Slow Progress Today

This is one of the those days when absolutely nothing has gone well. One of my vermeil orders arrived. By mistake I left it in harm's way so Amy grabbed it and chewed it up. She detects cigarette smoke and other nice strange odours on mail so she destroys just about any and all mail she can sink her huge airedale teeth into. And in one of my other companies it seems everything that can go wrong is doing just that. Well things aren't exactly going wrong, it's just a swell of bad press that seems suspect to say the least. And it caught me off guard. So I haven't been sleeping.

At the supplies store a customer placed a huge order and then kept writing that he couldn't get paypal to work. Perhaps it's my background in the financial services sector, or the fact that I've been dealing with online sales for so many years now, but when customers complain that they can't use PayPal I turn a deaf ear. I'm so tired of hearing this stuff from folks who either haven't got a paypal account set up, or they didn't complete the verification process, or they can't figure out how PayPal works, or well there are dozens of explanations I've heard. Anyhow, this poor guy kept saying that payment couldn't be made using credit card and I really wasn't listening. Finally I get a convo from him asking me to cancel the sale because there was never this problem before when he tried to use PayPal and pay via credit card. So I'm thinking, okay then your account really is set up and it does work. Maybe there's something askew at my end. Guess what? Our PayPal account settings are blocking all kinds of things. We were set up to block all unverified US addresses. and the real kicker - we didn't have PayPal Optional enabled. Go figure!

I think I've fixed the PayPal optional problem. Now my buyers can purchase using a credit card without having to set up a PayPal account. Let's hope that customer tries one more time to pay!

At SassyDLite I had a necklace order to ship. The buyer requested a longer chain. Folks don't realize it but these last minute changes can sometimes mean virtually rebuilding the entire piece. Anyhow I got that shipped. And hanging over my head for several days now has been a custom bridal hair comb creation that I'd been putting off. The buyer gave me an outline of her specs and I had difficulty envisioning how I would pull the project together. Anyhow here it is. What do you think of it?

The one thing that has gone well today was hearing from Danielle that she loves it. Thank God! I really didn't want to have to take another stab at this project. The clear swarovski crystals seem way too monochromatic for my taste. It's no secret that I like a broad palette of colour.

I suppose I'm frustrated because I started a fabulous pair of handmade chandeliers several days ago and I haven't had even a moment to develop the creation. I'm one of those designers who lumps the components together to see how they'll look when combined. That means each partially finished project is strewn on my bench. I'm currently looking for a better storage system, and I've found some that are nice (nice and expensive too), but most of these systems don't allow me to see the materials at a glance. All the gems are laid neatly away inside drawers and I'm not a fan of that approach. But I may have to adjust to a new system like that in order to get better organized.

So my bench is a mess and the 26g headpins finally arrived from Magdalena Borejko of Magdalenas Atelier in Poland today. I've been waiting weeks for these materials. Now I'm ready to get creative, unless more orders arrive.