Making Progress

Getting back into the swing of things.
Tuesday I did fire up InDesign and worked on revised business cards, bookmarks, and an ad for the Capricon book for MuseCon. I also updated the door banner for parties that I did in Illustrator, and almost stymied Ron in the process: I had an outline font that I wanted to fill in, and It seemed like something Illustrator should be able to do. It was, it just required zooming in enough to see how the letters were constructed.


I think I needed a break after being done with the fall semester of classes before doing graphic design stuff again. I'm not sure I'm going to take any more classes, there doesn't seem to be much that Harper has that I want to learn (or that I already haven't figured out) in the Graphic Design curriculum. 


Tonight I need to take another look at the things I worked on Tuesday, and get them to the Capricon people and get them up on my MuseCon publications web page.


Yesterday I got holes made in pouches, but although I could have started putting things together, I didn't. 


My rather large hardware order is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow. I'm kind of waiting on the pocketwatch cases until it comes in, as I'm down to only one belt clip, and I want to make at least two pocketwatch cases using belt clips.


Tuesday night we molded 3 pouch fronts. Pulled the fronts off of the molds this morning to let them finish drying, and soaked more leather to mold 4 tonight. Those should be dry and ready to wax Saturday (pouch fronts are waxed on the molds, to help keep them in shape), then we can mold another round.  Yes, I'm pushing to get lots of fronts molded, it tends to be the bottleneck step, as it's a 48-72-hour process.


We are confirmed for Festival of Maidens. We'll see how much we can get done by then. Which reminds me, I really need to check belt inventory vs. leather and see if I need to order more leather.


Which then reminds me another step further out, I need to post some belts to ArtFire, and more to Etsy.


In the last couple months PayPal has been particularly egregious in their screw-the-seller policy. First it was a kerfluffle with the website Regretsy, about a charity drive they were doing. This week it was a story about the PayPal-ordered destruction of an antique violin in an authenticity dispute. Unfortunately, there are no strong contenders. None of my Etsy customers have used Google Checkout, nor have I for that matter. But I may start trying harder to remember it as an alternative.  Dwolla is rumored to be good, need to investigate it more.

I also want to look at credit card readers for my iPhone. I've heard rumors of service(s) that don't have monthly/annual fees, only transaction fees. If the fees aren't too horrible that would be a viable alternative for in-person events. I liked being able to accept credit cards, it was the overhead monthly and annual fees that killed it.