Happy Thursday Everyone!
The countdown to Christmas is definitely on around here! The shopping is complete, the wrapping is almost done, the fudge has been made, Christmas cards are out, family traditions are being checked off one by one. It’s glorious and exhausting!!
We took some time to head into Boston on Saturday night. We had dinner in the North End and walked around Quincy Market and Fanueil Hall. The weather was great and we had a nice meal at Rabia’s.
I especially love walking through the little shops in the old Quincy Market building (top left). They have some really unique stuff in there.
Sunday was my annual fudge day. I made 2 batches of chocolate, 2 batches of peanut butter, 1 batch of white chocolate/almond/cranberry and then Leah made 2 batches of toffee and Lindsey made peanut butter cup bars…a little photo of the fudge in progress…
My mom started the tradition of making fudge and delivering it to the neighbors when we were growing up and I’ve continued that here in my own neighborhood. It’s fun for the girls to make the deliveries.
I’m sure most of you have heard by now about the VAT (value added tax) in the European Union and how it is going to affect small pattern designers who offer downloadable patterns in PDF form. If you haven’t heard this, here is an interesting blog post that describes it in more detail. The gist of this is that if I sell a pattern download on Craftsy or Etsy to a buyer in any of the 75 EU countries, as of 1/1/15 I will now have to pay the sales tax to that particular country. This means filing tax papers in any of those countries individually…what??? Who has time for that? Ummm, no one. As far I can tell in my limited research, Craftsy and Etsy nave remained silent on the issue for indie pattern designers. Designers can not just hit a button and turn off sales to those countries on Craftsy or Etsy. Sadly, many designers are having to close down their download shops on those sites. Personally, I don’t have a lot of sales outside of the USA but if I do, I will have to file tax papers in that country…the questions is whether that is worth the trouble or not? I’m hoping and praying that Craftsy gets the hint that we need them to change their platform so that we can turn off sales to those countries. I know some software will allow for this as QuiltWoman has done this for the designers already. It’s a lousy situation for sure.
This kind of segues into goals for 2015. I am hoping to sit down this week with my notebook and see where I wanted my business to go in 2014 and if I’ve achieved any of it or not…I know I have. Maybe not all but definitely some and even some things I didn’t see myself doing when I wrote the goals originally.
It will also be time for new goals and challenges. Have you thought about your goals for 2015 yet?
My works in progress this week are pretty non existent. I’ve been focused on getting the Christmas shopping completed and wrapping. I do have to make a few Frozen makeup bags today for an order and after the holidays I’ll be working on getting this beautiful wall hanging quilted for a friend of my aunt’s. Isn’t is pretty?
I’m also just beginning to read an advanced copy of Karen Ehman’s new book, Keep It Shut. I’ll be posting more about this as I read more of the book. I’ve volunteered to read it and share my thoughts about it on the blog. You can see the book’s trailer HERE. Karen is a speaker and writer for the Proverbs 31 organization and I enjoy her work very much…more later on this.
Have a beautiful Thursday!
