Getting the shops updated and tidied up

For a week now, Magda (our new helper) and I have been working hard on updating the drawstrings on both the main shop and on Etsy. We finally have the new standard bags nearly all up, and in the right colours - formerly we had some colours listed that we're actually sold out of.

It's great to get this all sorted - and essential too, before the new styles of bag arrive later this summer.

Our bags are on sale at Amazon

The first batch of our satin and pure silk tarot bags is now on sale at Amazon.co.uk. It's a real thrill to see them there. They are "fulfilled by Amazon" - in other words Amazon stocks them in their warehouse and you can order them - complete with free shipping - if you're in the UK.

If it all goes well we will be sending more styles and prints over this year.

Wholesale now working

Direct wholesale ordering is now mostly up and running on the shop. Well, it's in place for small drawstrings, messenger bags and totes - I need to get wholesale prices listed for everything else.

If you register as a wholesaler (and it's only open to bona fide retailers please - it need prior approval) you will see wholesale prices when you log in. Then you can go ahead and order as normal, but at these prices.

I've set it up so there is an extra-special discount if you buy several of any one item - easier all round.

If you'd like to register as a wholesaler, please get in touch.

More new "standard" bags - Arthur Rackham fairies

We have most of them listed on the shop now. They are 13.90 Euros, which is about $17.80. It may have to go up a bit as that is really a LOW price. With currencies moving around so much it's really hard to keep up. Anyway, for this month it's the price, and hopefully into March. Grab them while you can!
Yes, yes, I would say that wouldn't I? - but really, this is about the price of a mass produced bag in much less special fabric - and without the print. With the recession come bargains - there's always a silver lining.

These are both now in our batch production, so they're excellent value - good colours too so they feel quite special.

and another one - the same shape/pattern but just to show how it looks in a different colour.

New shoulder pouches

Adjustable strap - though for the final bags we are commissioning some cotton webbing strap to be made to our order (it feels more substantial for such a long strap - and has a nice texture). Also the final zips of course won't have the rather noticeable brass metal stops.

I'm very pleased with this design - it's been three months to get to this point (backwards and forwards between Romana, us and the guys in Vietnam). But I think it was worth taking some time.

It's not yet available. Now we have the mammoth task of doing all the prints and specifications (colour etc) for one large batch. I think we should with luck have these in April.

I know I keep saying it, but it is AMAZING how long things take. I really do understand now that you have to begin to prepare for autumn/winter season a full year ahead. Crazy!

More of the "standard" bags at $18.75 or whatever that is in Euros!

We are getting these completed quite quickly now. It is GREAT to be able to offer bags at this much lower cost in these times. Though you'll notice we've also put up the price of custom bags as we want to nudge people, gently, to go for the standard bags unless they really, really want a special colour or fabric.

Today I will have the happy task of pulling out our very old Bohemian indigo fabrics - I grabbed a load from a friend before he finished his antiques business here - and working out how to use them in the new shoulder pouches. But that's for later.

So - one of the all-time favourites now in his slightly new incarnation:





On Etsy for now, on the shop later. Don't ask me where is the cheaper to buy. I really am at my wit's end with currency changes and will just try to keep both sites more or less in line. Buy where is best for you!

New bag - very apt for this time of the year

The Love Potion. We only have this as a custom bag for now. If it's popular we may make it in batch as a lower cost "standard" bag - but not for six months or so.

Three of the new Flower Oracle "standard" bags

and a few more new bags

Well, most of the prints will be familiar, although the Grumpy Persian is new. But these are our new all-silk bags that we are just gradually getting listed (it takes quite a time to thread and bead and pack them - and photograph). It's great to be getting so much in stock at last - we were a bit short of most things last year, so this year we have learnt.

New bags this time, not sale bags

I've just been a bit too busy* to fish out more of the "seconds" this week. But I will do as soon as I can. Thanks for all your enthusiasm about those.

Meanwhile here is a "beautiful Vassilisa" at last - I've been wanting to do this one for ages.




By the way I had a conversation with another Etsy seller the other day and she told me our work is WAY under-priced. I am beginning to think this may be true. Although in a recession...? Anyway, we'll keep this introductory price to the end of the month for sure.

If you have any comments about the price I'd love to hear them - I really do wonder if the price implies that the quality is far lower than it actually is (which is what my friend said). And this is NOT fishing for compliments, I'd honestly like some input.




*standard excuse I know but we seem finally to have signed the contract on the GIANT - it's poster-sized - Bohemian Cats Calender so it's a bit mad as now they need it quickly.

Four more sale tarot bags/drawstring pouches

UPDATE - all gone. I'm going to dig around the studio for more seconds but I have no idea what I'll find.
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The cats are doing quite well with their tower collection and are starting to get over-ambitious (no, we are not aiming for an Imperial Cat Palace guys).

So - on with four more bags.

First, two Strength bags with the old lion head (not the version that finally made it into the deck) and printed so that some of the details are lost. I would say that these look at least as good as most fabric prints, but the ones we sell as perfect have a lot more detail in them. These ones were early and it always takes us a few tries to get a print set up correctly.

Again, $10 plus shipping

Both now sold

And - two High Priestesses also with some detail missing - nice shiny satin print but we feel it should be sharper.

Both now sold


And finally - a very odd Devil bag -


I'm not sure I can be bothered to send a "one handed devil" separately (we forgot to switch on a layer in the picture when we printed, so the woman is actually missing her left hand!) , as it really is the only one (I found it in a box I had marked "sell as seconds" and promptly forgotten about). If you buy one of the other bags we will send you the devil free but would appreciate it if you pay $3 extra for the cost of shipping it. First person to leave me a note with their purchase gets the strange Devil.
TAKEN - sorry we only had one.

One more

SOLD
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The last of the stiffer-interfacing samples. This is an Alice in a taupe silk (please note, not the pink silk shown). Again, silver-grey silk lining. One only of this.


Again, same price, $10 plus $4 postage - but postage can be combined if you buy more than one (we can hold any bags you buy until you see what else is on the way)

Please pay via PayPal:

Orders at magic dash realist dot com

SALE bags

Three of these sold now. Just one left.

Minnie ("tabby with attitude") is sitting in front of the screen. She is getting excited - the new tower fund has begun! She wants one with one of those fur fabric boxes on top. I know, I know, I always said I could not live with one of those things - but cats LOVE them.

I really ought to be putting sale items on the shop but I just haven't got time for now. So I will offer a few from time to time here in January as well as getting a shop sale page together. Our flat and studio are FULL of slight seconds or samples or discontinued images so I have told myself that I'll sell all these off and put the money towards a new climbing "tower" for the cats (they have pulled their old one to pieces - it looks disgraceful).

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Okay, first up. Two rather stiff tarot bags. These are made in our (lovely - they really are) workshop in Vietnam so the silk is gorgeous and they are silk lined. The linings are a silver-grey silk. However, these were two of the early samples and we think the cotton interfacing is too thick. The bag can still be gathered and closed, but it's just a bit harder to do this than we like.

Prints are done by us, as always (no-one else does our prints but us with our own hands - which means Alex really - and I am allowed to do one once in a blue moon when he trusts me - hah!)

Our contact in Vietnam says that the interfacing used on these bags mean that they will last for many years! We had to say that while we appreciate that, we do prefer the softer interfacing that we are using.

One is Alice and the Pool of Tears in pale blue silk (this is not the actual bag as that hasn't been photographed - but similar to this though the blue is much lighter):.

Both are half price at $10 plus $4 shipping. We can of course combine shipping if you would like both.

By the way, if the PayPal button does not work, please let me know, I am new to this. If it does not charge shipping (it sometimes doesn't ) I will send an invoice for the $4. Or send a refund if you buy both, as we can combine shipping.


SOLD


The other is The Fairy Queen in a very pretty pale green and the background of the picture is more yellowy cream than white (again, the photo is not the actual bag).


SOLD

Two Death the Bride bags with a small fault in the printing. Each has a hairline (literally, because it's the result of a loose thread lying on the print when we were doing it) of white going across the image. About 1-1.5 inches long. It's slight but you can definitely see it.

This is the bag - the faulty ones are identical but with the small white hairline fault on the picture. I don't have a photo of them as they are down at the studio, but I can always send a picture to the buyer to check that you're happy before we post.

Same price - $10 plus $4 postage.


ONE LEFT

THE most beautiful bags. Though I did have to sacrifice a shawl.

I bought a Liberty's varuna wool vintage shawl in "Hera" pattern some time back and then - typically - fell in love with it. However, it had some quite bad moth damage in one part when we bought it so I finally accepted that it really should be cut. I'm actually really glad as the bags turned out to be just drop-dead gorgeous. One had a moth hole (Romana spotted it too late once it was sewn) so I grabbed that one. It's become my new small bag for carrying things in my messenger.

It's hard to do these bags justice in a photo, They are just luscious. You know, some things just work out SO well.









They are only on Etsy for now as I need to upload a whole heap of things to the main shop. By the way, they're a little more expensive than our usual bags as the fabric in itself is quite pricey and collectible now.

A new "medieval" print bag. The Lady and the Unicorn

I asked for input about bags on Aeclectic Forum some months back. One thing that came out strongly is that people want Pre-Raphaelite and Medieval options. We like those images too, so we've been working on them. Here are a couple of examples.

It's really hard to find either type of imagery in high quality copyright-free form so Alex had to do a lot of work on both of these. I do think they look good:
Sorry - our sites just went down as I was putting these in (the host has an announcement up so at least they know). So here is just a small upload of one image for now.

A new bag

We actually did take this one from a CD collection. We hardly ever use CDs because the quality tends to be awful, but this one just needed a bit of work - and it's so beautiful that it was worth it.

It's a picture by Warwick Goble - I just LOVE the colour combinations.

The new bags - there are about eight more new prints as well

Again, these are my colour adjustments on the photos so not as good as Alex's. But they give an idea. We are switching mostly to new Thai silk for the bags (it's pure silk, but smoother than dupion and as iridescent as the Indian silk) AND - ta DA! - silk lining (again pure silk and yes, we even tested it to make sure).I'm very happy. Alex says that it's like my cooking, I never do anything twice exactly the same way. He says I always have to try new things - but I think he likes it. Anyway, I am really very pleased with these.This is Harry Clarke's "Thumbelina" - much worked on by Alex as sadly the original prints (we have a first edition) are very faded now. We have it in a bronze shot with green or a lilac. Neither is really quite right on these images - the bronze looks a bit brown (it's actually a real "shot" colour) and the lilac a bit blue. Actually, if you look at the picture of Minnie below this bag is on the far right - and that's more the real colour. I am just in love with this lilac silk - which is funny as it was Alex who wanted it and I initially wasn't sure. But it's marvelous.

New prints

We are doing a whole heap of new prints right now - based in part on all the feedback we got on Aeclectic Forum at the beginning of the year about the kinds of things people want. They are all old images that we have cleaned and altered to make them suitable for fabric printing.So far we have ONE of each - we did these as a try-out. But we're making more now and should have plenty in stock in a week or so.











All - and some other new ones that I'll save for the next post - are only on Etsy for now. Until we have the more standard colours ready it doesn't make sense to put them on baba-store.We're also working on some of our own images, but these may not see the light of day for some months. Basically we have a large project to do over the autumn - it all sort of arose and grew and suddenly became quite a big task. It's on commission from a publisher and should be extremely interesting. So - we thought we would put some time into really getting a nice, big selection of bags (and - cushions - more of that in a week or two) ready for autumn, and then we can settle down and do our own illustrations. A nice balance I think.