Store on temporary hiatus - Returning Wednesday the 8th

I've received an influx of shipping supplies and new materials, so I'm placing the store on hiatus to work through the remainder of the order queue and reorganize the studio. The last remaining orders in queue will be shipped on Monday!

I also found out some interesting information from my local post office today, which lead to some pretty cool workflow discoveries overall. I noticed that a lot of my dropped off shipments weren't getting scanned in by the local post office, but they'd get scans as they moved through the system. It turns out they won't physically scan more than 5 packages from the same sender and that I should start bringing a shipping manifest.

I had to download a separate app in Shopify to make one, but I learned two cool things!

1) I was buying shipping labels early so I could get access to 4x6 packing slips. I don't have to do this anymore! I can print the normal packing slips through my thermal printer without triggering the shipping label creation. The quality is a little lower, but I can still read them, and that's all that matters.

This was really bothering me because I hated triggering the shipment notification early. You can skip sending the shipping email if you do, but there's also no way to retrigger it, which is absolutely wild to me.

2) I can now generate the shipping labels and make shipping manifests for only exactly what's going out that day in a more simplified workflow.

And a third fun thing - my Cricut and I aren't getting along, so I've been having to cut labels by hand and use an x-acto knife to separate the label from their backing, which has made order fulfillment pretty slow. I've given up on the Cricut completely and ordered pre-cut labels. This is going to speed everything up, but it means I need to completely redo all of my labels, so part of my time during this hiatus will be spent doing that.

Workflow efficiency and organizing lights up my dopamine receptors like a Christmas tree, so I'm pumped about all of this, although I wish I had time to do it all and keep the store online - I just want to ensure that I can prioritize the remaining orders and all of the stuff that will keep me efficient through the end of the year!

I'll be reopening the shop on Wednesday the 8th! Thank you everyone for your support in my first two weeks - it means a lot!