Really, I just had to set aside the time to teach him my system. That’s harder than it sounds if you’ll keep in mind all those different hats I wear. When I set up my business I purposefully walked into this ever-whirling task-tornado; I think it took me this long (a year and a half) to adequately explain to someone else how I want to weather it.

So, today I completed signing up for Endicia, and downloaded their software. I’d read a few horror stories on Etsy about the mediocrity of the software, and it has a really stupid name (“DAZzle”) so I was kind of expecting to hate it, but decided to grin and bear it, because it had to be an improvement on the way I’d been doing things before. But I was pleasantly surprised!

The user interface is actually ridiculously easy for me (this probably varies depending on your needs–I know some people have issues with importing addresses from another program, but I don’t need to do that–I just cut’n'paste them from Gmail). Of course it took a little figuring out, particularly for the one international package I had to send (you can fill out customs forms within the program! Isn’t that awesome? I HATE hand-writing those forms.) but once I got the hang of it, everything was peachy.

I just printed out my postage labels on regular white paper, cut them out, and attached them with mailing tape to my parcels. Unfortunately, there ended up being a lot of wasted paper, but I’m sure I’ll find ways to minimize that. Then I just walked across the street from my apartment and dropped them in the mailbox on the corner! Even with learning the ins and outs of the software, it still took less time than it normally would take me. I am so excited about getting this set up and having it all work perfectly!

It looks like I should be able to make really fancy-looking labels at some future date, when I have a little more time and interest. You can add graphics to the postage labels, print them in lots of different layouts, access all your fonts to use for the addresses, etc. Oh, and paying for the postage is easy too–you do have to import funds from your credit/debit card to your Endicia account, but you can do it in a matter of seconds/minutes, depending on your connection speed, so it’s really not a big deal.

In related-but-separate news, I have decided to take a couple “days off” from internet stuff, including my Etsy store. I will still be around to attend to sales, comments, and important e-mails, but I need a break from sitting in front of my computer all day. I need some time to devote to the several crafty projects I’m working on right now, without so many distractions. I shall see you all in a few days, though!

Today I made some tiles to use for testing. I used a method I really wouldn’t recommend–I was just trying it out. I took a wooden picture frame and pressed clay into it until it was tile-shaped, using the flat bottom of a glass to smush it in and a piece of plastic to scrap it flat.

Actually, the method itself wasn’t the problem–that worked quite well. The problem was that the frame had a bevel on the inside, the outside edge of the clay had to be trimmed. I also trimmed that rectangle into three smaller rectangles, since the frame was rather big–apparently, according to the internet, I should have waited until the clay was leather-hard to do this. They seem to have turned out okay thusfar, but it remains to be seen how badly they may warp or crack.

I also spent about 8 hours yesterday filling orders of decanted perfume, a side-hobby of mine, and getting Etsy orders ready to mail. I think I have something like 35 envelopes to mail in the next two days. Yikes.