Hi Lovers

So apparently people in the States go crazy after Thanksgiving and spend all their money on sales? Perfect timing for xmas shipping and the perfect time to finally try out the Etsy Coupon Code function right?

So if you’re from Australia use code FREESHIPPINGOZ50 when you spend $50nzd to get free shipping.
And if you’re from anywhere else use code FREESHIPPING75 when you spend $75nzd to get free shipping.

But what about the Kiwis?! You guys get free shipping on everything always now. Boom!

Don’t forget I can ship presents already gift wrapped directly to your recipient with a note from you. Just make sure you include all the details in the notes when you check out.

I’ve realised lately that I’m in a good space and working on what I actually want to do now. How do I know this?

I’m temping and getting on with it but my mind is full of jewellery ideas I’d like to work on, photos I want to be taking, and blog posts I want to be writing.

When people ask what I do I tell them I temp 6 months of the year, as well as all the other stuff. Because that’s true. I have officially gotten to a point in my life where I can live on half of my temping wage while I’m temping, and spend the other half of my wage during the 6 months of the year I’m not officially employed.

My birthday, an unusually beautiful and sunny one (spring time in Wellington = rain), was spent nursing a hangover of both the food and alcohol varieties, having high tea with some of my ladies, and working. I couldn’t wait to have a few hours to myself so I could edit some photos, write some words, and sketch some ideas.

The crazy giftmas season has kicked in and orders have shifted into high gear. It’s been quite overwhelming juggling 40 hours in the office, social engagements every night, blogging every day, and filling all the orders in time. But I’m still really happy, I want to give up less than ever. And it’s a really great space to be in.

Over the past few years I’ve struggled constantly with the idea that maybe I’m just doing the jewellery and blogging thing because I couldn’t think of anything else. But I’m pretty sure that as long as I’m crafting and sharing my thoughts I’m where I want to be.

Money or no.

[Title courtesy of Cartman]

I’ve been temping again for the past month (with another month on my contract) in order to get some dollars ready for xmas and new years and all the fun things that happen without me when I’m not getting much money in. And as always the reality of being cooped up in a cubicle sent my brains into over drive and all I wanted to do was make all the things, and photograph all the things, and write all the things.

But I can’t do it all so I just made a few of the things:

Ampersand necklaces in Quicksand, Baskerville, and Futura fonts

Creep

Bunting in pink white and blue

Black bone bead necklace

Faux 3 finger rings
There’s only one finger hole and the bar sits above your digits, way more comfortable and allows heaps more movement than a true 3 finger ring.

Futura ampersand brooch

Heart rings and mini heart brooches

More things soon

I’ve got a few more new designs that need to be photographed and listed so look out for another update in a week or two. Expect bows and anchors and bone beads in more colours and ceramic hearts.

Xmas Shipping

Unfortunately my super dooper laser machine friend is moving cities in a couple of weeks so the laser cutter will be out of action for a while. I can still get things made but there will be a 2-3 week turn around instead of a week (max) turn around. This means custom xmas orders for pretty much everywhere need to be in by mid November! Not long! How is xmas so soon!?
You have a bit longer for jewellery in stock. Those orders don’t need to be in till the end of November if you need them to arrive by xmas.

Ozzies have till the around the 20th of November for custom orders and till December 9th for jewels in stock.

Kiwis have till the start of December for custom orders and till the 19th of December for everything else.

If you’re buying gifts I can send them direct to the recipient with a note! And even if you’re buying for yourself your jewels will be packaged with tissue and ribbon and love.

Some of you may have already noticed there is a big sale in the Cupcakes and Mace store right now. For the rest of you here is your notification.

We have a whole heap of mostly red, pre cut jewellery sitting here in the Cupcake Factory. We’d prefer if they were sitting around the neck of you and your BFF though so we’re running a buy one get one free sale. We have scissors, narwhals, guns, seahorses, vultures, Darwin fish, cupcake rings, minicorn brooches, candy, and ghosts and you can mix and match.

The sale is on till it’s gone. The first 10 pictures below link to the sale items (up to the vulture), the rest are recently added pieces.

Cupcakes and Mace

Giftmas shipping. I know it’s early, but down here at the end of the world we’re so far away from you Americans and Britons that the shipping cut off is the 30th of November. There is a chance that orders after that will still arrive in time, but not a chance I’d take. Make sure you get in by the 28th to be sure.

Aussies fare slightly better as you’re pretty close, but your cut off date is still the 7th of December. Please try to get your orders in by the 5th.

Kiwis, you have until the 19th of December. Because we’re shutting up shop for the year on that day. We’ll be open for orders over the holidays but nothing will ship till we’ve had a nice long break and get back to Wellington in the second or third week of January.

Don’t forget we can cut other designs for you – you’re not limited to what is currently in the shop. Prices will be around the same as listed items.
If you order 10 pieces you’ll get 25% off everything (excluding sale items).
We also offer flat rate shipping, no matter how many things you buy!

You’re all winners. Unfortunately my empire building is not yet complete so my funds don’t stretch far enough to send something to every fabulous blogger and internet friend I come across. But a couple of lovely ladies will be getting something!

First off the amazing Sarah Hannah wins the randomly generated draw. Sarah Hannah said she’d like one of three choices “‘everything was beautiful and nothing hurt”, “death wears diamond jewellery”, or “team bubble”.

Secondly we’d like to give a necklace to the ever stylish Ela for coming up with a fancy name to call these square boxes. We love C² (C squared), so thank you!

I’ve also contacted a fellow blogger about using her suggestion in the shop. If she decides to let us use her words we’ll let you know.

Send an email to [kim at cupcakesandmace (dot) com] letting me know what you want your necklace to say; which colour acrylic and chain you like; and if you have a sketch or some instructions on how you want the words set, which words should be bigger, smaller, on each line etc include that too. I’ll also need your addresses.

We’re going to be offering create your own C² necklaces in the etsy shop, they’ll be $30 each, slightly more than the nameplate necklaces because there will be quite a bit more work involved. However, if you’d like to get your hands on one created especially for you before they’re even an option in the shop you’re going to get it for $20. Yep, early aaaaaaaaand a third off. This is for my readers only, and is available until the end of October.

Your necklace can say what ever you like. It can be cut in any of the colours we have. And you can either send us a sketch to give us an idea of how you want it to look or you can leave the design up to us. Send me an email referencing the secret blog deals and I’ll know what you’re talking about.

Photos of the winning C² necklaces will be posted when they’re ready.

One of my favourite parts of my job is being able to spend large amounts of money on shiny things. I get to browse catalogues online and make informed decisions on whether the 6mm jumpring is better in 1mm thick wire or 0.9mm thick wire. And if 16mm wide ribbon will look better than 23mm wide ribbon.

It’s all good fun until you can’t find anything you’ve bought. I was forgetting what I already had and would spend too much time pawing through laser cuttings to see if we already had one in the colour requested. I’m a very visual person, I need to be able to see what tools and supplies I have at my disposal, and it makes sense to be able to find what you’re looking for at a glance rather than searching through a basket all the time.

I had the idea for this pin board quite a while ago. I bought the board and then it sat there doing nothing, like most of my projects for a very long time.

Finally the urge hit (another great thing about working for yourself, being able to do whatever you want when the mood strikes) and I pinned everything to the board. It’s so much easier to find things now! It’s not very pretty, but it does the trick. Maybe I’ll decorate it when the next mood strikes.

Have you got any tips for organising piles of stuff in a small apartment?

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Have you entered the birthday competition yet? You have one day left!

It’s a very exciting day in the Cupcake Factory as one year ago cupcakesandmace.com was born.
“But posts in your archive go back to March 2008″ I hear you cry. And yes, you are right. When this blogging thing started for me I went through a few names before I decided I wanted to take blogging a more seriously and register a domain.

Life has changed a lot since then. I’m self employed now, blogging, thinking up pretties, and interacting with customers on a daily basis. I really appreciate everyone who has joined me along the way. Thanks to you I have no plans to give this thing up.

To say thank you and to celebrate this milestone I’m giving you the present! We’ve started designing necklace squares with helvetica text. I have no idea what to call them collectively, so feel free to help me out.

The Rules

All you have to do is comment and let me know what you’d like your square to say if you win. It can say anything at all. Easy as.

The winner will be picked by a random name draw, but if we really like your idea there might be a prize heading your way too.

And as per usual if you’d like extra entries post a link from your blog to the comp or tweet about it.

You have a week. I’ll draw the winner next weekend on the 3rd of October. And then it’ll be your turn to send me the presents as it’s my birthday on the 9th of October. :D

1. I prefer to work from 1pm – 4am so your knocking at the door at 9am is a waste of time, I just pretend I can’t hear anything. I suggest you deliver packages to offices in the morning and come to my residential address in the afternoon.
2. I really do appreciate it that you will come back the next day in the afternoon to deliver my package.
3. Because I work from home I enjoy working in my dressing gown and slippers. They are comfortable. Some days I’ll have a shower and then continue wearing my dressing gown. Most afternoons you deliver stuff to me I haven’t been up very long, thanks for not pulling a face when I answer the door in a fluffy pink dressing gown, with my greasy hair, and morning breath. Your acceptance serves to cement future viewings of me in a dressing gown. In summer it might even be silky.
4. Despite what @nzlemming says I refuse to believe you have x ray eyes.
5. Thanks for taking the time to come to my door even when the package doesn’t have to be signed for. The old letter boxes were falling apart so the body corporate replaced them with teeny tiny ones that can’t take anything thicker than 20mm and can’t be opened without a key. Yea, we have to lock and unlock the letterbox, with a key, Every. Single. Time. Also, they only gave us one key to share.
6. Your electronic signature thingees are stupid. Especially when combined with an unclicked ball point pen and me trying to hide behind my door. IT always misses the first line of my K, and make me look like I zigzagged lines all over the screen.
7. It makes me laugh when I open the door in my unwashed state, and you look at the package and read that it’s addressed to Cupcakes and Mace and then you look at me and ask if it’s the right address. Sure is. This is what Cupcakes and Mace is all about!

Does anyone else ever get the pleasure of greeting couriers, and on some occasions 3 young electrical company salesmen, in your dressing gown or an equally embarrassing state?

*****

Just as I was about to post this a courier showed up at my door. I was in my robe, and socks.

*****

Cupcakes and Mace has been down the last 12 or so hours. First the server ran out of space and then I found that my database had been deleted. If you commented yesterday afternoon it has been lost sorry.
Backup your data on a regular basis!

We’ve been busy in the Cupcake Factory this month, adding a lot of new things to the store in an effort to give you something to look at for more than one minute! We’re going to continue adding new stock and designs until we reach at least 100 products so there is plenty more to come.

These are new products added over the last couple of weeks. Each picture will take you to the Etsy page for more photos and information. (And everything is less than $18 :D)

Cupcakes and Mace

I’ve been out of my office job for just over two months now, so I thought it was time to review the list I made back in February.
A list which boldly stated what I’d do if I didn’t have a day job.

• Create the already thought out design for Cupcakes and Mace
  I changed my blog theme in April in order to give myself more control, I also added a new header. There are still changes I’d like to make though.
• Read books often
  I haven’t read a single book since I’ve finished work. I read so much online every. single. day. that I feel like I don’t have the time. I’m tempted to try Twilight to see if the book is any better than the movie.
• Spend more time writing posts
  I do spend more time on most of my posts now, just because I can. I have a lot of half done posts and ideas as well, sometimes I’m too tired when it comes time to write something though and I end up writing filler (like this :p).
• Name, tag, and upload all of my photos
  One day I’ll get to it.
• Write to do lists
  I’m the kind of person that loves to plan, loves to prepare, but can’t quite get the same enthusiasm to perform the task.
  I bought a whiteboard and a corkboard, I write lists, I make piles, I plan, and plan, and plan. But I don’t actually finish anything on the list. I have been writing the lists though so I suppose that means this one is done.
• Exercise
  Hahahahahahahahaha
• Bake
  I’ve been putting my limited and lazy baking skills to practice. Today I made courgette and mushroom bread and it is delicious!
• Write letters
  Email is just SO much easier (and free).
• Find the best thrift stores and ask when new stock is put out
  I’ve hardly left the house during the day, let alone been going thrifting.
• Plan outfits
  When you don’t leave the house there is no need to plan an outfit.
• Get more sleep
  This. This! This is something I’ve gotten REAL good at. I sleep as long as I like and wake up refreshed and happy instead of bleary eyed and grumpy. I wake up and pull bake the curtain and get straight up.
  It’s the best feeling.
• Listen to music lots
  I did for the first month, but I haven’t listened to as much this month. The iPod is all the way over there, and my laptop speakers are tinny as fuck.
• Clear out my old clothes
  Must get on to this. It would allow me to use my desk.
• Bask in the glory of having no boss
  There has been much basking in the Cupcake Factory.
• Breathe more fresh air
  I get to enjoy every sunny day. I wake up when the sun is at its peak and wander into the toasty lounge. I open the bedroom window and front door wide and air the house. Its great.
  My skin is much nicer and not as dry now that I’m not stuck inside with aircon all day.
• Make jewellery
  I get real enjoyment out of making pretty things so making jewellery has been one of the few things I’ve been doing.
• Have fun with my “Wreck This Journal”
  Nope.
• Attempt to alter clothes
  Not yet. Though I’m planning on shortening the straps on a dress tomorrow. My size 12 boobs don’t quite match up to my size 13 thighs.
• Play my bass
  The only time either of the guitars get picked up is when one of our musically inclined friends comes over. I’m too impatient for music, if I’m not good after almost a year of weekly lessons I’m done.
• Save money on food
  We definitely haven’t been eating out as often and I don’t buy lunches so money has certainly been saved.
• Use recipes
  Not as much as I would like, but more than when I had a day job.
• Tweet constantly
  I’ve got the tweeting bug. I don’t tweet constantly, but I’m there often, and I’m always reading.
• Find the best photos on Flickr
  I often spend hours at a time finding perfect photos with CC licences for posts. (if you use Flickr you should give your photos a CC licence so they can be shared :])

So there you have it, I’m as lazy as ever, but I’m happy.