We're celebrating ONE YEAR of the Sciggles Shop with a store-wide, automatic, exclusion-free, 25%-off mega sale!*
Our little family is moving the first or second week of June from our home base in Tennessee back up to Western Maryland to be with FIReNVY's family. That means that our business (and the store) will be officially moving, too. There shouldn't be any interruption in service for our customers (outside of the few days we'll be physically moving 550 miles away), BUT we will need to limit our services effective immediately.
The following products will be temporarily and completely unavailable for the duration of our move:
The following will remain as available on the Shop, but may occasionally experience longer than usual delays on fulfilment OR have significantly limited stock availability:
Everything else - with perhaps a few exceptions not listed above - will be fully available without any expected delays.
We will be focusing on our smaller and pre-made items, as well as liquidating our limited pre-made stock of Starbucks cups and sublimated products. In an effort to help facilitate that we will be reorganizing our shop over the next week or so to make it easier to find what you need that's still available, PLUS we will be enacting a site-wide sale, with the biggest focus on our amazing enamel pins! This automatic discount will be active from RIGHT NOW until the day before we physically leave our current premises.
To continue the unfortunately few bits of good news within this post full of store deletions: WE GOOFED!! FIReNVY totally and completely forgot to post up a brand new acrylic pin. See what it is - it IS available right now after all - right here: https://shop.sciggles.com/products/sciggles-fan-club-acrylic-pin
Because we are actively packing up not only our shop, but our entire house while juggling two energetic toddlers, we do ask that you have a bit of patience with us. We also request that if you keep an eye on your email for any updates. We may have to reach out to you about your order, in a more time-sensitive manner than usual. PLEASE double-check your shipping address before you finalize checkout, or YOU WILL EXPERIENCE MAJOR DELAYS. INCLUDE YOUR FULL ADDRESS, including any secondary street address information like Suite, Apartment, Building, or Floor Number. We cannot just ship to an entire multi-family building or site without a specific address; our shipping/postage system literally will not purchase the postage or authorize the label without a complete recognized address.
~~~~
SO... WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR THE FUTURE OF THE SHOP?!
Great question! Besides the temporary restrictions listed above, there will be very few changes to the site or the products available.
Domestic (US) shipping rates will be reassessed and updated as needed, of course. International rates will remain as they are - calculated at checkout.
A few of our products may experience some price changes as we either experience changes in the costs of shipping in components or finished products to our "warehouse" (garage/basement/office) OR changes in suppliers and/or partner companies, resulting in different costs to us. If there are any appreciable differences, they most likely will be inconsequential or even nonexistent from a customer perspective.
As our location changes, we may experience various factors that could differently influence our product offerings or stock availability. As an example, if we end up not having as much available storage space, we might eliminate or cut back on some of our more bulky items. Alternatively, if we end up having EXTRA storage space, we may focus more on bigger/bulkier products (t-shirts, maybe?) or keep more inventory on hand. We will make every effort to keep communicating with you every step of the way.
The biggest change - for domestic (US) orders - is that we will be handling sales tax differently. In TENNESSEE, we are only responsible for charging sales tax up front for orders placed IN TENNESSEE, at a hefty 9.75%. TN is considered an origin-based taxable state, with online small business (as in "remote sellers", or internet only businesses without a brick-and-mortar location) purchases taxable only for orders shipped to TN addresses.
Maryland on the other hand, at a lovely 6% in-state sales tax, is considered a destination-based taxable state. MD requires us to collect tax up front from our customers for all shipped orders, at the tax-rate local to the customer, with a few exceptions. This means that if you are in NY or rather that we are shipping your purchase to NY, we would charge the NY sales tax rate instead of the MD sales tax rate.
Complicated? YUP, YOU BETCHA. The number of hats that we small business folk wear... BUT the benefit of using Shopify as our sales platform is that all of this confusing sales tax stuff is handled automatically right at checkout! So you don't have to worry about anything other than getting the right color or quantity!
Regardless, we will most definitely update our Shipping Policy page once we have more concrete information from the State of Maryland and from our new accountants.
~~~~~
Do you currently have an outstanding order already placed, including some of our temporarily suspended product types? Well, don't you worry! We'll be getting your order finished up and shipped shortly.
~~~
Pride Furby Enamel Pins are back in stock! Check out the previous blog post for more details, or go straight to the product post here: https://shop.sciggles.com/collections/enamel-pins/products/pride-furby-enamel-pins
]]>
We have great news on the enamel pins front! The Pride Furby enamel pins (successfully crowdfunded on Kickstarter) have arrived and are now in-stock! Last weekend, we were able to get all 80-ish pledge rewards and pre-orders out into the mail on Monday. Huge thanks to FIReNVY (aka Mr. Sciggles) for working so hard to get the logistics figured out to get so much done in so few days. <3 LOVE YOU BABU! <3
Missed out on the Kickstarter or preorder? Don't worry! Get yours here: https://shop.sciggles.com/products/pride-furby-enamel-pins
Other great news is that the Gay Wrath enamel pins arrived in the same shipment! They are now available for purchase here: https://shop.sciggles.com/products/gay-wrath-enamel-pin
And finally, in that very same shipment we received the samples for the Vaccinated! enamel pins. You can preorder them here: https://shop.sciggles.com/products/vaccinated-enamel-pins
Make sure to keep an eye on our Twitter (link at the bottom of every page in our shop) for updates and announcements!!
Love & hugs, Team SciggleNVY
]]>The Pride Furby Enamel Pins base designs will be made thanks to all of you! And in less than TWENTY-NINE HOURS, too! BUT...
Let's keep going, pushing, and sharing to get more flags unlocked! We are so grateful to all of your support and are excited to see these next goals met.
Check out the Kickstarter here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sciggles/pride-furby-enamel-pins
Love and hugs,
Team SciggleNVY
]]>We're quite humbled by the outpouring of support from you all. Thank you so very, very much! Now, onto the cool stuff.
Get them this weekend ONLY!
The following item types are running dangerously low and might not be back in stock in time for the holidays.
We'll do everything we can to fulfill these items in time, but if it's not gonna make it, we'll go ahead and send the rest of the order on it's way. No matter what, we'll reach out to you and keep you informed!
We'll be adding more options in 2021, but we're starting off with two subscription boxes, plus one mystery option TBA on Black Friday!
More info will be available on the item description and recurring billing portal, beginning Friday.
Join us at twitch.tv/sciggles this Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, at 4 PM CST (that's 5 PM EST, 2 PM PST, and 10 PM UTC) for what we hope to be a new tradition. Being separated from family on Thanksgiving is going to be rough, so we're inviting you all to spend some time together as part of the Sciggles family. Let's take some time to get to know each other, and share what we are thankful for, even through these extreme times. If you want us to read out what you're thankful for, tag us on Twitter (@Sciggles) or post on the Sciggles Facebook page, using the Hashtag #ThanksgivingWithSciggles.
We'll also be personally thanking all of our VIPs. These amazing folks have really gone a long way in getting our dream going this year! Following the stream we'll get all of the VIP SciggleBucks gift cards sent out, but please be patient as FIReNVY has to do each one manually and one at a time.
And finally, we're holding a giveaway for a $25.00 SciggleBucks gift card, to be drawn around noon CST on Cyber Monday. Each order placed during Black Friday Weekend (midnight to midnight, again all CST) will count as two entries. That's two entries PER order! BUT there's no purchase necessary to enter. Every email subscriber will get one entry, too!
We'll be doing the drawing LIVE on Facebook Live from the Sciggles page, starting around noon CST on Cyber Monday, or 6 PM UTC. We hope to see you guys there!!
Once again, we'd like to thank you all for making our little dream come true and for keeping our little family happy and healthy. We love you all!!
Love & hugs,
Team SciggleNVY
Photo by Nicole De Khors from Burst
]]>Here's what's going on right now and what's coming up on the holiday sales horizon!
As of this writing, there's 9 days left until Black Friday, and 13 days until Cyber Monday. We're going to have three distinct, different sales events during this time. Please note that these sales will be starting/ending at 12AM (midnight) CST or 0600 UTC. All dollar amounts listed below are in US Dollars (USD). All dates are in the following format: MM/DD
Big Features:
OUR BIGGEST SALES PERIOD OF THE YEAR!! Featuring:
Missed out on Black Friday? Don't worry! We'll have all new deals and discounts available specifically for Cyber Week, including some Cyber Week exclusives! More details to be announced first thing Cyber Monday morning.
SO! We definitely recommend that you get some last minute purchases made BEFORE Black Friday weekend, to help boost that VIP tier and to guarantee that you can get all of your things in time for the holidays! We won't be able to restock many of the limited items on our site before January, so you've been warned! Especially our enamel pins, vinyl stickers, and any acrylic/cedar pins and ornaments! So don't delay!
We've done the math and all international orders of in-stock products made by Friday, December 4th, and shipped through USPS are 99.9% guaranteed to arrive for Christmas! The cutoff for all domestic orders will be December 14th. We'll make another post reminding everyone on Cyber, uh, Cyber Thursday(I guess?), so keep an eye out here, in our email newsletter, and on our social media accounts.
UPDATE: Click here to go to the USPS Holiday Shipping Deadlines page on USPS.com itself.
LOVE YOU ALL!! It absolutely blows us away that we've officially been open for just a little over 100 days, and you all have already made this one heck of a year for us. Also, you all are crazy! How are there already not only VIPs and Bronze VIPs, but also a GOLD VIP?! Seriously. Thank you. From the bottoms of our hearts, thank you so much. Your enthusiasm for our little shop has truly saved our lives. We hope that we can live up to your support, continue to earn your business, and be able to pay it forward!
<3 <3 <3 <3
Love & hugs,
Team SciggleNVY
]]>Sorry everyone; we are aiming to try to post blog posts on Mondays, but things have been busy. The shop may be a little slow over the next week as I am having surgery today. (Outpatient, so not too serious, but I'll be making sure she stays in bed for the doctor recommended week or so! Don't y'all worry! -FIReNVY)
In some good news though, we were accepted to vend at the online cons Ponyfest Online ( https://ponyfest.horse/ ) and RAMcon ( https://www.therealramcon.org/ )! They are hosted through Discord and should be a great time if you wanted to check them out. This is super exciting for us and we will be working on con related merch very soon.
Hope you all are having a great week! Please remember to tag us in unboxing posts and rate your favorite products 🥰
Love & hugs, Team SciggleNVY
P.S. SHHHH!! We did a sneaky. Mousepads are now live! CHECK THEM OUT HERE!! And check out the video of us making our very first mousepads ever here.
P.P.S. Image is by our wonderfully talented friend, CrikeyDave! Find him on Twitter @CrikeyDave
]]>Expect this to be a 10 minute read.
The big thing about ecommerce that most people don't think about is the shipping component. Yeah, you kinda realize that you will need to ship the products to your customers, but, at least when it came to us, it ended up kind of being the aspect we wanted to put off perfecting until after we got some sales. We'd just pay the full rate at the post office until then. Well this forced us to make early decisions about what we could and couldn't ship, and what would end up with tracking, and what would be packaged in envelopes, bubble mailers, or boxes, regardless of appropriateness. Thankfully, this was in the before times, well before we started working on getting a store launched.
Switching to a company like Stamps.com/Shipstation has a lot more benefits to it than just saving a ton on each packages postage. Having a nice centralized place to keep track of physical orders; automatically sending tracking numbers clients' email addresses; being able to pay postage and print shipping labels at home; being able to easily schedule package pickup or have a nice and quick drop off with a prefilled SCAN Form; having your shipping and tracking information sync and get pulled back into Shopify automatically; this kind of tool is DEFINITELY AND ABSOLUTELY A MUST if you are dealing in physical goods at all. Plus, there's plenty of options out there, so you can find the one that works best for you, whether that be Stamps.com/ShipStation, or Shippo, or Pirate Ship, or EasyShip! There's tons more out there, each with something that may work better for you and your specific needs and budget. FIReNVY recommends using this site to easily compare the more popular ones side by side to see for yourself! It's what we used to help decide.
So yes, you can get those clear pouches and print out the big ol' 8.5x11 fold-in-half labels on printer paper (or just use a bunch of packing tape, cuz those pouches are PRICEY). Or you can buy the really expensive label paper for your ink jet printer. OR, and hear me out on this, you could just get a thermal label printer. They are time and money savers, especially when it comes to ink/toner. A good label printer for ecommerce or small business use will run you between $80 and $180. But regardless of whichone you choose, they all print on cheap rolls of 4" x 6" labels, using NO INK, NO TONER! When I say serious money savers, I mean it. A single roll of labels is like $10 - $15, depending on how big a roll and what brand. Heck, I'm looking at a 12 pack of 500-label rolls (6,000 labels!) for $53. Compare that to the nearly $100 in ink we go through in our regular printer, just to print 500 sheets, if we're lucky.
We just switched to the Rollo printer based on recommendations from friends and #SmallBusinessTikTok, and we're pretty happy with it, although it can be a bit pricey when it's not on sale. HOWEVER, we actually started with a $30 refurbished older printer that we picked up on pcliquidations.com, an old Datamax-O'Neil E-Class Mark II. It took a little bit of effort to get the drivers and software installed and the settings perfected, but it worked pretty well for a quite a while. [FIReNVY: WELL, ACTUALLY... A plastic piece that held the thermal plate snug against the labels broke pretty quickly (can't tell if weakened during shipping or during initial setup), so we had to manually hold it down and apply pressure while printing. Also, because it was older it had less memory so printing more than two or three labels at a time could make it freak out and forget the size of label briefly while it was busy loading the next label into its internal print queue. BUT YEAH, GREAT...] Okay, so,, aside from those annoyances it worked great for the small amount of shipping we were initially doing, so it may be good to look at going the second-hand route. But if you are going to be making more than a few labels at a time, it's probably best to go ahead and get a newer Zebra, Epson, Brother, or Rollo unit. Just make sure to ask around and do your comparisons to find the one that makes sense for your volume and budget.
FIReNVY here. I did the majority of the work of the actual site/storefront build, so I'll take over on this one! =P
When it came down to the actual building of the site, there was a TON of things that we just couldn't figure out right away. Sciggles had an image in her head and a few similar sites that she liked, so I figured that that would be a great place to start. Before we even created the account and started the free trial, we sat down and listed out what we wanted from the store, and what features and designs it should have to best serve our needs and the needs of our current and future customers. It definitely helped that she had already been selling through PayPal and at conventions for a while. We took the aspects of user functionality that mattered the most and started exploring the free Shopify Themes to find one that matched best. If one didn't have most of them, we'd keep looking; if none of them had enough of what we were looking for, we knew we'd probably have to check out alternative platforms after all. Thankfully we found a theme that really resonated with us. It wasn't perfect, but due to the research I had put in on various podcasts and the Shopify App Store itself, I knew that there was pretty much always going to be an app for that. 😊 So we created our account and set up the core business details in the Settings menu. We switched over from the default theme to the one that's still in use today.
Sooooo, uh, now what? I barely knew how to navigate through the top-level menus of the "Admin", as Shopify calls it. How was I supposed to actually list our products, change the color schemes, put custom logos in, monitor traffic from Facebook and Twitter, and really get just anywhere, before the free trial ended??
And this is where one of the biggest and best parts of Shopify comes in, a feature that they have over all of their competitors: the Shopify Help Center! *ta-da! sparkle, sparkle* It is organized super clearly with both top-level checklists to get you quickly setup, and really deep dives to get it set up 👋 just right 👌. I can't recommend highly enough that you utilize this powerful resource. It even has specific information for connecting various third-party tools, like your shipping software and your web host. Like specifically YOUR shipping software and YOUR web host. The Shopify team is seriously impressive. There's even entire podcasts (Shopify Masters) and even LinkedIn Learning-type lessons/classes available (Shopify Compass). The body of knowledge helped us get to exactly where we needed without having to hire on a developer or a whole team of people. Heck, I even learned some Liquid, HTML, .css myself, just from getting things set up with the numerous helpful tutorials they had available!
Alright this next one may sound silly, but trust us, it's too legit to not check out! While known more for short-format funny videos and overall generally meme-ery, TikTok is actually an AMAZING platform for tutorials and continuing education. ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE A VISUAL LEARNER!! Checking out a few helpful hashtags, like #smallbusiness, #ecommerce, or #shopify (of course!) will bring up thousands and thousands of videos from your peers and fellow creatives! TikTok is where we learned how to use our Cricut effectively for custom vinyl stickers and applications. TikTok is where we learned how to customize like a dozen different obscure settings and things on our Shopify store. TikTok is where we learned how to floss! Uh, I mean, um, uh, IT'S WHERE WE LEARNED *ahem* where we learned super helpful organization and craft hacks to make our suddenly busier lives much simpler! It's an amazing community of creative ecommerce entrepreneurs and small business owners just like you and just like us. One of my husbean's favorite sayings is "you just don't know what you just don't know"; well, TikTok is where we learned just what we didn't know!
Picking up right where we left off from the bullet point above, "you just don't know what you just don't know".We're all pretty used to working primarily alone on our ongoing passion project. Maybe your significant other helps with the taxes or you have that one friend that actually knows how to use the scissors BECAUSE FIReNVY IS BEYOND HOPELESS AND-... Sorry, got a little carried away there. But many of you probably recognize that feeling of wanting to be hands on over every little detail, making it exactly like we want it, our way, in our own time. But the long story short is that just isn't possible or, more importantly, practical these days.
FIReNVY isn't so good with the arting or the steady hands thingies, but he IS good at figuring out the logistics and implementing new technology and systems. Our friend Pickra is AMAZING at coding and navigating his way around computers and network systems. Our amazing community on Twitter and Discord are invaluable for their feedback, support, and ideas! #SmallBusinessTikTok is an amazing collection of bits of specialized crafting knowledge and experience, plus an endless fount of inspiration. Shopify Help Center and their Support teams know the site and all of the third-party programs and apps practically inside out and know how to make our head-pictures turn into a beautiful and usable online storefront.
Our point is that no one can go it completely alone. Build up those support systems; grow your community; scour the web; reach out for help and advice! The answer to your problem already exists. The trick is knowing where to look or who to ask! You never know what your friends might know, you know?
In closing, this blog post was really fun to write and probably more important to get out there than either of us initially thought. We've gotten so far with the help and support of many wonderful people. We feel it's only right to pass it on and help support those that will come after. If you have any questions or just need a friendly sounding board to.bounce your ideas and plans off of, you can always, ALWAYS reach out to us. Seek us out on social media or shoot us a message through our contact form, whatever makes you feel more comfortable. We cannot promise that we will be able to help everyone, but we'll be darned if we don't try!
Love and hugs, Team SciggleNVY
]]>We've got some exciting product updates for you. Two new products and a restock announcement, all in one!
First up, now available for preorder, we have our Beehaw design coming in a 2-inch enamel pin. We're expecting it to ship in mid- to late September, but we're accepting limited preorders now. Each preorder will come with a free 3-inch Beehaw sticker to help celebrate our buzzy boy friends! To be notified when the enamel pins are in stock, consider joining our email subscriber list, plus get access to a bunch of other neat perks and discounts.
One of our more popular and convention exclusive products is now available in our store, at a discounted price, too! These foam standees are printed on high quality, special-made, high gloss photo paper, and feature custom, precision-cut foam backings and collapsible stand, laser cut by our local laser engraving partner.
At this time we are only liquidating our remaining convention inventory with no definite plans of restocking. If you would like to see us start making these again, especially with more variety, definitely let us know on social media, or right here in the comments!
We restocked our D20 dice earrings! Thank you so much for your love of one of our newer products. All of the color options have been refilled, but are still very much limited. Snag your choice now before it's gone again!
Love & hugs, Team SciggleNVY
]]>GUESS WHAT'S FINALLY HERE?! It's STICKER TIME!
@sciggles They are MUCH bigger than I expected but I love em. Available on my shop now. ##smallartist ##itiswhatitis ##etsy ##shopify ##artist ##digitalart ##stickers
♬ original sound - itsbeetlegeuse
Thank you to all of the amazing and amazingly patient peeps who pre-ordered these bad boys. Y'all are the real MVPs!
Love and hugs, Team SciggleNVY
]]>
We have a whole host of brand new products that we've launched over the past two days, plus some newer items we added when we launched just over a week ago! Check them out below:
I finally got myself a button maker! Plus a fancy shmancy button graphic that looks REALLY nice on the shop. All of my full-color animals, plus ponies, FNAF, and some other newbies!
I have ALWAYS loved origami stars, ever since I first saw my cousin making them when I was little. Many consider these jars to be good luck, or believe that they can hold your wishes safe for you. Either way, while these are rather labor intensive, they are a ton of fun to make! Each star is folded with love by Team SciggleNVY.
I've been wanting to make stickers for forever! Available in glitter/holo vinyl and standard, we've got several designs available, all in the 3" size range. We've been testing their durability ourselves, and they hold up pretty well, even on a sweating water bottle! The full size stickers are technically still preorder at this time, but they should officially arrive in stock this week, pending USPS cooperating of course.
...OH MY! Made from light-weight, durable, and non-toxic resin, these new earrings are sure to be a silly and adorable addition to your wardrobe! Like all of our earrings, ALL of the components are guaranteed to be nickel-free and lead-free! If you see a design that you like, though, grab it up. We have very limited quantities of each, and it might take a bit to restock any particular style!
Roll for initiative! These earrings are made from actual twenty sided dice, and as such are heavy-duty, solid, and pretty!! Intentionally created to show the NAT20 right side up when you wear them, these earrings are sure to give you some serious tabletop cred. There's only ONE of each color pattern, though, so act FAST to nab the ones that you NEED! To reiterate, ALL of our earrings are made with components that are guaranteed to be nickel-free and lead-free.
These juicy earrings, necklaces, and keychains are small and subtle, yet full of flavor! Made from light-weight, durable, and non-toxic resin, these tiny fruits are VERY carefully crafted into TINY jewelry. Like the other new jewelry pieces, these items ARE EXTREMELY LIMITED and likely won't be restocked for a LONG time, so grab yours as soon as they are available! As a special thank you, these items will be exclusively available to our email subscribers for the first few days, so sign up now to get early access.
As we mentioned above, there are definitely special benefits to being one of our email subscribers! Early access to limited items, special deals and discounts, first looks at new products, special behind the scenes insights, and more!
Thank you for your support everyone! We've had an AMAZING response to the Sciggles Shop and we most definitely couldn't do it without you!
Love and hugs, Team SciggleNVY
]]>Sciggles has done a great job utilizing her TikTok account, something that I want to bring up in our next blog post actually. Anyway, see below for the link to her account and a first-week wrap-up video!
Visit the Official Sciggles TikTok Channel : https://www.tiktok.com/@sciggles
@sciggles this is how the first week went and the prep to open! ##artist ##smallbusiness ##etsy ##shopify ##FavoriteMemory ##ThisIsBliss ##CanYouWorkIt
♬ Backyard Boy - Claire Rosinkranz
What are your favorite videos on TikTok? We've seen some absolute gut-busters, and inspirational transformations, and extremely helpful how-tos! Share below or on social media, and don't forget to give Sciggles a follow on TikTok!
Love and hugs, Team SciggleNVY
]]>Unfortunately, that does mean that a few items have already sold out. On our shop, if an item option has a grey slash through the name, that indicates that it's gone for now. Included in this list are mostly a few versions of our wooden and acrylic pins, such as:
as of 5:30am - 8/2/20
You guys are amazing, and are truly making Sciggles day!
Love and hugs,
Team SciggleNVY
]]>FIReNVY here. I wanted to pop in real quick and talk about our popular Word Bubbles acrylic pins. They've been pretty popular at our last few conventions. We've not added a new model though in quite a while. We've had a few requests and suggestions over the past year or so, and just haven't really been able to work on more. However, we are now at the point where we are ready for new designs!
SO! What would you like to see as part of our next batch? We're probably going to add between 3 and 5 new ones. Comment below, or send us a message via email or social media, and let us know what you're dying to say!
Love and hugs, Team SciggleNVY
]]>Hi I'm Sciggles and I've been a full time independent artist since I was 19. It has never been easy. Lots of ups and downs and learning! I am so excited that after all these years I finally will have my own site and shop to share with you all! My husband, FIReNVY, and my friend, Pickra, have helped a lot to make this a reality for me. For any of my previous customers reading this and checking out my site, I want to say thank you SO MUCH for your support over the years. I am only able to continue doing this and supporting my family because of you guys!
Hello, I'm FIReNVY (FI-YUR-EN-VEE)! My name's got weird capitalization, I know, so I figured that that might be a good place to start lol! I actually made this name WAAAAAAY back in 4th grade when I got the brand new Game Boy Color with a copy of Pokemon Blue. I was big into the card game and TV show, so boy was I excited to FINALLY get my hands on the game itself! (FUN FACT: I still have all my cards, including Topps cards and Burger King cards, just saying.) I started the game up and chose Bulbasaur as my starter. An obvious mistake that I regretted pretty quickly. So I nuked the save file and started over using Charmander. This time, I wanted to make a fire-based name, to help differentiate from my previous failed save. Best I could come up with, that still fit in the character limit, was Fire Envy, except that it was one letter too big, so shared "e". I originally used the accented "e" like in Pokemon, but over time, I just dropped the accent. For clarity on the shared letter versus the other letters, I made all the letters capitalized, with the lowercase accented "e" in the middle. Plus, my mild OCD LOVED the symmetry of the 7 letters, 3 big on either side of the little letter!
NOW THAT YOU KNOW THAT: most of my time spent around here lately has been on the theme, legal policies, organization, inventory, and just really getting the whole website ready! Typically, though, I assist my amazing wife with big process updates, getting new tech set up, and largely taking care of all things logistics, shipping, and handling.
Thank you to everyone that supports us. You are making my babu's dream come true! Seriously, thank you!