So the nights are drawing in, the adverts full of Christmas lights are on the telly and this afternoon I heard Christmas music playing in the local shopping centre. Yes It's that time of year again!
This will be my third Christmas as in The Felt Menagerie and over the last 2 I have learned a couple of lessons that I thought might be worth sharing in my guide to surviving the holiday season and here they are in no particular order:
Launch your Christmas lines (if you haven't done so already) mine will be hitting the Felt Menagerie over the weekend, have you got your banner and avatar prepared? Do it now even if you don't intend to make you shop festive for a few weeks then it's just a case of changing it and you're ready to go!
Sort out your packaging now and set up a packaging station, it's so much easier if it is all set out for you. Make sure you are fully stocked on tape, business cards, boxes, envelopes, shipping labels... what ever it is that usually goes into one of you packages.
Know the last posting dates, last date the UK post office will guarantee a Christmas delivery to the states from the UK is the 6th of December... that's only 1 month away!!! Do your customers know this? You'll need to make sure you let them know early so they can get their orders in! (you can find the dates for elsewhere
here if you are UK based)
Preparing your parcels will always take longer than you think it will... and don't forget those post office queues make sure you leave yourself plenty of time to post things, if you do work another job like me (veteran bookslave!) try and avoid doing this on your lunch break... you still need to eat!
Enlist help... John is limbering up for his role over Christmas as Postmaster General as we speak! You can't do it all so even if you aren't getting help with your work ask your family to pull their weight a bit more and help with chores or enlist a pal to stick postage labels on things... I find bribing them with cake helps! Boy is Santa lucky to have an army of elves at his disposal!
Learn to say no... when is your cut off point for custom work? Set one and be firm about it... you already have enough on your plate!
Look after yourself, wrap up warm, make sure you get lots of vitamins, make sure you get lots of sleep... set aside some you time because it will get hectic and even you, yes you, need to breathe occasionally!
Enjoy it!... ok it's crazy mad panic but isn't it every year? Find a way to make it fun because it will be over before you know and then you'll miss that buzz!
So now I'm of to put the finishing touches to my Christmas collection, maybe have a Baileys and a Mince Pie and sing some carols while I work....
I have had a totally awesome huge Christmas and a great year, I just hit 700 sales in my shop and very nearly 700 facebook followers! How best to celebrate this? In traditional stylee with a giveaway of course!
I'm feeling generous, I must have come over all festive like! I have decided to pick 3 lucky winners this time.
To enter simply first leave a comment on my blog telling me what your favourite item in my shop is. For extra entries then if you can leave a Twitter comment mentioning this blog post with link @feltmeupdesigns or become a fan at facebook ... If you do all 3 you get 3 entries... simples! Just make sure you come back here and tell me in a separate comment that you have twittered and facebooked, if you are already a facebook fan just let me know to get your extra entry!
The winners will be picked at random on the 7th of Jan to give all you party people a good chance to get your entries in!
