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Welcome to the Designs by Ryn blog! The monthly Customer Creation Challenge can be found above in the navigation menu as well as links to my Shop, Facebook Page and Pinterest. Along the right you will find my Design Team. I hope you enjoy your visit and leave with some inspiration.

Tuesday, July 01, 2014

July Sales & News!

Hello everyone :)
Hope you're enjoying your summer so far! I've been busy making some improvements around here. I'll start with the news and then list this month's sales below.
Changes to the Customer Creation Draw
Up until now, you've been sending your photos to my email account or posting them to my Facebook wall. It's been a pleasure to see your art! As more of you share your projects I've realized a need to streamline the process. I want to spend less time administrating and more time designing.
To allow for this I have created a tab along the top of my blog "Monthly Draw" that links directly to the draw for that month. Within the post you can upload your photo, name, description and specific blog link (if you have one). This way you can see all of the projects sent in to date and visit the creator's blog posts.
I will still randomly pick a winner from the batch. They will be announced at the beginning of each month and will receive a free stamp as a prize.
You can check out past galleries on the right hand side of my blog. Scroll down until you see "Labels" and click on "Customer a Creation Draw". All posts with that label will be brought up.
June's Draw Winner is...
Barbara Cleggett! A big thank you and congratulations to you :D
Here are Barbara's entries below...
HERE is a link to this one.
Barbara's second post HERE
UPS Shipping Coming Soon!
Up until now I have only been offering Canada Post as a shipping option on my site. They are great for small orders but I wanted to be able to give you a different option. Especially for my international customers as tracking numbers start at $40 through Canada Post. Yikes! UPS rates start a little bit higher but every order comes with a tracking number and delivers in a much shorter time frame. If all goes well I am aiming to have UPS implemented by the end of the month.
Stencils Coming Soon!
It has been a long time since I have released new designs and I thank you very much for being patient with me. I feel like I hit a bottleneck of business improvements that needed to be made before I could dedicate time to art again. There seems to be a constant battle between the left and right side of my brain ;) I love art AND I love this business.
Over the last couple of months I have been researching companies to produce a line of stencils for me. I've also educated myself on how to convert my designs to the right file type for laser cutting (vector was definitely a learning curve!!!).
Now I'm eagerly awaiting the production of my first three stencil designs. I can't wait to receive them in the mail and to show you. I'm hoping that by the end of July they'll be ready. Nice thing about stencils is that they're light for shipping ;)
July Stamps Marked Down 50%
Finally, here are my picks for this month. We have hot weather here in Ontario which I believe influenced my choices. Can't help but think of nice cool water on a hot day! Here are some aquatic creatures for you.
Well that's it for now. I'll keep you posted about the Shipping and Stencils. Lots to come later this month!!! Thanks for having the care to stop by and read about what I'm up to. All my best to you :)
Ryn

13 comments:

  1. Congratulatons Barbara, your creations are beautiful!

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  2. Beautiful creations, and smart move to streamline the monthly draw!
    I've always been happy with the mail - from Canada to the Netherlands has always been fast, and no customs declaration. I've ordered something from the USA a few weeks ago, which had a tracking number (USPS I think) and was just above the customs value - it took about 3 weeks to get here. And I had to pay almost the same amount of the value of the goods for customs costs (taxes and the service costs). That was a bit of a disappointment. I was thinking at that time: Hmm ordering from Canada is much better! Faster and not as expensive!
    I don't have your July discounted stamps yet, but have to wait for my paycheck to arrive first. Stencils sound like a great addition - ofcourse you have to see them yourself first, but I wouldn't mind if they are in the shop before the end of july! (That is probably way too optimistic thinking from me, haha!)

    Just yesterday or the day before I mailed some projects with your stamps on it, I'll go upload them now through your new link :)

    Greetings,
    Debbie

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    1. Hey Debbie! Thanks so much for your thoughtful response! No worries, I am still keeping Canada Post as an option. They have great rates on small packages!

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  3. Ooh stencils,if they are brilliantly designed as your stamps we are in for a treat! Can't wait to see them :)
    Hugs
    Donna x

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    1. Hehe, I hope they will be! Designing for them definitely requires a different way of thinking than with the stamps. I'm loving the challenge though! Thanks for your kind comment :)

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  4. Congratulations Barbara...your cards look awesome!

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  5. You have been so busy Ryn, I was also more than happy with ordinary post when I bought my stamps. Quick and reasonable. I look forward to seeing the stencils. Lovely work from Barbara xx

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    1. Hey Jane, thanks for the feedback about shipping. No worries, I'm still keeping Canada Post as an option :)

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  6. Indeed congratualtions to Barbara, I like both cards.

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  7. YAY - congrats to Barbara on her win.

    Lovely post Ryn . . .hope all goes well for your stencils etc.

    Hugs, Sarn xxx

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  8. Another way of promoting your designs, allowing people to submit artwork etc is to use something like pinterest which is free to use and is used widely in the craft world now. you can quickly and easily set up boards for instance one on raindrop design etc. A fair few companies now use it for publicity, competitions etc.

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    1. Hey Kate. Thanks for the tip. I have actually just started using Pinterest. It's really neat! So far I only have one board for the stamps: Designs by Ryn - Design Team Art

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