Sometimes I just want to stop

Fair warning this is a little bit venting.

I have been on Etsy for over 5 years now.  I consider it passive income because most of the items I sell on the platform are plans.   For the most part it has been a good experience.  There are times where I wonder if it is even worth it.  My store has been gaining more popularity in the past couple of years.  In part from social media and a couple of magazine articles I have written.  I have also seen an increase in sales where the person thought they were buying a product when it is only the plan.  I have also seen an increase in people wondering why my Etsy price is cheaper than the price I quote them to make the toy.  

When people ask about prices it is usually pretty easy to explain.  I will try and go out of my way to explain and offer suggestions.  I had a non profit that wanted me to make toys for them to sell.  They did not understand why the plan was $3 and I was quoting them $15 for each toy.  I wasn't going to be able to take the business because they were out of the country, but I wanted to help.  I ended up sending them the plans and told them to find a local wood worker to make them at the sizes they wanted.  Usually the price concerns are easy to resolve.

I have been having more people order plans and expecting the product.  I do have a no refund policy on plans because they are immediately downloaded.  This is typical in plan sales.  Usually when a plan is ordered in mistake the person will notify me of their mistake.  I handle these case by case. Be kind to me and I will reciprocate.  It is the emails saying something like, "When is this going to ship.  I have been waiting for two months," that bother me.  This year I have decided to take an unapologetic approach to these mistaken plan sales.  This is my typical reply:

Thank you for purchasing ______ plan.  You should have received an email with a link to download the plan.  Sometimes this is sent to spam.  I have attached the plan you purchased.  Thank you again for your purchase.

Most of the time I don't get a response.  When I do it makes me question if I want to continue in the retail environment. The customer feels it is my fault and I am not clear that this is just a plan.  The plan that has been the most problematic has been the cradle.  I have reviewed the description and title and could not find a better way to say that this is a plan.  I don't want to capitalize "PLAN ONLY".  It looks like I am shouting and it is tacky. Here is my little vent:

If you are buying on-line it is your responsibility to read the descriptions and understand what you are buying.  My shop is called All Natural Toy Plans (italics added).  The title says "Wood Toy Plan" then the item.  The summary in all my plans say "plans can be printed on 8.5 x 11" paper."  The last sentence reads: purchase is for the plan only.  I think I say it enough.  But just in case, I have added "*plan only*" at the beginning of each description.  I think this looks tacky.  Seriously, if you purchase one of my plans thinking it is a product, own the mistake an move on.  It is not my fault you made the purchase so stop blaming me that you didn't read the description.  I have no fine print. I have no disclaimers.  I definitely am not trying to deceive any one. I have over 400 sales and only about 2% order plans by mistake. Only two people think that I have actually deceived them.

My rant continues with the cradle since this seems to be the most mistaken as a product.  The plan is $10.  Something must go off in your head that this deal is too good to be true.  This plan is for a 21" cradle with custom fretwork on the side.  There is no shipping because it is a download.  My small toys cost $6-$8 to ship.  Seriously, if the deal looks too good, make sure you understand what you are buying.  I sell these cradles for $100 each at craft fairs.

I know that Etsy is not the best place to sell plans, but it is a platform that I use.  Others also use it because there is a total section for digital downloads and plans.  It has worked well for me.  I know that I am not the only one that has this issue.  I have read one star reviews on other plan stores, they are all because they expected an object and got a digital download.  

Rant over.

I am not shutting down my shop anytime soon.  It has been too much fun meeting new people.  Others sharing what they have made from my plans.  There has been some great things come from this experience.  

This year has actually been a good year for me on Etsy.  I contribute a lot of the success to being published and covid.  It is nothing to quit my job over, but it offset the costs of a planer, and lumber this year.

Workshop Classes

This is probably the best location to put consistent information about the workshop classes that I am currently doing.  Information will probably changes and adapt as covid regulations increase or decrease.  

I am holding workshop woodworking classes in my garage about twice a month; at least that is the plan starting in January.  I will be posting links on Facebook and NextDoor.  I am working on a google sheet for sign ups so that people can sign up for the project and date.  I have space for two people at a time for the smaller projects and only one for the larger projects.  All tools and supplies will be provided.  Currently everyone will need to come with a face mask or shield.  Shields are preferred because they do not fog up the safety glasses.  Classes will range from 1-3 hours in length.  These projects are on the simpler side to teach basics of nailing, drilling, cutting, sanding, and assembly.  It will not go into fine woodworking joinery and furniture.

Here are a list of potential projects.  Not all the designs have been vetted out so I don't have pictures of all of them.

• Construction trucks - 1-3rd grades
• Napkin holder - 1-3rd grades
• Holiday luminary - 4th grade and above
• Christmas Ornament - 4th grade and above
• Cell phone holder - 4th grade and above
• Bird House - 2-6th grade
• Cradle - 9th grade and above
• Scroll saw basics - 4th grade and above (prerequisite for many of the other classes)
• Catapult - 4th grade and above
• Name Plaque 1-3rd grade
• Puzzles - 4th grade and above
• Car launcher - 3-4th grade

To sign up for the workshops please look for the posts on social media sites and respond via email.  This is a first come first serve basis.  I will have some priority for new kids for the younger classes.

Workshop Classes

 I am starting up classes again.  I am running these a little differently,  It is not a 14 week class but a couple of ours.  Right now I am only having 2 people at a time because I have two work spaces for separation.  My first two classes were for kids 1-3rd grade.  We made a name plaque and a tow truck.  They painted and put them together.  Sorry I forgot to take pictures of the tow truck.  Each class was about an hour long.  I will be working up to larger projects but I also want to include projects for the younger kids also.  Overall, I think the kids had fun.  It is easier for me to let other kids do projects than let my kids do it on their own.  These classes are promoted through facebook groups and the next door app.

Color experimenting

 I am working on putting together workshops for kids to learn and make some things out of wood.  My struggle has been the painting.  Young kids really like painting and coloring there stuff so I need to come up with a solution.  

Here are the things I have thought about:

• 
  Markers - may not be very messy but also not very affordable.  Wood and markers also don't go together well because wood is more abrasive than paper and will wear down the tips quickly.  On the positive side they do not make a mess and they will clean up with water.  They also dry fast.
• Acrylic paint - It is a lot more messy, stains clothes, and takes forever to dry because kids layer it on pretty thick.  It is also uses more stuff because brushes need to be cleaned and rinsed with water.  On the plus side it is cheap and one bottle can be used multiple times.
• Paint pens - are not affordable and have chemicals that I don't want kids using.
• Food dyes - are thin and dry quickly.  They are too liquid for me to have kids use.  
• Water color pallets - They are about a $1 a piece on amazon so they are affordable if they are reusable.  Mixing colors and contamination is very likely when kids use them

I tried making my own.  I tried two things: drying out acrylic paint and drying out food coloring.  These were dried on parchment paper because that is what I had.  I put aluminum foil under the food dies because I was not sure if it would bleed through.  It did not. Here are some of the key observations that I made.

 Acrylic paint comes in many colors and food dyes typically come in four so I did have to make some of my own colors and I did not have black or white.

• The yellow dye looks a lot like orange
• The acrylic paint dried in about 24 hours.  The dyes did not seen to dry after 72 hours
• The dyes stain my hands while the paint washed of with soap, water and a little scrubbing.
• The acrylic paint rehydrated with some water and a paint brush.  it did stake some work and the colors were translucent and not opaque.

The next step is to see how the parchment paper holds up to kids and painting.  The other nice thing that was nice with the paint was the viscosity.  I could put the paint down and put another piece of parchment on top.  Pat it down a little bit and peel the two sheets apart.  I now had two painting papers.

Puzzle Ornaments

 This is another pattern that I found on the web.  Thought it looked interesting and I had some scrap that I could try them out on.  I like the idea.  My execution and final assembly was not good.  My hole for the ribbon was too big.  I drilled it at 1/4" and I should have made it closer to 1/8".  I think the patterns could have used a little work also.  Not all the pieces lock together.  It is a pet peeve of mine if they don't.  Painting them was not difficult and added a nice touch.  I don't know if I will do these again, but I might actually take the idea to some line art in the web.  I also might consider making them bigger and changing some of the lines.  Again, I liked the idea and the concept is good.  I fault myself on the execution and look.

This Year’s Christmas Ornament

This was a crazy year for me.  I had the nativity ornament already picked out.  The wood choice for the family ornament is poplar.  There is not much special about poplar.  It is considered a hard wood even though it is pretty soft.  This wood is always in stock in my shop because it is what I use to make the toys that I designed for the first time.  It is also what I make most of my toys I donate.  It paints very well and is inexpensive.  Poplar will always have a place in my shop. 

It came clear in April that another ornament would need to be made.  I found a couple designs and saying on Etsy about this pandemic.  The ornaments I found were laser engraved.  I took them and cut out then used paint pens to paint the designs in paint pens.  The lesson learned from this project is that carbon paper does not wipe off with a little bit of water.  It is my first-time using carbon paper where I was not going to sand it off.  I wanted to copy the lettering, but it was not going to work out.  I used my own handwriting than a decorative lettering.  I will not be offering these to the public because I took the design from someone else.  These are going to family and coworkers.  When I started these, the coworkers were not very many so they were made out of solid wood.  I had a team of four and a couple of others in the office.  I was let go due to the pandemic.  After a short time, I was rehired by the parent company of the company I worked for in California.  This made my coworker pool increased a lot.  I took some ¼” plywood and painted one side white.  I then cut out and painted them.  I actually like the white painted ones better then wood ones I made.

That is this year's ornament.

Honey, I Blew up the Toys

I had a fair amount of off cuts of several thicknesses of cherry from the furniture that I have been building.  I wondered for a little bit what to do with it.  My small series was made mostly of 3/4" material so it made since to just double it, sort of.  

The problem was that the lumber I had was not all the same thickness and too small to run through a planer.  I took some liberties on thicknesses and dimensions to make it work.  I only had enough off cuts to make four different models.  I probably like the jeep and the plane the best.  I would like to see what the dump truck would be doubled.  Maybe after a few more projects.

Fun project to double the size.  I needed to enlarge a couple of the templates.  I took a couple of liberties with the dowel placements and widths.  It was also surprised how big they were compared to the originals.  I will probably do this again when I get different thicknesses of lumber.