Santa’s Workshop Elves

I have a lot of mixed feelings about today.  It’s a day I look forward to… but it’s also a day I dread.  Every year, the US Postal Service holiday shipping deadline looms on my calendar, and “Hell Week” is usually crossed off in GIANT letters signifying that nothing else matters that week.

Leaving for a two week long vacation right before our busiest time of the year felt like a giant risk. 😳 But it was the greatest gift I could have given myself. 💕 Eliot and I left home with a clean slate, no orders and a prayer that we’d come back home and not get gobbled up alive by whatever the universe threw our way.  

And somehow we didn’t just survive, we thrived. “Hell Week” wasn’t hell.  Have we been busy since we returned from Florida, yes.  Have I probably been a tyrant about 3D printing, oh yes.  Have I checked my print list more than Santa checks his naughty & nice list… definitely yes. 🤣

Is today Monday, Wednesday… I have no idea.  (Apparently, it’s Tuesday, but if you ask me in any given moment, I’m sure you’ll get a different answer.)  I ate my breakfast today at 1:30 PM.  I don’t know what time of day it is, but the sun seems to be setting.  I haven’t gone to bed at a "normal time” in days… but for the first time in years, we’ve actually gotten sleep.  ("Team No Sleep" didn’t have to report for duty this year!) 🎉

Eliot dropped off a giant pile of mouse ears at the post office this morning.  And here I am on what should be the most stressful day of the year… calm. 🙂 

We have two more things we’re trying to get out tomorrow… on the actual USPS holiday shipping deadline.  I’m not in panic mode.  In fact, I don’t even think either of them are holiday gifts.  (The desk accessory was actually ordered this morning, and I’m already busy assembling it… just in case.  The other item is a pair of mouse ears scheduled to go out by January 7th.)  For the first time in forever, we’re not going to be scrambling to get things ready for the deadline.

Sometimes, the universe has a way of showing you that you are right where you’re meant to be.  That happened today when I went on Facebook for a few minutes to mindlessly scroll and decompress after getting all of our orders mailed out.  I saw a tiny image that somehow felt familiar, so I watched the story.  Pair Eyewear shared a customer photo, and it was Marcy who ordered these mouse ears from us a few years ago.  I usually don’t even watch their stories… but the universe wanted me to see it. ✨

I guess this is a long way to say that even though I have a lot of mixed feelings about the holiday shipping deadline, even though Eliot and I don’t get much sleep, even though our body clocks don’t exist, even when we get crazy messages from that one customer, even when my Christmas cards are always sent later than planned, even when it’s “Hell Week” and even when it sometimes feels like the endless hours of assembling things will never end… I know this is what I’m meant to be doing. 💕 

I’m so proud that making other people smile is my job.  It’s an honor that the universe chose us to be some of Santa’s workshop elves.  And while the load feels heavy this time of year, it’s so rewarding to make something that brings a little bit of magic to someone else's life! 💖 

Happily Ever Hatter’s 9th Birthday

Happy 9th Birthday Happily Ever Hatter!!!

Today, my "first born" turns nine... and I can't believe that I've almost been running my business for a decade!  Through the years, I've learned so much.  Eliot and I have created tons of products and designs.  And I've still got many ideas for new products!

This should be a milestone year for Happily Ever Hatter.  One of my biggest goals for 2023 is to create and release some of the new products that I've been hinting at for a while now.  I've retired the mouse ear hats, and we are definitely still going strong with 3D printed mouse ears.  Unfortunately, the hair clips have been kind of hit or miss... 

But there's still plenty more in store!

I've got 3-4 new products that I've wanted to dive into for a while now.  And I think 2023 is going to be my year to do it.  I feel a lot of creative juices flowing through me, so I want to take advantage of that.  The sky is the limit!  I can't wait to get started on these new ideas, and to bring my visions to life.  (I'll be sure to share them along the way!)

Happy Birthday Happily Ever Hatter!  Cheers to more years of making ears!!!  °o°

If You Don't Laugh, You'll Cry

The other day, I told you the story of how Eliot's and my "Hell Week" ended back on Saturday December 17th.  It was a hot mess, but at least I can look back at it now without the complete horror and dread I was filled with while it was happening. 

For anyone who thinks running a small business is easy, lemme fill you in… it’s not all sunshine and roses.  Sure, I can take an afternoon off to sit and do absolutely nothing if I want to.  But I’m also the same person practically glued to our Happily Ever Hatter and Snowblade Creations "to do" lists, messaging customers back (sometimes at 2:00 AM) and keeping track of when everyone's Disney trips are to ensure they get their items in time.  You don't have a fall guy; you are the fall guy and when someone does complain, I'm the one that has to find the resolution.  (Thankfully, we have wonderful customers and the complaints are 1-2 times a year, if that.)

Last Saturday was basically as extreme as it gets, and it was the most stressed out that I've been in regards to our businesses in a long time.  I have been a lot more balanced this year between our personal lives and our business lives.  But that day was something unique.  At the end of it, we made it and it all turned out ok, but I definitely tried to find the humor while we were going through it.  I think I look to humor to get through tough times.  If you don't laugh, you'll cry, right?

So with that, today I wanted to share a few gems that were born out of stress.  You probably saw the first one (below) if you read my other post.  But here's the original (and larger) version before I posted it over on Facebook with all of the fun emojis.

The 12 Questions of Small Business "Hell Week"

Have Eliot and I slept much the past few days… no.

Have we been taking more naps than adults ever should… probably.

Have we consumed way too much caffeine, sugar and who knows what other terrible foods this week… yup!

Were we singing Christmas carols at the top of our lungs at 3:00 am a few times this week… um, maybe?

Did I dance around the living room like a psycho while singing at the top of my lungs… ok fine, I did.

Did we lose our power just before 10:30 PM on the WORST night of the ENTIRE year to lose electricity… don’t remind me- it’s too fresh.

Did we put our final orders together by the light of Eliot’s battery powered LED light until the sun finally rose this morning… yuppers!

Did I want to breakdown and cry a few times… mm-hmmm.

But did we keep pushing forward anyways… hell yeah!

Did I basically force Eliot to take this photo before he left… yes.  (See below.)

Will we spend a good portion of this afternoon sleeping… heck yes!

Did Eliot and I survive “Hell Week” and get all of our holiday orders out in the mail in time to arrive for Christmas... I have no idea how, but YES!!!

What I didn't tell you in my other post, was that while Eliot and I were both scrambling around like crazy in the dark, I started singing random lines to Christmas carols, but with the lyrics as whatever I was doing or thinking at the time.  (I should note that this is a normal occurrence around here… much to Eliot’s amusement.)

Now that the complete chaos of last Saturday is over, I thought I'd amuse myself with making my own song to commemorate this uh, “experience".  I actually wrote part of it while we were in the middle of it, but since I didn't want to use up all of the battery on my computer, most of it was written after Eliot took the second round of packages to the post office, but before I fell back into bed for an afternoon nap. 

So now I present to you my latest holiday carol… 

"The Final 12 Hours of Small Business Hell Week 2022"

12 hours without power,

11 times I flipped the light switch out of habit,

10 hours of dread and panic (we slept for 2 hours while it was dark out), 

9 times I tried to ask Alexa something,

8 times I felt nauseous (due to stress),  

7 times I thought of our upcoming Disney vacation (and how much we earned it this past week!), 

6 handfuls of trail mix (to sustain me), 

5 loud swear words, 

4 deep breaths to calm me,  

3 packages that didn’t make it (to the post office by noon),

2 awesome mail ladies (who told us to go home, pack them up and bring them back over since they’d be there anyways), 

and 1 more USPS holiday shipping deadline we survived!!!

And there you have it, finding the laughter through the pain and stress.  It's absolutely ridiculous, but I would have been a pile of tears otherwise.  Instead, I kept trying to find the humor of the situation.  It resulted in these gems... musings from a sleep deprived, half crazed woman trying to survive the busiest time of year for her small businesses.

I wanted to share them, and it seemed appropriate to let them breathe in the open air of the inter-webs.  Plus, who knows what's in store for our future.  If Eliot and I ever find ourselves in another tight spot, I'll have these silly gems at the ready, poised to bring the laughter when things might look bleak.  Cuz if you don't laugh, you'll cry... °o°

The Adventures of Running a Small Shop

Today, I tell you the tale of two Christmas elves who run their own small workshop creating items to bring a little bit of magic and pixie dust into others' lives.

Ok, but honestly, this isn't a fairytale.  There's no magic here.  Well, I guess there's a little bit of it left, because I have absolutely no idea how Eliot and I pulled off the last 24 hours.  If I could only transport you into the complete chaos that was the past day... I can't do that though.  So instead, I'll give you the highlight reel.

Things started off great.  When Eliot left for work yesterday, I felt confident and I knew that while we still had a lot of work to do, we were in fantastic shape.  I'm talking the best shape we've ever been in at this particular moment.  I wasn't in panic mode and I even took some time in the afternoon to take a long shower and try on a bunch of new clothes that I'd ordered over Black Friday weekend.  There was a bounce in my step and nothing could bring me down.  All of our hard work the past few weeks was paying off and we only had a little bit longer to go before we'd survived another "Hell Week".

A few hours later... everything slowly started to unravel.  Eliot got home later than he'd planned to.  He was supposed to come home after working a half day, but naturally one of his machines on the floor broke down so he basically did his full work day as usual.  I was getting a little anxious by the time he got home, but we were in good shape.  I'd spent this week busting my booty to print anything I could.  We still had some stuff to print, but we had gotten most of it done already.  Things were going ok.

This is where I should tell you that we were getting a snow storm here in Maine.  It was our first substantial snowfall this year.  But it wasn't the typical December snow that's light and fluffy and you can pretty much blow it off of anything.  No, this was March snow... big, thick snowflakes, heavy and wet.  The kind that's perfect to build snowmen and snow forts, but not one that's good for everything else.

A little after 10:00 PM, Eliot and I had the printers running and we were actually taking a few minutes to relax before it was" go time".  There really wasn't much else we had to be doing in that moment and I was feeling pretty good about where we were at.  Just before 10:30 PM, the lights blinked.  Then, they blinked again.  I was immediately filled with dread.  There it was, the third flicker.  A loud noise and blackness.

We'd lost our electricity.

Eliot and I both immediately sprung into action.  Thankfully, we each had our phones nearby so we could use them as flashlights.  Eliot checked the rest of our street and all of our neighbors' lights were out as well.  About a million curse words flew through my head... but the overlying concept was "shit, we're screwed now."

My Papa always said that if the lights flicker three times, that means a transformer blew somewhere.  That's not a quick fix, so you might as well be prepared to be out of electricity for a while.  I reiterated that to Eliot, and we started to make moves to save ourselves from despair.  Thankfully, he still had a few of his Ryobi batteries charged up.... and last Christmas Santa brought him an LED light that's powered by them.  I don't think that I've ever been so thankful for a tool in my life.

So we got back to work.  At this point, we couldn't 3D print anything so we figured it was time to finish up the rest of the lose ends we could.  We glued parts to mouse ears, assembled desk accessories, and worked into the night by the light of his one LED light.  Thank goodness that thing was bright.  It lit a good portion of our living room and dining room area up so we could still work.  We need the flashlights on our phones to see details, but we were making the best of it.

By 1:00 AM, things were winding back down.  I was getting tired and there wasn't much else we could do.  I was worried we'd use up all of the battery power.  After a bit of evaluating what else there was to do, we both decided it made the most sense to get a few hours of sleep while it was still pitch black out.  We were planning to sleep at some point anyways, so this was as good a time as ever.

I had the worst time falling asleep.  Eliot was out in minutes but I lay there in bed filled with dread for what seemed like forever.  I finally fell asleep around 2:00 AM, but it was short lived.  Right at 4:00 AM, my alarm clock on my phone went off and we still didn't have electricity.  I had been praying that it would come back on while we were asleep, but no such luck.  We dragged our butts out of bed, went back downstairs and got back to work using the LED as our only light.

Time passed.  By 6:00 AM I was coming to the realization that we had only 6 hours to get everything packed for the post office and we were running out of time.  The sun would be rising soon, but it still wouldn't give us a ton of light.  And that wouldn't solve how we were going to print our shipping labels.  We originally had planned to mail out 30 packages and there was no way we could take all of those over to the post office unpaid... not to mention that they probably didn't have power either.

Thankfully, both of us had the same idea around the same time.  I asked Eliot if he could log into his work computer to see if they had power.  He was able to using his cell phone and they didn't lose power there.  So we did as much as we could, and when it finally started to get light around 7:00, Eliot set off to work to print our labels.

I took a few minutes to breathe, update my parents about what has happening, and then I jumped back to work.  There were still plenty of products that I had to trim and clean, so I got to work on that.  I sealed ears off in the basement by the light of my cell phone.  I wiped all of our desk accessories down using the little bit of hand washing water that I'd thankfully thought to keep stored in our empty gallon water bottles.  It certainly wasn't pretty, but Eliot and I were making it work.

Eliot was gone a lot longer than I'd planned for, and by the time he got back around 10:00 AM, we had to start hustling.  I basically crammed my McDonald's hash brown and breakfast sandwich into me as fast as I could, then we dove in.  Eliot started packing things, I prepped our giant rainbow IKEA bags and we kept moving forward.  

Around 10:30 AM, I happened to look at the clock on my cell phone.  It had been about 12 hours since we'd lost our electricity.  I literally just got done saying "It's been 12 hours, I really thought that they'd have it back on by now" when the house flickered back to life.  With full light back on our side, Eliot and I both sprung into action racing around the house finishing what needed to be done.

Time flew by and we got most of it done.  Right at noon, Eliot took all of the packages we were able to finish with him to the post office.  There were only three trinket trays (that were sealing in the basement) that I was upset we couldn't finish, but it was what it was.  Everything else had something on it that needed to be printed.  And although today was the USPS "deadline" that we told everyone, Monday 12/19 is actually the deadline for Priority shipping so we had a little bit of wiggle room.  (Thank God for my thinking to give us wiggle room... because we needed it.)

Eliot returned from the post office and they were just as out of order as we were.  The two mail ladies there are the nicest people.  They were swamped with packages that they couldn't scan in, and couldn't deliver until they scanned them.  They asked Eliot if he could leave all of our packages in our rainbow bags, and they'd take care of them as soon as they could.  They also told him that while they were closing, they would be there if he wanted to package up those last three items and bring them over.

So back to work we went, although at a little bit of a slower pace.  Eliot packed up our three trinket trays, as well as a few eBay orders he hadn't gotten to.  Around 1:00 PM, he went back to the post office with all of those items, and I took a deep breath.

Eliot and I had done it.  I literally have absolutely no idea how, but we did it.  We got all of our holiday orders assembled, finished, cleaned, packaged up and over to the post office before our shipping deadline... without having power for 12 hours.

They say it takes a village, and though these two elves work at home in their workshop alone- together in solitude, it was our village that kept us going.  I posted a few updates on my personal Facebook page throughout the complete chaos of the last 24 hours, and our village came through with love, support and encouraging words.

My parents texted us wishing us luck.  Jeremy called, texted and messaged me online to let me know that there might be another way to get the packages to the post office without having labels.  My friends, family and travel agent friends responded to my Facebook posts and told us to hang on and that we've got this.  I wanted to cry and breakdown multiple times, and I had the worst pit in my stomach for the entire 12 hours we didn't have electricity.  It was the encouragement from everyone that kept me going.

Needless to say, today hasn't exactly been my favorite day of being a small business owner.  But Eliot and I rolled with the punches and moved forward, doing what we had to do.  I'm always proud of us when this day is winding down... but with all of the extra hoops that we had to go through to get to this point, it makes this year extra sweet.  °o°

Note: Some of the screen shots included say four days ago because, yes I in fact did not write or post this on deadline day.  Eliot and I literally slept all afternoon until it was time to get up for an event we were attending that night.  We got up with enough time to shower and take off, and when we got home we went back to bed.  So I did write this a few days later and backdate it!

A Flurry of Scurrying

Hi Friends!  Whew, has it been a while.  Well... it won't look like that on here eventually, but right now it does anyways.  It's technically been almost two weeks since I last popped in at Thanksgiving.  As you can probably imagine, Eliot and I have been extremely busy the past few weeks.  Things have certainly picked up in the realm of holiday orders.  And we've also been busy actually having lives the past few weeks!

I'll fill you in on everything as soon as I can.  I'm over 20 posts behind where I planned to be right now, so if you follow along regularly, you'll see a lot of stuff popping up for November and December.  I had two DIY posts that I had been planning to finish for October, but at this point I'm over it.  (But I've already got some pumpkins to make a few projects for next year though!)  I am trying to go back and finish all of the posts I had for November and December though.  So those will be here eventually!

In the meantime, I'm mainly focusing on getting everything finished and mailed out for Happily Ever Hatter and Snowblade Creations.  Eliot and I have been printing like crazy, and we're in pretty good shape.  We're actually ahead on most orders and getting them mailed out a week or two ahead of schedule.  There's always a few that we've fallen behind on... but for the most part, we're feeling pretty good about things!  

Our big USPS holiday shipping deadline is Saturday December 17th, so we're 10 days away from that.  The next week and a half is going to a flurry of scurrying around finishing everything up, but I think that I'm ready for it!  We've also got a few fun things to look forward to these next few weeks, so that will break things up for us!

I'll pop back in here to get caught up on blog posts whenever I have a break from the hustle and bustle of our flurry of scurrying!  Have a wonderful holiday season!!!  °o° 

Welcome to Crazy Town...

Hello!  Welcome to Crazy Town, Population 2.

Life is getting interesting around here, and if the past few days are any indication, it's going to be a wild ride the next month or so!  I think the holiday rush has arrived, even though it still feels a bit early.  Things have certainly heated up at the very least... 

This month, Eliot and I have had a lot of orders streaming in.  Things are still kind of hit or miss with mouse ear sales on Etsy, but we continue to stay way ahead of last year's numbers at this point so that's been really encouraging to me!  Desk accessory sales have exploded in the past few weeks.  We don't even know where it's come from, but we're assuming it's holiday orders since many of them appear to be marked as gifts.

Of course, with lots of orders there's lots of income, followed by a lot of hard work.  But it's been nice to see the fruits of our labors.  Both of our Etsy shops have had great deposits the past few weeks and Snowblade Creations had a really great deposit this week!  On Sunday, Eliot and I accepted a large special order from our best Happily Ever Hatter customer.  Both of his invoices generated a larger sum of money.  Plus, I also just got the travel agent check from our Disneyland trip in September, so that was a nice addition.  It's nice to see the hard work pay off in our bank account.

But like I said, there's a lot of late nights and hard work that follow those deposits.  And I have been pushing extra hard knowing the holiday rush would arrive at some point.

I have to admit, our hard work and my relentless charging ahead on printing products has us way ahead on orders.  Eliot probably considers me a tyrant, but we currently have 24 orders in our Snowblade Creations "prep" folder- which means the bases of the items are all printed and everything just needs to be assembled.  I've been trying to assemble most of it while he's at work and today I got a good percentage of those 24 orders completed to mail out later this week.  (Tomorrow, I tackle the rest!)

Eliot and I are also in pretty good shape with mouse ear orders.  Happily Ever Hatter's production time always takes longer since there's a lot more to assemble.  We don't have as many outstanding orders for that since we pushed really hard a few weeks ago.  But there are a few bases we still need to print and orders we have to finish printing pieces before assembling.  Then, there's that huge order we just accepted.  It has a pretty quick turnaround in the scheme of things, so staying on our print schedule and being disciplined will be critical over the next two weeks!

On an exciting note, Eliot and I have a few new products that we've quietly finished in the background when we've had time.  I'm trying to find some time (and good daylight) to take product photos so I can list those in both of our shops sooner than later.  I've also still got that giant pile of mouse ear samples to keep working on.

Speaking of ears, I took some time on Monday to make a pipe dream list of mouse ears to take to Florida with us in January.  I'm sure that we won't be able to make all of them, but we might be able to make a good dent on them if we plan ahead.  Eliot and I haven't been to Walt Disney World in almost three years, so it's been a long time since we took product photos there.  I'd love to get a bunch of photos taken- especially since we'll be there for the holiday season, Festival of the Arts and race weekend.  It's the perfect opportunity to take photos during all of these special events!

On top of all that, I'm trying to get the house cleaned up a little.  Things are only going to get busier as we creep towards the December 17th holiday shipping deadline.  I'm hoping that if I can get a few things put away or organized, I'll feel a little better about the state of the house.  Every holiday season, it ends up looking like Santa's elves had a tornado in their workshop.  Obviously, getting orders out the door is our top priority, but I'd like to attempt to have an ounce of order this time around.  A girl can dream... 

Finally, if all that wasn't enough, Eliot and I have been spending some time this week finalizing plans for our January Walt Disney World trip.  Eliot and I have got so much planned for the 15 days we're down there.  Right now, we're finalizing the plan for each day- which parks and what other activities we're going to do.  We have also added a few activities that we hadn't originally planned on doing, so now we're checking on ticket prices and trying to figure out semantics around the rest of his family's plans.

Thus, with all of this going on behind the scenes, I've gotten behind on blogging.  As of right now, I have six posts from the end of October through now that I haven't been able to finish.  But I'm still planning to finish writing and post them when I'm able to... I'm just not sure what that will actually be!  But I'm determined to get them finished!

I guess what I'm trying to say is that things are a bit hectic here, as to be expected this time of year... but they're good.  Really good actually.  I just felt compelled to check in while I had a moment to let you all know that Eliot and I are both doing well and that I'm trying to pop in to post here on my blog whenever I have time.

If my blog posts for the remainder of this year are posting out of order, a few days late, or suddenly show up out of nowhere... just know that behind the scenes is a woman juggling many balls and trying not to drop any of them.  Overall, I'm feeling good about where we're at, and I'm not at all stressed about being behind on blog posts- probably because we're in good shape with the businesses.  It's a fluid situation, but I feel ready.

So bring it holiday rush... the mayor of Crazy Town is in.  °o°

We Need a Little Christmas

"We need a little Christmas, right this very minute."

Yesterday, I alluded to feeling a bit under the weather emotionally, and I'm honestly not even sure why, but I didn't want to unpack anything since I look forward to November 1st every year.  Now that I've welcomed the holiday season with open arms, I thought that I'd unpack a little bit more of a life update today.

Eliot and I have been so busy.  We have been taking the whole work/life balance thing a lot more seriously, but that's meant we've had a lot of busy weekdays to account for taking some time for ourselves on the weekends.  The past few days, I've been 100% completely, overwhelmingly exhausted.  And I think it finally caught up to me.

I'm so glad that we've been carving out more time for our personal lives, but clearly we still haven't found the secret sauce.  Balance was my word of the year, and it continues to be on my mind while we work on keeping things more even keel.  However, even as tired as I am right now, I'm really glad that Eliot and I have made time for each other.

And we've still been moving ahead full steam with our businesses.  Last week, Eliot and I had a bunch of orders that needed to go out between our two shops.  Three of them were for 3 or more pairs of mouse ears.  Two of those included very detailed custom orders for our two best customers.  We usually stop taking custom orders in September, but since it was these two people with the requests, I was happy to accommodate them.  But it meant a lot of work leading up to finishing them since we did the actual 3D design, printing and assembling phases at warp speed.  We literally pulled these together from start to finish in under a week (for most of it) and I'm so proud of us.  But it was stressful... the most stressed I've been in a while actually.

Halloween night, I found out that one of the orders we worked so hard on, the third large one, was out in San Diego.  It was going to St. Louis.  That took pretty much all of the wind out of my sails.  It's going to a Wish Family.  They leave for their Wish Trip today... and the ears got lost.  Eliot and I did everything we could to get them mailed out in time, and USPS completely screwed the entire thing up.  I feel absolutely awful; I spent all of Halloween night fretting and beating myself up about it.  

I'd basically given up all hope... and then I woke up this morning to two messages in our shop.  The first one, was from the Wish Family saying that the ears were going to be delivered today!  Somehow, they had gotten checked into the local facility after I'd gone to bed.  And they turned around and got them out for delivery today.

It was a miracle... and for a split second, everything was right in the world.

Then, I opened the message from the other customer with a large order.  Hers didn't make it in time before she left.  I had checked on it Monday and it was supposed to be delivered on Tuesday at the latest.  And they lost that one out of nowhere.  It just disappeared from tracking.  I hadn't even checked to see if it was delivered yesterday since I was so confident that it would be ok.  This customer was going to the Wine and Dine races and two of her three ears were specifically made for this weekend's events.

Thankfully she wasn't upset since we knew we were pushing the limits of time, but I was still crushed about it.  She's been a wonderful customer of ours and Eliot and I both love working on designs with her.  I felt awful that things didn't work out this time.  

I'm glad that two of our three our large orders made it where they needed to on time, but two of them also had problems "disappearing" in the USPS system.  Once the packages leave our hands, there's nothing we can do.  I feel so helpless.  I'm going back over all of the previous weeks and wishing that I'd told Eliot to work on the renderings sooner.  Wishing that I'd pestered him more.  Wishing that we'd gotten everything done a few days earlier.  In the end, we got them to the post office with plenty of time for USPS to get them to their final destination, but I still can't help feeling like we could have done more.  Sometimes running a small business really sucks.

But I know that I have to pick myself back up and keep moving forward... 

Overall, things with our businesses have been going pretty well.  Like I said earlier, Eliot and I have struck more of a balance the past two months with having a life and still running our businesses.  It's still not perfect.  We've gotten behind on a few things, but we're also sending out a bunch of orders ahead of time.

The really good news is that we're ahead on our print schedule.  We have got a few Happily Ever Hatter orders that have to go out in the next few days for customers who have Disney trips next week, but we literally have one thing that needs to go out for Snowblade Creations this week because we've worked so hard to get ahead.

The better news is that Eliot and I both keep coming up with more business and product ideas.  Last Tuesday, I rode into town after my sewing class to meet up with Eliot for lunch and to run a few errands.  We spent the entire lunch sitting in a booth in Panera Bread with him animatedly discussing a new business idea he had and how awesome it was.  (Ironically, it's the same exact idea that I had a few months ago, but he's got his own spin to put on it.)  We're still trying to find balance in our lives, and there are a lot of ways we can have other shops that don't require as much hands on attention from us... so we're trying to diversify our businesses and sources of income. 

Since then, I've also thought of a few more new products for Happily Ever Hatter.  I've found more inspiration online.  I've had a few more sleepless nights or mornings where I say up late or wake up early and find myself pouring over Pinterest and Etsy.  I'll get an idea, then I'll research it on both to see if anyone else has thought of something similar.  I've got a few ideas that I don't think anyone else would be crazy enough to even think of... but here I am- adding them to my endless stash of inspiration notes.

As you can see, it's been a mixed bag the past few weeks.  I suppose that it's no wonder I'm so tired.  In the past two months, we've been to California twice, gone to four hockey games, gone to Disneyland, Hollywood and the D23 Expo, and we've also kept busy with our two Etsy businesses and trying to find time to relax.

Right now, I'm trying to switch gears to holiday mode.  I've only got about a week or so to get myself rested up so I can be ready for the holiday rush and whatever that might entail this year.  I'm also trying to find a little bit of that Christmas magic to put myself in the right headspace and prepare myself for the next wave of absolute craziness. 

"We need a little Christmas now..."  °o°

National Felt Hat Day 2022

It's National Felt Hat Day!!!   

I'm still recovering from the complete and utter exhaustion of our trip to California.  But I couldn't let the day pass without popping in quickly to write about my mouse ear hats.

I feel so much pride whenever I look at photos of my creations.  It's been a few years since I last made one, but it feels like it was yesterday.  Sometimes, I have to pinch myself to believe that I actually made them with my own two hands.

I think I've mentioned that I have been thinking about picking it back up and making a few more.  I don't think I'll ever sell them again since I have my sights set on new things, but I'd like to make more for Eliot's and my personal collection.  I've always had a fascination with costuming, and this is a fun creative way to put my own spin on them.  Plus, they'll look great in our display cases.  All I can think about it how visually satisfying it will be to see some Mickey and Minnie Walt Disney World 50th Anniversary mouse ear hats next to the ones that I created for Disneyland's 60th Anniversary.

Felt Mickey Mouse ear hats, you were the start of something new and wonderful.  And I will always be grateful for all of the doors you opened for me.  

Happy National Felt Hat Day!!!  °o°

Reflecting on Four Years of Being Self-Employed

It's hard to believe that it has already been four years since I left my job to work from home full time.  This is also the point where I have officially been working from home as long as I was at my job, and longer than I worked at my previous job (3.5 years).

I've done a little bit of self-reflecting and I have a lot of mixed feelings about it... 

Before I say anything else, I need to state that I'm so proud of our accomplishments.  

I'm so proud of how much Snowblade Creations has grown since we pivoted and really started pushing to make desk accessories in 2020.  I'm so proud of how well the businesses are doing now after all of the struggles of the past few years and COVID.

I'm so proud of how Eliot and I handled COVID and our small businesses.  It would have been really easy to throw in the towel when things looked bleak.  When the parks were closed, we were down in our Happily Ever Hatter sales a lot.  I was nervous since this is my full time job.  I didn't know if we should hit pause while I got something to tide us over, or if we should just hold tight.  Eliot and I both agreed that we should hold tight and see how things went.  We didn't panic, we continued to work hard, we added more items to both shops, and we stayed the course... and our businesses bounced back.

In my moments of reflection, I also found some points of disappointment.

I'm disappointed that Eliot and I still haven't launched our home decor line yet.  We have a laser cutter sitting in our basement that we've only used a few times.  Granted, we need to learn how to use it.  We have big plans and ideas for what we want to do with it.  But we need to find the time to learn how to use it to accomplish those ideas.

I'm also disappointed that I haven't launched my clothing line.  This is beginning to be a joke... I've talked about it for years but I've struggled to take the plunge.  I have some new ideas of ways to get myself to jump off of the end of the diving block though.  So hopefully this will be something I can dive into sooner than later.

Finally, I'm also a little bit disappointed that we haven't expanded Happily Ever Hatter's product line more.  I have so many ideas, and I think that's part of the problem.  Eliot and I don't have the capital to do all of them at once, so we've got to focus on one thing and see how that goes.  The hair clips were not as successful as we had hoped they'd be, but I have a lot of other ideas that I think will be great additions to the shop!

The most exciting thing for me is how inspired I am.  Being home full time has allowed me the time and space to explore things I wouldn't be able to at a "normal" job.  If I think of something in the middle of the day, I can stop what I'm doing and brainstorm, research and flesh it out.  These are my favorite days... hours can pass with me on my phone or laptop while the gears in my head are spinning almost out of control.

In fact, I think I have more ideas flowing through me right now than I have in the past four years.  I've got a few new business ideas that I'm kicking around and I'm hoping to dive into a few of those, as well as the clothing line, in the next few months.  

Winter tends to be quiet (sales-wise) after the holiday rush, so I'm hoping to use that to my advantage to get caught up with business stuff, ahead on other stuff, and to get my supplies organized.  Once I'm a little more organized, I'll be able to tackle some of these new business ideas, and make some new products for Happily Ever Hatter.  

Hopefully Spring of 2023 will be full of new products and surprises!

As you can see, there are so many thoughts bouncing around my brain right now.  But the overwhelming sense I'm feeling is that I'm proud that I believed in myself enough to take the risk.  I'm proud that we could do this.  I'm grateful to have a husband, family and friends who support me.  And I'm forever thankful for every one of our followers, supporters, and customers... because without them, none of this would be possible.

Make a wish, and do as dreamers do... and all our wishes, will come true.  °o°

Hard Work Pays Off

You guys know that things have been pretty crazy around here lately.  It feels like Eliot and I been going almost non-stop and I'm still pretty wiped out.  Thankfully, we have gotten a little bit of rest and relaxation in while watching the NHL playoffs.  (I'm kind of at the point where I need mindless activity to zone out and chill out.)  Playoff hockey has provided a much needed break and a way for both Eliot and me to relax.

All of this is understandable as we've got so many balls that we're juggling at the same time.  I haven't gotten nearly as much cleaning and organizing done around the house as I had wanted to this month.  Still, somehow I've kept my spirits up instead of getting down on myself.  You've probably gathered that I'm a very goal oriented person who likes lists and checking things off of them.  I know that I'm more than what I end up accomplishing each day, but sometimes, it's nice to see results.

Which is why I'm so grateful for the past few weeks.  Even though my to do list keeps getting longer instead of shorter each day, I feel like I've been getting stuff done!

Just over a week ago, Eliot and I deposited two checks into our account.  One was from my aunt who had ordered mouse ears from us for a Make A Wish family she was working with.  She wanted to surprise them with the ears at the party where they tell the Wish Kid their wish is coming true.  The family went to Walt Disney World earlier this month, and the kids were all donning personalized mouse ears made by us.  The other check was my commission from our Disneyland trip back in March.  I purchased most of our tickets through my travel agency and thus got part of the money back.

On top of that, we had a crazy busy sales week with Happily Ever Hatter earlier this month.  My weekly deposit from Etsy was about twice what it usually is.  Then, I also got paid for a bunch of hours worked at the chiropractic office.

Opening up our bank account info provided me with a little bit of a shock.  Between the two checks and the two direct deposits, our account was looking pretty spectacular. 

It's good to see the fruits of our labor so clearly laid out in front of me.  Sometimes, it feels like Eliot and I are grinding our wheels and not actually getting anywhere.  Seeing our bank account look like that provided me with a much needed dose of relief (that we are in fact getting somewhere) as well as motivation to keep pushing forward.  

And things aren't going to slow down anytime soon... 

As of this past week, two of our other friends are now working with us on mouse ear orders.  We're making four pairs of one design for a local friend.  Then, one of my best customers has ordered five more pairs of ears and a bunch of 3D printed brooches from us for an event he's doing over July 4th weekend.  It always makes me feel really great when our friends and family order products from us!

I'm also beginning to gather the supplies I need for a new business endeavor.  I have briefly mentioned it on here over the past few months... and it's coming closer to becoming a reality!  I've realized that I really need another creative outlet, and this will be something that I can make whatever I wish and then sell it in small batches.

On top of that, Eliot and I have been bouncing around a few other ideas.  I've had a whole stack of things that we put on the back burner to focus our time, energy and efforts on building Happily Ever Hatter and Snowblade Creations.  But now that we're keeping pretty steady with those, we're looking into a few of those other ideas.

Just the other day, I pretty much decided to start another business... on top of the clothing, home decor and above business.  I probably sound crazy, but this one would be a lot less hands on and it could be a way to provide a steady stream of income without all of the time some of the other businesses take up.

Long story short, Eliot and I have got multiple different businesses and ideas in the works.  Right now, we're all about diversifying and having multiple different streams of income.  We're trying to pay things off, have money to buy puppy stuff and we're got a few trips coming up that we'd love to have some extra spending money for.  Plus, my "side hustle" isn't really a side hustle now that it's my full time job.  

Eliot and I are both just trying to go with whatever feels right in the moment.  I won't lie, it's a little bit daunting but at the same time it's a really exciting time around here!

The saying goes that hard work pays off... and it's nice to see that happening.  It feels like a good time to take a step back and acknowledge all of our hard work.  

Ok, the moment is over... time to get back to work!  °o°

Happily Ever Hatter's 8th Birthday

Happy 8th Birthday to Happily Ever Hatter!!!

I can't believe that it's already been eight years since I took the plunge of starting my own business.  It's certainly been a ride and I've learned a lot!

This year, my main focus for Happily Ever Hatter is to get some new products in our shop.  Last year, Eliot didn't have much time to work on new 3D printed mouse ear designs.  I'm hoping we can get more designs done this year.  We also have 30-40 samples we're working on that we haven't gotten finished.  I have so many ideas for our 3D ears, including a few that are unlike anything anyone else is making.

I also have some completely new products that I'd like to bring to the shop.  One of them I've wanted to make for a few years now.  The other was a new idea last year, but I'm really excited about it.  I'm hoping to dive into that when we have some extra money to buy supplies... probably when we get our tax refund!

Hopefully, there will be a lot of fun, new designs coming to our shop this year!  I'll be sure to share our new creations with you here as well.

As always, thank you to everyone who has supported me and my dream over the past eight years.  I would never be where I am today without all of you!

Happy Birthday Happily Ever Hatter!!!  Cheers to many more years and ears!!!  °o° 

2021 Business Review

2021 has been a whirlwind and our businesses have been busier than ever!  The year isn't quite over, so the final numbers aren't officially in... but I still wanted to do an overview of how our year went with Happily Ever Hatter and Snowblade Creations.

January was slow like it usually is.  I celebrated HEH's 7th birthday and hoped this would be a good year for the business I've put so much of my heart into.  Things started to pick up in February and March similarly to when they usually do.

When Disney announced that Disneyland was re-opening, Happily Ever Hatter's sales skyrocketed pretty much as soon as the news was out.  Eliot and I found ourselves making lots of mouse ears in April and May for everyone going back to Disneyland for the first time in over a year!  It was clear that people were ready to make their first trips back extra special, and we were honored to be a small part of that!

After Eliot and I got through May, things leveled out and we knew more of what to expect.  Ever since then, things have been steady and busy with both businesses.

During the holiday season, we had a ton of orders.  It was the first time that both of our businesses were open and at the levels we expected.  I have to admit, I was excited but terrified.  For months leading up to it, I was trying to figure out a logical plan.  Eliot and I never came up with any answers... we just winged it.  (Thankfully, it worked!)

For the first time ever, we didn't close our shops early to "cut off" holiday orders.  We closed both shops the same day as the USPS shipping deadline (12/18).  It was a really dangerous, yet calculated risk.  I messaged all of our customers who had orders due to go out after the holiday shipping deadline.  From there, we were able to figure out what orders to prioritize for the holidays and what orders were personal.  Then, we said a few prayers and just kept working as hard as we could!

Like I've said the past few days, somehow, everything worked out.  All of the holiday orders that needed to get out did.  We've also sent out the rest of the orders we needed to get out after that.  We're wrapping up a few orders before we our New Years trip.  Once we get back, we'll have a few mouse ear orders to complete, but we only have one desk accessory outstanding.  (The only reason that we didn't finish it sooner was that we needed more material for it!  And it should be arriving soon!)

I'm also happy to report that both businesses are up this year.  After the uncertainty of 2020, I wasn't sure how things would look in 2021, but we've certainly bounced back.  I am so thankful, grateful and honestly, incredibly relieved.  I could not be more proud of the numbers that we're looking at for both shops.

Happily Ever Hatter's revenue is 80% year over year compared to 2020.  We hit a number that I wasn't sure we'd reach, and I'm really proud of us.  We had over 250 orders for Happily Ever Hatter this year, and that's incredible!  Both our total views and visits are also up quite a bit which is also really encouraging!

For Snowblade Creations, everything skyrocketed this year.  Sales were up over 130% year over year compared to 2020.  We had over 500 orders this year.  Eliot's shop is so close to hitting 1,000 sales!  Our views and visits are also way up over last year.  We hit a revenue number that I didn't think we'd hit, but we zeroed in on it right before we closed for our holiday break.  It's really been incredible!

Eliot and I are planning to re-open both shops sometime this upcoming week.  We usually take more time off for the holidays, but since our trip this weekend is just over four days, we thought we could open a little earlier than usual.

So the big question now is what's in store for our businesses in 2022?  

Eliot has already been hard at work the past few days with creating some new designs for Snowblade Creations.  We also have a few other designs of desk accessories that we haven't made samples of yet.  We're also planning to debut a few new products in this shop sometime in 2022.  I'll post about it here once those are ready!

For Happily Ever Hatter, Eliot and I have a ton of samples of new products that are in various stages of completion.  One of our big goals is to to finish those, photograph them and add all of them to the shop.  We've got plans to work on some new mouse ear designs as well.  I'd also like to debut a few new products to our shop.  I'm not sure when they'll be making their appearance, but I'll be sure to let you all know!

Plus, Eliot and I have both got a few other things up our sleeves.  We're still working on other business plans and ideas.  We're slowly making progress with those concepts, and hopefully they will also be making their grand debuts in 2022!

2021 could have gone a lot differently.  I'm so incredibly thankful and grateful for how both Happily Ever Hatter and Snowblade Creations bounced back from 2020!  We're so thankful for all of our wonderful customers, fans, friends, family and followers!!!  °o°