bookhou at home

I had someone leave a feedback on the etsy shop that I felt was a bit weird so I thought I would use my blog as an opportunity to make a few things clear and hopefully it will help customers and other makers.

I hope that those out there who buy handmade - buy it for a reason, they buy it because they are helping a small business, they appreciate the time and energy that went into the items they buy, rather than buying mass produced work.

I have had comments about the fact that our prices for our work is either too low or too high (there are items we make that I havn't raised the prices for 10 years) 

for those who think it's too high, or more recently who just think a bag is solely a few dollars of material should understand that when you buy a piece from us you can't judge it by just how much materials cost - there's more than just the materials that is factored into the price. the fabric I use I screen print on, I don't buy it already with the image on it.  either my mom or I will sew it up and if it's a bag most of the leather for the day bags or the waxed totes get their edges dyed and waxed, each strip is cut from a larger hide, we don't buy the straps pre-cut.  once the straps are attached I print out your shipping labels and than the item gets packaged, there's also cost factored in to the price of the bag - the envelope, the paper that wraps up the work, the stickers the business cards etc. as well as the time factored into packaging the orders and getting it to the post office - before an item gets on the shelves, there's planning and designing, drawing of images and doing prototypes to get the right proportions and shapes and there's photographing of the bag and time spent on photoshop and getting it posted online.  the price of the bag is not just the material it's all the above.

if you think the price may seem a bit too low, we made a conscious decision to not do wholesale because we wanted our wonderful customers to benefit.  when I decided long a go to spend more time on production and less time on my art work I wanted to make interesting designed goods for people to afford and enjoy, I didn't want to make it precious and unattainable.

we work tireless hours (my mom sometimes comes in on the weekends) all because we love what we do and we are dedicated to our customers, I am answering emails 7 days a week and sometimes till the wee hours of the night, those of you who email know that.  when you order an item I email you to tell you thank you and that I got it and when it goes out I send you an email too.  I answer your emails when your item is lost, I do everything I can to make you happy -  its disapointing  to have someone disregard all the effort.  all that I said above is why people buy handmade, because there's a real person behind the screen who truly cares about your business and appreciates your support.