Hey guys! Wow, so… a lot has happened since we last posted in our blog. That was May, and back in May we thought problems due to COVID would be short lived. We had hopes for Summer, or at least possibly fall, might see events happening again.

Obviously, that is not what happened.

After the last crazy weekend of March 13th, we had one additional in-person event in the Fall. A local winery, Stonefield Cellars, threw an awesome tiny event with local vendors who usually work the renaissance faire circuit. Even with the small numbers there, it was awesome to see some familiar faces! It was weird – by October, we discovered we were really out of practice with shows and just about everyone forgot something. We had a good laugh about that, and realized just how much we missed all our awesome vendor friends. Sunday, we vended and loaded out in the mud… just like a real faire. 😉

We participated in two virtual events last year. Dragon Con actually put together an amazing event, and I recommend Eventeny to anyone wanting to run a virtual show. Which it was not near the level of our usual in-person Dragon Con sales, it was enough to make the work more than worth it.

Our other virtual event was put on by awesome Pagan creator friends at Raven’s Own. You may have seen our ridiculous video. It was a great little event of people in the pagan community, who we usually see a lot in September during Pagan Pride events.

Our big online push and the increase in online sales were helpful and a bit overwhelming. While we didn’t hit our usual annual income by far, we did double our annual online sales from 2019. And thus far, as 2021 starts, online buying still appears to be on the rise.

We did receive some wonderful help from our community when things got really hard. Our friends and family pulled through for us in ways that we never expected. When our front window was smashed, you all came together and helped us raise the funds to replace it much quicker than I thought we’d be able. We received matching funds from GoFundMe, and a contribution from our local Boulevard Merchants association to help. We also received a couple of small grants from local artists’ organizations that helped us pay bills at crucial times. We are so thankful for all of it.

The short story is, we’re still here. We haven’t gotten to do much work on our studio building and a fall tropical storm remnant took out part of the roof that we hadn’t replaced yet, but we’re still here. We’re still making, and we’re still working.

We miss all of you. We miss the familiar faces of vendor friends, show organizers, and frequent customers. As things stand right now, we’re still looking for when we can get back to shows this year. Everything is still so uncertain, which makes planning for small businesses like ours extremely hard.

So we’re doing what we can. We’re keeping online sales going and getting ahead as much as possible. We’re using whatever supplies we have to get extra inventory made for the future. We’re working on art and working on dream projects we would not usually have the time and energy to do. We’ve gotten through some really dark and discouraging months, but we’re starting to look forward again.

Thank you for sticking with us to see what we do next!