... on Kuberstore news.

Something happened here a few weeks ago, to little fanfare, but was accompanied by considerable personal excitement. What can I say - I'm biased about this particular issue! What happened was this; I made a change to my Etsy store name.

I was in two minds about whether to do this - and asking for opinions on the Etsy and BrisStyle forums revealed that people generally think a shorter business name is better. Perhaps it's easier to remember. Plus, I had been operating as 'Kuber' for some years, and some suggested that a name change could disrupt any connections I'd made out there in the handmade world.

One thing I was sure about was that it was time for me to set things up properly. I want my little handmade business to be just that - a business. I've been declaring any income from Kuber under my ABN on my tax return for years, so I don't feel like I've been ripping off the tax man - but I looked in to what else might need to be done. I found that it was necessary to register my business name, which is where I came up against a block. When I went to ASIC, who are responsible for maintaining the new Australian national register of business names, I found that Kuber wasn't available. Humpf. These are the perils of having a short name, and for not doing all this years ago when I should have!

It was easy, after that. I HAD to make a change, so I did. 'Kuber' became 'Kuberstore' on Etsy, and 'Kuberstore' was registered with ASIC. Kuberstore.com became mine, and my lovely old colleague Clinton set about making me a placeholder webpage to fill it. My new business cards arrived just in time for me to use them at my first market, and over the course of the evening enough people took cards for me to be glad I'd got them and the placeholder page sorted out in time. The market was a blast, by the way! I had fun, and I'm hoping to do another before Christmas.

So, what's coming next?

I'm very much looking forward to moving in to the little studio across the deck, which is almost finished. Another two weeks should see me in there, and making stuff like crazy. After initial naming as 'The Shed', it's now more often referred to as 'The Outhouse' on account of the fact that it contains our second bathroom!

This little room has a similar treatment as our existing house - white walls, black-stained plywood floor, and dodgy-old-rusty-fan-made-new by spraying with matte black paint. The louvres are a new feature, though, for cross-ventilation as there's only the one big window, otherwise. 

In the bathroom, the undermounted lab sink is big and deep enough for me to wash brushes out in. The room has the same subway wall tiles and tiny white square floor tiles as our existing bathroom.

Here's the floor finish - it's structural plywood sheeting which has been sanded, stained black and polyurethaned. Curiously, it came up much 'blacker' than the same treatment in the house - lovely!

It needs some garden as a skirt. I'll get onto that!

This has been one of my jobs over the past few days - prepping and painting the architraves and skirting boards ready for C to install.

Even more excitement to come... I've received a very promising inquiry about a wholesale order for some of my plaster egg wall hangings, so I've feverishly put together a wholesale terms and conditions document (thanks must go to Aliya from Sailor Mouth Soaps for coming to my rescue via the BrisStyle forum and very generously sending me her wholesale policy document as a place to start - a thousand thankyous!) and started thinking about exactly what that might mean.

Lots to do. Lots to do!