Holy Wow You Guys!

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I just went through the few remaining physical items I had marked as free and put them in a bag to be donated tomorrow, found a few other items I don’t want to sit on any longer, made sure my etsy listings matched up with what’s still available… and I deleted almost 60 items from my shop. Some were sold out so they don’t really count, but a lot just weren’t up to the current level of perfection or were perfectly made, but just not moving.

There’s going to be some happy thrift store shoppers though! A few of my friends will be receiving gifts as well so my loss is several people’s gain.

I’m really excited to be clearing out some product, even if its just donating it, because it means I’ll have that much more space to organize and store the things I love! There’s still a few tough decisions to make (books I loved as I child, I mean you!) but I think I’m going to be a lot happier by tomorrow afternoon.

And right now if you browse my shop, there’s quite a few items on sale right now, tons of great patterns, and as always, there’s coupon code LSG for those who want to save another 10% off their purchase. I might even stick a few more items on sale this evening… hmmm… 🙂

Nightmare Fuel

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I made a brief post about this on the Facebook page, but I didn’t go into a lot of detail so I’ll try to explain what happened and what is going on now. Bear with me.

Previously, I had hosting associated with the domain name debslosingit.com and in that hosting I had a WordPress MU installation. MU lets you host multiple sites under a single installation.  One of the secondary sites under it was this one, and I used a domain mapping plug in to make it appear that Kittyloaf Designs was under its own hosting package. For the most part it looked great and I’m betting you were none the wiser. Everything looked great.

Then I decided that my personal blog, which was housed under the debslosingit.com domain name wasn’t something I wanted to continue any longer so I opted to stop paying for it and let it expire. That meant I needed to switch the primary domain on my hosting to the kittyloafdesigns.com one, which was done quickly and easily.

Before that was done, I removed the domain mapping plug in from my WordPress installation so it wouldn’t cause any problems. Unfortunately I think it did something to my site so that even when it was removed, everything was redirected back to debslosingit.com which of course no longer existed. And because everything redirected, I had no way to access the back end of my site to try to fix it. My web host was at a loss and I couldn’t find anything to help me fix it. I was extremely upset and freaking out. Aside from all of the work involved to recreate the site, there was also the matter of getting my permalinks in the same style or I would lose all of my search engine rankings I’d grown in the last 5 years or so.

I (luckily before anything was changed) ended up making back-ups of my shop items, orders, posts, and pages, and literally deleting everything and starting over from nothing. I spent most of Tuesday re-uploading all of the images to my shop because while all the prices, descriptions, and other info was there in my export files, photos were not. I was upset and exasperated but I finally got everything except for 4 items straightened out, which have been temporarily reduced to drafts until I can sort out their photos.

I’m still working on re-uploading the blog photos and I’m almost half finished. I’m not in such a rush to do them because ultimately they aren’t as important but I do expect to have them finished by the week’s end. I’m also trying to look at the good side of this. My hosting and domain bills will go down this renewal because this year I’m letting two domains go (debslosingit.com and debsinstitches.com) and if I’m lucky, I won’t need as much storage space and can downgrade my hosting plan as well. I’m seeing a lot of my images were uploaded twice, and many images for items I may have sold were never removed from the site, adding lots of megs of files I didn’t need.

Anyway, thanks for listening, and I hope that explains any weirdness you’ve seen in the site over the last few days. I’m working on it!

Crazy Busy, No Time To Craft!

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As I briefly mentioned on the Kittyloaf Designs Facebook page, since our renter moved out, I have been crazy busy with cleaning up the house. I want to be crafting but there’s just not enough time in the day and after I spend all afternoon dusting, vacuuming, organizing, and sorting things out for donation, there’s just no energy left in me for the rest of the day. The house is looking great, but I’m pooped! I’ve glued a few things back together, hammered a few nails, and screwed a few screws, but nothing I can really call crafting.

On the upside, I have vacuumed up more dog hair, dusted more furniture and electronics, put away or donated so many things we don’t use, and have made so many small improvements to the house I feel great about it. I’m hoping in the next few weeks I can get caught up on the cleaning and take some time to do some crafting that I can share with you all. Until then, keep crafting or if you don’t craft, keep supporting those who do!

New Items in The Shop!

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I’ve been working on adding new items to my shop that I’ve recently made or have decided not to keep. There’s more yarns in my shop now, one of which is temporarily free, and the rest of which are all on sale. I fear there is an excess of pinks but it wasn’t intentional. I’m planning on heading out to my craft room later and moving the for sale yarns into bins out of my way so I don’t have them taking up space in my stash of yarns I actually want to keep and use.

You can see all yarns I have for sale by clicking here.

yarns

I’ve also added some new bracelets to the shop in a variety of colors and styles. You can see all of my bracelets here. All of them pictured below are currently in my shop and all contain unique components and designs.

bracelets

 

I still have some other fabrics to add to my shop, but I’m honestly tempted to just donate some of them to thrift. I feel like I am more interested in destashing unwanted stuff then waiting for a buyer and it would be the easiest and fastest way to go. I have some excess embroidery floss I might add to my shop as well. I don’t really need 10 skeins off the same colors.

Simplification

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You’ve probably noticed all the changes I’ve been making have been moving towards one big thing – simplification. I keep several blogs but sometimes it can be too much to keep up with all of them. As a way to resolve that, I’m combining my sewing and crafting blog into one with the Kittyloaf Designs blog. A lot of the content really does overlap and it just makes sense to have it all in one place.

I will be keeping the debsinstitches.com domain name for a while but it will point here once I get all of the content from that blog moved over to this one. It will probably take a few days but I feel like it will be worth it. I’m also seriously considering combining the Deb’s Cooking blog with my personal blog.

I just feel like I can do better for you with less to juggle, and with more content in less places.

Its taken me about a day, but I finally have the content moved over from debsinstitches.com to here, and now I just have to rearrange some of it a bit and make it all work together. That will be the most difficult part, but like I said, it’ll be worth it to have the things that are fairly closely related all in one place.

The biggest hurdle I ran into was that for some reason the WordPress import tool won’t work with my server configuration, so I had to find a work around. It took some searching but I did find a solution and it saved me a lot of work as far as manually transferring all the posts over. I still had to move the images over because “importing” them just hot links them from where they were- once you delete those locations, the images are gone. I really wish importing the images meant uploading them to the new location and starting fresh.

A Possible New Project

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I have a good friend who has her eye on a domain name (one she’s wanted for years actually and is still available- yay!) and she’s thinking about buying it and setting up a web site. I told her to let me know and I will help her get set up. I honestly have no idea what she intends to do with this possible web site but I’m really hoping she decides to do it and we can work on it together. Having a web site can be a lot of fn and give you a creative outlet.

I gave her my referral link to my web host, A Small Orange, so I will get a percentage off on my new renewal, and I also gave her a coupon code so she can save 15% as well. If you are in need of a new host, A Small Orange has fantastic up-time, and their customer and tech support can’t be beat. I honestly cannot say enough good about them after using them for about 5 years.

If you use this link (http://asmallorange.com/?ref_id=kittyloaf) and use the coupon code FRIENDME at checkout, you’ll save 15% off of your invoice, and I will save that same amount (15% of your invoice) off of my next one. Why not help each other out? Everyone likes to save money.

So Many Details

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As I’ve been making changes to the layout of the site and tweaking the CSS, I’ve been having a friend take a peek for a second opinion. I felt all the changes were going smoothly, but she tried to load the new site in her Android phone using the default browser and discovered a big problem- the background was loading over the actual content. All she could see as a result was my background image spread across the screen.

Apparently this is a known issue with the theme I am working with, but I was able to find a snippet of CSS to force the background into the background where it belongs when viewed. I am hoping this issue is addressed in the next update of the theme, but until then, I’ve got all my modified files backed up and ready for the next updates in case those files are over-written.

Some of you probably think this is a lot of work, but I can never leave things as they are and if I see there is room for improvement, I try to make those improvements. Sometimes I get in over my head, but like nearly everything now, the internet can be a fantastic resource in finding out how to do a thing and learning how to solve your problem the next time you run into it.

About Kittyloaf Designs

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You’ve come to this page to learn more about me and my work at Kittyloaf Designs, or at least I hope that’s why you’re here!

I started doing beadwork as a teenager after remembering a brief flirtation with a beading loom as a child. For a while I was trying everything – peyote stitching over small objects, clumsy brick stitch designs, and I even tried my hands at French beaded flowers which led me to the knowledge that working with wire is not for me. I do, as a result, have a tiny pot of flowers I made which sit next to my TV.

Then I decided to learn to sew. I was better at beading, but I didn’t know anything about sewing. My grandmother showed me a little, but it was when I took a class to better learn the basics at our local JC that things really clicked for me. I sew most of my new clothes, plus make awesome accessories. I recently bought a serger as well and I love it!

Working with polymer clay and resin came next and I occasionally do a little cross stitch as well.  I also learned to knit and crochet and I cannot get enough of crochet! In the first few months of crocheting, I did 3 blankets, two of which were queen sized! You can find some of my yarn craft for sale here.

Besides all of my crafting, I also went to school for graphic design and I occasionally sell craft supplies like sewing and beading patterns, books, and handmade polymer clay beads.

If you see something you want, grab it fast! Most of my items are one of a kind and I can;t or won’t make them again. I’ve added a “make an offer” button to many of my items- you can put in any amount and if its within a frame I’ve set, the item will be added to your cart. Many of you have expressed that I don’t charge enough for my work- you can also put in offers higher than my asking price as well and it will be accepted.

I’m located in Lancaster, CA, having recently moved back in with my mom. I have a pup named Yuba. Kittyloaf Designs is so named in memory of my cat Lucky. Though I only had him for about three years, he made a very lasting impression on me and is greatly missed. You can read more about Lucky here.

Contact

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I can be reached via email or phone, though I prefer email contact. My email address is design@kittyloafdesigns.com and my phone number is (661) 794-8641. Alternately, you can use the form below to email me. I will respond as quickly as possible.

If you’re asking for a cost estimate for a project, please be as specific as possible. I can’t give you an accurate response if I don’t know what you need done. 😉 If you’re not sure what type of project you have, just be as descriptive as possible and explain it as well as you can to me and I will ask if I have further questions before giving you an estimate.

Also, please have some idea of what you are looking for if you feel you are ready to begin a project. There is nothing worse from a designers standpoint than a client who says “I don’t know what I want, but I’m sure I’ll know it when I see it.” That only adds up to much higher charges on your bill because of many hours wasted designing and re-designing, and more headache for me as I have no idea what you might want or like. It just makes everything go smoother and easier for all of us.

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