Having a business run exclusively online (or up until our new store opening in December, squeeee!!!!!) is a beautiful and strange thing. Even though my time at Bamboletta is short compared to some, there are so many of our customers that I feel close with, like old friends, because we chat back and forth through email, we see each other on Facebook, they send me photos of their children and sometimes sweet things are exchanged in the mail…Yet there is so much distance and we never get the opportunity to look one another in the eye, or exchange a hug. These little behind the scenes posts are just another way we get to ‘pull back the proverbial curtains’ and welcome you into our little studio…so without further adieu…a behind the scenes look at doing a frock upload!
I don’t even know if this post really shows it, but with so many things at Bamboletta, you would be surprised at just how much time and effort and love goes into that little package that arrives at your door step. This post is really just my part, which is small in comparison when you factor in all the work that Thamar and Nicole put into organizing all the patterns and fabric every week, and all the love and attention that our sweet and talented home sewers put into making the clothing, or Jennie and Christy’s beautiful job of wrapping and packaging, organizing and stamping that happens every week. I’ll have to capture those elements too on some other post. I just wanted to give all those ladies props too!
So the first thing I like to tackle each week is organizing every item for the following upload. This week I started with all the Dolls for Wee Ones because sometimes it’s nice to get this all sorted and move on. When I list them, I do every colour, style, and pocket doll assortment separtely, so I like to lay them all out and see what I’ve got.
Then I like to write down every listing on these Frock Upload sheets we keep. I write them out on the forms so we have records of everything and also it makes it go a lot faster when I enter them on the computer later. I also like to tie the Pocket Dolls into their little sets with bits of wool to keep them all together.
After Thamar has quality checked all the frocks that have come in on the Monday, she hands them off to me organized and grouped together (T is an organization freak too 🙂 ). Then I sort the clothes out and list just as I did with the Wee Dolls.
After all the listing is done, I start taking all the photos! This seems like it would be the fun easy part (mostly because our photography buff Christina makes it look that way), but it takes a lot of skill and I’m still working on mastering it. One of the trickiest elements is the weather. Because we live on the West Coast, the weather tends to change about 5 times a day. There’s been days where I’m taking photos on a cloudy day then 10 mins later I’m trying to rearrange everything because the sun has come out and then all the settings need to be readjusted!
I love getting to play dress up and see our beautiful model doll in all of our talented sewers creations!
After the photo taking, I get to my favorite part, editing the photos and adding them into the listings on Big Cartel! It might seem like the strangest part to like, but I really get a kick out of seeing everything come together at the end!
Then Voila! The listings are finished and the previews are ready to be posted on Facebook!
Then when I get to work on the day of the upload, I spend about 30 mins turning off old listings and getting the new ones ready. I do this all behind the scene, so if you are visiting the frocks site right before the upload, you usually get the little ‘We’re doing some maintenance’ sign. I will have to do a follow up now of what happens after the upload and all the pulling of items and organzing and packaging and mailing, and it’s really quite a lot!
I hope everyone gets the goodies they were looking for in the upload today! As usual, I had a lot of fun listing them!!
xo
Brooke
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