Where's Ingasbo?

.....Was a little bummed last night. I've had a couple of orders for circlets hanging out there for about six weeks now. I had originally thought that I could keep an aisleway cleared to the workshop so that I could complete some circlets as soon as I had a little breathing room. But came to the realization on Sunday that this was not even a possibility for a couple of weeks.

.....I e-mailed three customers whose orders were placed in early June and let them know that it would be at least two more weeks before I could hope to get their orders complete. Thankfully, when money goes into my PayPal account, it does not get touched until the order is complete and shipped. So I offered the standard refund of money if the customer decided that he or she did not want to wait.

.....I have never had to do this before, so I did feel a little badly. If I had been a little more intelligent I would have taken the web-site down and put Ingasbo into hiatus until later in September, in time to catch the Christmas ramp up in sales.

.....But I received my first reply this morning and it made me feel a lot better. The lady who responded told me that she was glad to have received word from me and that she would definitely be willing to wait a while longer. It was a very nicely worded e-mail and I felt immensely better for having read it. I've had to deal with a few really bad ass-hats in the past with Ingasbo, so I know how brutal some people can be. But having the first reply be so positive made dealing with the rest of it bearable. I think that I'll throw a few extra items in with this lady's order when I ship it out. As a sign of appreciation. :-)

.....I'm jonesing to try out some new ideas and designs with Ingasbo. I'm hoping that I can enlist the Beloved Tamm's expertise to help (she is a marvel at everything she touches), maybe with touching up artwork. Or at least seeing if we can utilize other metals and processes to make the circlets really special and stand out. I'd like to get back into enameling as well. We'll see. No need to pester her any time soon, she's got more than enough on her plate. :-)

.....The thing I really like about Ingasbo is that it has really exposed me to the ART of working with metal. I spent a lot of years at the Shipyard with grinders, chopsaws, metal grinders, and other huge implements of destruction that had nothing to do with the artistic shaping of metal. But working with small designs and working towards a particular texture, shape and LOOK of circlets have really developed in me an appreciation of metal art and how it is supposed to look to the eye and how it is supposed to feel in the hand. By NO MEANS would I classify myself as an artist, more as a craftsman, but I have hopes. :-)

.....Aaron / Arontius.