25th of November 2018
We have reduced prices on:
To take advantage of these new prices, make sure to visit our store before... Just joking, there's no rush. These prices are permanent. Take as long as you need.
23rd of November 2018
People with older iPhones have been having trouble ordering online at handcraftedgifts.net.au. This problem is now fixed. Everyone who has been impacted by this, we thank you all for your patience while we were fixing it.
If you, or anyone you know, are having any trouble with our website at all, please let us know. You can either reply to this email, or reach us at luba@handcraftedgifts.net.au.
Also, if you have any ideas for things you'd like the website to be able to do, let us know. We promise to give you full credit if we use your idea.
24th of October 2018
Our range of spinning fibre has been slowly growing over the last year, and now we have reached 148 kinds! Check them out at handcraftedgifts.net.au. They can all be ordered from the website. Alternatively, you can always email your order to luba@handcraftedgifts.net.au. and we will place it for you.
Our range now includes:
•36 different breeds of sheep (some have as many as 4 distinct natural colours)
•6 natural colour blends (BFL, Finnish, Icelandic, Jacob, North Ronaldsay, and Shetland)
•4 colours of llama
•4 blends of yak
•3 blends of camel
•Goat (cashmere)
•4 kinds of silk (Tussah, Eri, Muga, and Noil)
•6 dyed colours of Tussah silk (red, yellow, blue, green, purple and black)
•28 colours of dyed wool (9 BFL, 5 Corriedale, and 14 Shetland) or 29 if you include our bleached BFL.
•7 exclusive blends, designed by Luba (3 colours of Bamboo/BFL/Merino/Glitter and 4 colours of Silk/BFL/Merino/Glitter)
•11 plant fibres (2 bamboo colours, banana, corn, cotton, flax, mint, pearl fibre, pineapple, rose, and seacell)
•Milk fibre
•16 fibres blended with silk
•And most importantly, we still have plenty of North Ronaldsay (the seaweed eating sheep that can't eat grass)
Check them out at handcraftedgifts.net.au.
29th of September 2018
As you likely know by now, our website (handcraftedgifts.net.au) is changing. There are many small improvements every week, as this will eventually become the main way we do business. Now we would like your feedback.
Most stores online are purchased pre-made, allowing the owner to do little things like change the colours and logos, but big changes to the customer experience were impossible. This store, however, has been built from absolutely nothing.
This means that anything you could possibly imagine, we can make the website do. Making it "like eBay" or "like Etsy" is not enough. We want it better, easier, faster, and simpler than eBay and Etsy.
If you have any suggestions on how we can make the process from browsing to checkout simpler, easier, and less confusing for a first-time customer, please let us know.
We are also going to have a complete visual makeover. This means choosing new colours, new fonts, new textures, new designs, new layouts, and so on. Whatever we choose will be our brand, and it will be how you will recognize us in all of our promotional materials. We don't want a new look every week, we want one new look to keep for the decades to come. So we need all the help we can get.
Dark writing on light background, or light writing on dark background? Should the font look handwritten? Bright saturated colours? Greys? Something in between? Let us know.
To give your feedback, just reply to this email.
20th of September 2018
We know there hasn’t been any news for a long time, but this is because Jon has had his head down developing the latest update for the website. It now accepts PayPal and card payments.
In designing this website, we wanted it to have excellent customer service. If you don’t know what you would like, it’s still best to give us a call or send us an email, and we can talk to you about what suits your needs. But if you know exactly what you would like, want to know how much it costs including postage, and would like to pay by PayPal or card, this website is the fastest way to do it. It is so fast, in fact, that we will be using it from now on when we take orders over the phone.
If you would like fibre reserved, but would like to purchase something else not yet listed on the website, simply select “Direct Deposit” as your payment method and then give us a call or send us an email. This insures that your fibre is put aside and reserves your place on the line if it’s on back order. With this major update complete, expect a lot of minor updates in the coming weeks.
Here are some features we don’t have yet in no particular order:
• Listing many of the currently unlisted fibres, including unusual plant fibres and silk blends.
• Ability to add yarn to your order.
• Order individual one-of-a-kind products like painted spindles or rolags.
• Product staple lengths
• Hide images so you can see more products on screen at once.
• Filters, allowing you to only see categories that are relevant to you.
• Sort products cheapest to most expensive, lowest micron count to highest, and longest staple length to shortest.
• Animations, making your shopping experience smoother, easier to follow, and less choppy.
If one of those features is particularly important to you, or if there is another feature you would like, let us know. It will help us add features in the most sensible order possible.
3rd of June 2018
If you go to our spinning fibre page, you will see how many grams of everything we have in stock. We will be updating this every evening, so these numbers should never be more than 24 hours out of date. (We do have plans for a more instantaneous automatic system, but that’s still a few months away.)
We promised inventory tracking by July 2nd, but we’re doing it early. Gone are the days when we could just remember which fibres we have in stock. With 117 different types of spinning fibre (and counting) it can be difficult to remember if it was Swaledale, Wensleydale, Perendale, or Corriedale that we’re still waiting for.
31st of May 2018
We made the front cover of the Guild News (a publication written by the Handspinners and Weavers Guild of South Australia, Inc.) Again, sorry for not letting you all know ahead of time we were going. Next time we give a talk there, we'll tell you as soon as we know ourselves.
We were also mentioned in The Adelaide Review. Click either of the links if you want to read either of the publications yourself.
25th of May 2018
All orders up to 1kg are now express as standard.
$8.40 for up to 450 grams
$12.60 for up to 1kg
($8 non-express delivery for up to 450 grams is still available upon request.)
Many customers have told us our website does not show which fibres are available, so from July 2nd we shall be rolling out a system that tells you exactly how many grams are available for sale. Due to technical limitations, these weights could be up to 24 hours out of date, but this will be fixed later this year.
16th of May 2018
This isn't a temporary sale. Using time pressure to make a sale isn't part of our business model. These new prices are permanent, so take as long as you need. We'll still be here when you're ready.
Have a look at our range of discounted products here.
We're not going to tell you which ones are 45% off or what our old prices were, because those old prices are dead and gone. We will tell you, however, that most of our stock has been reduced in price today. So come on in and grab a bargain. If we had an item that was out of your budget before, look at it now. It's probably much more affordable.
Also, a reminder, all our items can be purchased in any quantity from 25 grams. For example, if you want 25 grams of Masham ($5.50 per 100g) it will only cost $1.38, and so on for all the rest. This is ideal for customers who want to try lots of different breeds without spending hundreds of dollars to do so.
This price reduction is part of our commitment to having the lowest prices in Australia and the lowest prices to Australia. The most difficult part of that commitment is knowing what all the other prices are, so if you can find a cheaper price, let us know. We will adjust our prices to be the cheapest, and then give you free postage on your next order, regardless of size. (Offer only valid to the first person to let us know. Prices may take up to 24 hours to update.)
12th of May 2018
Scrolling through a news feed is no way to look up when we’re coming to a market near you, so we’ve added an events page here. (We also added Fleece and Fibre Fair, which we booked in ages ago and forgot to tell you about.)
We’ve also got more fibre in stock, but we’re waiting on a big website upgrade before uploading them. Watch this space. More news coming soon.
27th of April 2018
Those of you reading this from your email, thanks for subscribing.
Those of you reading this from the website, wouldn't it be great if you always knew when there was a new product, a new permanent price drop, a new place we're visiting, or a new website feature?
No? Well definitely don't subscribe to our mailing list then, because that's pretty much all it is. (You can always see that stuff here anyway.)
25th of April 2018
We are lowering the prices on undyed bamboo to keep up with our competition. No longer $11 per 100 grams. Now $8.50. This is our new regular price.
This is good news, not just for customers and bamboo growers, but for the planet as a whole. Many sellers brag that the production and distribution of their product only puts a little bit of carbon into the atmosphere. Ours takes carbon out of the atmosphere and puts it into your next spinning project.
As always, if you find a cheaper price on a stocked item, let us know for free postage on your next order. (Offer is only valid to the FIRST person to spot the cheaper price. Our prices may take 24 hours to update.)
24th of April 2018
On the 19th and 20th of May, (Saturday and Sunday), from 10am to 4pm, we will be setting up shop at the Old Bus Depot Markets in Canberra! It will be a 14 hour drive each way, but our Facebook friends assure us it will be worth it. So if you live in Canberra and were planning on buying from us, maybe just wait a bit. We'll have the same prices, but no postage costs. Also you get to feel what you buy before you buy it.
All visitors to our stall get an all-purpose spinning reference bookmark for free. No purchase necessary.
10th of April 2018
On the 6th of May (Sunday) from 10am to 4pm, we will be setting up shop at the Hahndorf Academy (68 Main St Hahndorf) for their special “Imagine the Past” event. Come along and learn about weaving, felting, embroidery, illustration, botanical drawing, paper making, washday pottery, butter churning, milking goats, cheese making, traditional timber joinery, wood turning, stationary engines, and draft horses.
This will be the first time we’ve ever attended a fair that’s filled with mostly non-spinners, so in addition to all our normal stock, we’ll be selling “Learn to Spin” packs. We’re a bit fuzzy on the details now, but we know that the pack will contain at least a spindle, some fibre, and written instructions about how to spin (with pictures).
All visitors to our stall get an all-purpose spinning reference bookmark for free. No purchase necessary.
8th of April 2018
On the 1st of July (Sunday) from 9:30am to 4pm, we will be setting up shop at the Auburn Wool & Fibre Fair (Corner of Kings St and Main N Rd Auburn SA). It’s exactly what it sounds like, with all things fleece and fibre, sausage sizzle, and tea/coffee. This is definitely our kind of place.
All visitors to our stall get an all-purpose spinning reference bookmark for free. No purchase necessary.
8th of April 2018
$9 per 100g BFL
$7 per 100g Corriedale
$8 per 100g Finnish
$7 per 100g Gotland
$9 per 100g Polwarth
$8 per 100g Shetland
Back before we started, if we wanted fibre from one of these breeds it would cost much more than this. We never even intended to start a business. Luba just wanted to buy some fibre and asked around to see if anyone wanted to split the cost of a bulk order. So many people did, we just kept buying, made a website, attended fairs, and never looked back.
Today, checking out our competition, we saw we were no longer the cheapest. Before now we were the cheapest in Australia and the cheapest to Australia, but now those high prices we once saw from our competition have lowered to beat us. So, we are lowering back!
Although this is bad for us, we’re actually happy and excited about it. This is great news for our customers, but more importantly, it’s great news for the farmers of these breeds. They still sell at the same price, but now they’re selling more!
This is not a temporary price war. These are our new regular prices and we will always have them in stock.
“Cheapest in Australia” and “cheapest to Australia” is who we are. We will always have the lowest prices, even if it means selling below cost to get rid of it. It only takes one item not being the cheapest to tarnish our entire reputation, which is never worth it for quick dollar.
As part of our commitment to offering the cheapest prices, we are offering a finder’s fee. If you find a cheaper price on a stocked item, not only will we beat it, we will also lower the price for everyone else, AND give you free postage on your next order to thank you for letting us know.
Offer is only valid to the FIRST person to spot the cheaper price. Our prices may take 24 hours to update.
7th of April 2018
Sorry for not letting you all know earlier. Today we attended the Spinners and Weavers Guild of South Australia. Luba gave a talk about her favourite rare breeds and why we should preserve them, we sold some spinning fibre and spindles, and everyone got to meet Tania, our two-year-old team member.
We promise to let you all know BEFORE we go next time so you can come see us.
5th of April 2018
As of today, our space for the Bendigo Sheep and Wool Show is purchased, so there’s no backing out now! We’ve still got so much work ahead of us in preparing for Bendigo, but it’s definitely going to happen! We’re even hiring an extra-large car to fit all of the spinning fibre we’re going to bring. (A Hyundai Getz will not fit all our inventory and two adults. Believe us. We’ve tried.)
So, for those of you also going to the Bendigo Sheep and Wool Show, get ready to save on postage. We will have absolutely everything with us, and if we’ve run out of your favourite thing by the time you find us, we’ll give you free postage on your next order so you can order it when it comes back in stock.
All visitors to our stall get an all-purpose spinning reference bookmark for free. No purchase necessary.