When 30 stockings are “Easy”

  That is correct….we sold 30 stockings today and only had to make 17 ( roughly) from beginning to end.   Many of the sold orders were already made in advance.   SEE!  It CAN be easy with ADVANCE PREP WORK!   ( That was a message to future Cheryl and Ethan….I would not raise my voice…or my caps to anyone other than myself after all)

There were a number of things to note about today.  First:  Besides having many of the stocking orders pre-made,   There were NO DOGS today.   I know the dogs are difficult to make….not really for me, but for Cheryl.   She not only has to cut each part out by hand, but also has to sew over several layers of felt stacked up on top of each other.   The Allenbrite way is to keep things simple!   Dogs are NOT simple to make.

There is a debate as to how we should handle this issue for the future.   The first, and very popular idea, is to stop doing stockings altogether!    That not only eliminates the problem of custom dogs, but All custom orders,  felt and button inventory, tax evasion, Etsy Fees,  Work areas, Late work nights with no compensation or overtime.   Basically it solves ALL of the problems we currently face.  …..Except the money issue.

So that Idea is most likely out the window unless we find some means of full employment.   And since we hate working,   that is equally as unlikely.  Do you now see what an impossible situation we are in?

So the second choice is to raise our prices on custom orders.  However,  Humans are wily!  They find ways of making you do their custom stockings and go around the procedure that we clearly have spelled out.  It is like playing chess with someone who claims to not know the rules, but then puts you in check mate in 4 moves! 

So enough complaining…..For now.  The main thing is that it appears that we are getting more of the Christmas minded people back into the shop and they are ordering the items we have made in advance.   We are currently behind last years sales numbers…so what we are feeling  seems to not be only in our heads.  There are roughly two weeks left to make as much as we can.    And,  with a little luck,  Custom orders will dwindle and we can capitalize on our invested labor.   We shall see.

 

As for tonight….with our new found time,  We plan on watching Godzilla!   The latest big budget monster movie.   I used to be a big fan of the Japanese versions back in the day of Saturday afternoon  “Creature Feature” on Channel 50 Detroit!  All kinds of cool movies for grade-schoolers to watch and have nightmares about.   Or, play Godzilla and destroy your brother’s city landscape he built out of Lincoln Logs. ( I still remember that!  Eric!)