and also so that is not the first thing people see on my photostream. I hope this answers questions.

Also, as far as the rules go regarding exceeding the purchasing limits. Your first purchase will remain yours and I will dump/decline any purchase that follows that violates the limitation  policy in the shop policies. I hope thats clear as I was asked about this.

Thanks again for all your feedback and input! So far everything seems to be going smoothly and it sure is nice to see new names show up among buyers! :)

Also I was able to borrow a Lati Yellow and a Middie Blythe, so from now on there will be detailed information/photos if a helmet fits both Lati and Middie, otherwise the helmet is only suitable for the doll it is photographed upon.

I hope this clarifies some fit questions I was having from people.

<3

The next update will include 6 items for Blythe,Lati and Middie.

Shop Policy News

Alright, after a long time considering making some policy changes to the shop…I have finally come to some conclusions, and not without all of your input and help! Thank you so much for everyone who took the time to let me know how they felt,what they would prefer. It makes me alot  more confident in instilling these policy changes.

So, the shop policy is as follows:

For every update, the purchase limits are the same as it has been in the shows/conventions. 1 of each item type per customer. For example: if an update contains Blythe Helmets, Lati Helmets, Dresses the max purchase limit is 1 Blythe Helmet,1 Dress, 1 Lati helmet. etc. (please leave a comment if you have any questions and I will be happy to answer them as best I can)

How this will be enforced is quite simple. I have a ‘decline transaction’ option inside my shop software which simply sends a mail to the buyer that the transaction has been declined and it puts the item back into the shop for sale automatically. You will not be billed for any of the items returned to my shop. This process will happen rapidly as I supervise the updates.

There are going to be some new shipping options available now that I am in the USA. Please bear with me as I learn the methods available and their perks/benefits. For now I’m trying to offer the best services possible but will continue to offer free shipping worldwide on every listing. This shipping option is NOT trackable and nor can I be liable for lost packages but I still want to give people an economical option on shipping as the prices for tracking internationally are quite intimidating/exorbitant.

I hope this is clear and a good change for everyone!

Thank you so much for all your input.

<3

Ruth

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