I'm just not a fan of the 4th of July. I'm not a person who likes loud noises...and it's SO LOUD for an entire week around here. And of course no one can actually follow the law and stop shooting fireworks off at 10pm/12am (depending on the night). The other night there were people still shooting off fireworks at 3am. And since the artillery shell fireworks are legal here...there's a LOT of noise. We also aren't far from the park where the city has their fireworks show. So yeah...I'm just not a fan.
Nova hates fireworks. For about two weeks after the first day people start shooting off fireworks, she is very apprehensive about going outside. And if there's a loud noise while she's outside, she immediately goes to the back door wanting in. We give her trazadone which has been helping quite a bit. Without it she just wanders around the house whining and hiding in the hallway any time there is a noise. It's interesting...Boz is the generally fearful pup, but he's not scared of fireworks. He'll hang out with us outside and just goes about his business like it's no big deal. Then Nova pretty much isn't scared of anything EXCEPT fireworks (and thunder around fireworks time or when it's super loud any other time). She's a daddy's girl so when she's scared...that's who she wants to be with. So she's mostly been relaxing with Johnny in the bedroom for the last week. She wouldn't even come in to eat until after midnight...and she LOVES her food. She's the one who tells me when it's time to eat (sometimes before it's actually time to eat) by standing in the kennel and staring at me until I go get the food. But she wasn't even doing that until after the fireworks stopped. :( After it stopped raining this afternoon, people started shooting off fireworks again. So I had to give her some more trazadone and actually let her in the bedroom with Johnny while he was working so she'd calm down and go to sleep. Hopefully people will actually stop after today...but I'm not holding my breath or anything. They were supposed to stop at 10pm...but they're still going on at almost 11:30pm.
And on top of that, I've had a migraine for the last three days now. The fireworks definitely weren't helping that, either. We didn't end up doing anything for 4th of July. We watched Tom Segura's new special with Aubry and that's about it. Interestingly enough...most of the bits were the same ones from his show that we went to with Aubry last year. It was still good though. :) We watch a lot of stand-up comedy specials, but he's our favorite comedian.
Other than that, I've just been busy with work stuff...largely a lot of administrative stuff. On the 1st of every month I reconcile my spreadsheets and my Etsy account. Then I make sure all my receipts are logged on my spreadsheet and update my profit-loss sheet for the month. After spending the last almost two years buying new equipment, testing quality of different materials, etc...it's nice to be showing a profit at the end of the month now. :)
I revamped the pricing for my chose-your-own bundles. They're now specifically 30-45% off depending on how many stickers are ordered. I also went through my profit calculation spreadsheet and updated the pricing for all my postage since it's about to change again. I printed more packaging stickers and worked on some new cardstock folders to send in my rigid mailers that go as a package instead of a letter. My rigid mailers are slightly smaller than the half-letter size kraft envelopes I send my regular sticker orders in. So I condensed my regular sticker folders (a letter-size piece of cardstock folded in half) so that I can get two top-fold cards out of one letter-size piece of cardstock. I don't send many packages out that way...but now the packaging will match my brand more when I do.
I'm Star Seller again for July...and I've already met the requirements for Star Seller for August, too. :) Orders keep coming in pretty regularly. I'm up to 121 orders and 141 sales so far this year in my sticker shop. My views and favorites have been steadily increasing...which is awesome to see. I'm much better at the office management side of business than I am at sales...but I'm working on it! Global average conversion rates for e-commerce is 2.9% and for Etsy...a typical conversion rate is about 1-5% (generally speaking...the higher the number, the better). For my sticker shop...currently my conversion rate for the entire year so far is 6.1%, 7.8% for the last 30 days, and 8.8% for the last week. :)
I liked doing sublimation when I first started CandiMaker...but I really, really love running my sticker shop. I like coming up with designs, making the stickers, thinking of new products...I just enjoy all of it. Plus I have a wonderful husband who loves and supports me...and that makes all the difference in the world. :)