Update is over, thank you for everything! until next time!

Just to give everyone a little sneak peak of what I’ve got ready for the next shop update. Not quite sure when I’ll have it ready to go, but here it is. I’ll be putting them simultaneously into the shop so you won’t have to wait around for them to get individually listed. There are 2 Countess dresses and 5 Empire Pintucked dresses.

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

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!

*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:

*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

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)

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.

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

*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.

*lots of bla-bla ahead*

Happy Holidays my friends!!

So as some of you may or may not know, I moved continents last month. EuroTrash and the girls pulled up stakes, moved from our home of the past 12 years in Helsinki to Seattle,WA USA. Big changes. Many people ask ‘Does it feel good to be home!?’ To be honest, 12 years changes a place and the people and even myself. Part of me doesn’t know even how to be an adult in my own country. Its a strange thing. Also,I am originally from Washington State, but certainly not Seattle. In fact the other side of the state about 45 minutes away from anything in a tiny valley I grew up milking cows. So in a way I did not really ‘come home’ but came…closer. Closer is better. I’ve missed my family over the years. Lots of factors played into this big choice and quite certainly it was one of the hardest choices I’ve made in my life. I left alot behind too. Many loved ones scattered all over Europe. A large part of my heart is always there. But this is life, this is the story we create and carry with us for all of time. Treasures in our hearts.

So…on with the show! I’ve been working a bit in between moments of chaos, sometimes just to manage my sanity. I was expecting a transformer for my sewing machine today but it arrived broken boo….So thats a bit delayed but I’ve been working steadily on some helmets for the holidays for the shop. I should have coming up some helmets for Blythe,Lati and Middie. A bit of something for everyone! With any luck we get a dress or two thrown in as well!

Speaking of the shop reopening,I need some input! I need your help!? I’ve been thinking of limiting purchase quantities per update. As I’ve set limits in the shows/conventions…I’ve been thinking the same sort of limitations for the shop. I’d really like to keep it fair for everyone and give as many people as possible a chance for things when I do the updates. So..what are your feelings? Should I limit it based on item type? If an update has both dresses and helmets, should it be 1 dress+1 helmet? Should it be a 2 item limit no matter what kind of item it is, no matter what type of update? or again separate it into item types…1 lati helmet,1 blythe helmet,1 dress?  I still want to do the weekly drawings like I was doing the end of summer and before I left Finland…but I’m really re-thinking the shop policies/limitations/quantity thing as I’ve heard many others are having this sort of policy for their updates. I’ve always tried to be as democratic as possible with this, sort of a ‘first come first serve’ sort of policy, but at the same time, like you…seeing an entire update go to a single person sort of defeats the purpose…gyaaaah complicated no? So let me know your feelings about this. I’ll be posting about the final decisions before I update the shop and re-open. I plan to re-open and update the shop this weekend. Perhaps Sunday so I can take time to hear all your comments and opinions.

So please, bear with me as I get acquainted with the U.S. Postal Service and all the various ways to ship things….I’ll do my best to meet everyone’s needs!

Well, the girls are out of the boxes, I’m pretty much unpacked. We are sorely still missing some furniture, some sort of sofa, shelving and storage but we just take it one thing at a time. Changing continents is huge. We shipped about 30 boxes of cargo. Most of it was EuroTrash stuff and ended up costing double what I’d been quoted. Its been so much work daily, first just to find a place to rent/live and then to find all the things we need to furnish it. Trust me…after a few nights on an air mattress we were crying for a bed! Ha,ha. Actually, our first couple weeks here were graciously hosted by a dear customer/friend of ours and I’m so grateful for that ‘home base’ while we were searching and searching for a place to live. Coming back to my own country as basically someone with no financial history,background or ‘identity’ to speak of was challenging at best and often times frustrating. I am so lucky for all the people who have helped us settle in and get our bearings.

So I leave you now and await your input regarding shop policy…and with a little teaser of some of what I’ve been working on. I hope you all are finding time to enjoy your friends,family and relax amidst the shuffle,bustle and joy of the festivities around us. Even in the midst of our chaos here, I’m loving the seasonal lights,deco and music. Its good to be ‘home.’