This past weekend Tig went to Roanoke, VA for Star City Anime Con.  While there she met Vic Mignogna  the English dub voice actor for Tamaki Suou  in Ouran High School Host Club, as well as a host of other anime as well as one of my all time favorite voice actors.

snagged the photo off Vic's IMBd page

  He walked into our booth and saw that a customer had just bought the Ouran High School Host Club Funky Bracelet (he had his eye on it) and signed one of the charms for the very lucky lady.  Just to cool for words.

 I am totally fangirlling about this right now tehe.

At the moment the bracelet is not available online, but I do have some earrings.

Check them out!

Question 21:   You said it takes a really long time to make a picture truly look like the product.   Can you show us a before and after?

Answer 21:   Sure.   Here is a picture of my “Yoga, Pepole Pin”  (you can find it above and below since I'm long winded).  The picture on the Left is the before... well mostly before it's been cropped.   As you can see I use a gray background,  I used to use white,  but when I took the picture the digital camera would distort the colors of the product to much.   The picture on the Right is the after.   I cleaned up the background so it was all white,  lightened and corrected the colors so it would more accurately represent the true colors of the pin,  then I had to re-draw the picture on the charm since the color correction proses faded it out.   When you hold the pin in your hand you can see the picture on the charm is a very dark gray, most people would call it black.   However after the color correction it's a light gray or almost invisible in some places so I re-draw it in a very dark gray.   The only thing I can never get perfect is the charm background since most of them are white,  but if I fix it completely then the differences between the charm and the background of the photo is not great enough to tell where one begins and the other ends.

Question 22:   This question comes from a customer.  "I have allergies to some metals.  What are your bracelets metal components made of?"

Answer 22:   This is a great question and one anyone that is sensitive should ask.   I use a variety of metals copper, pewter, stainless steal, silver, brass, bronze, and some times base metal.   I try VERY hard to make sure that all my components are nickle free and lead free.   However since I don't have a way of testing the metals myself I have to rely on the company's that I order from to have accurate information.   I am very confident that the Ear Wires I use are Surgical Stainless Steal since they are made by a US company.   However not all of my components are made in the US and some country's have lax testing standards.   I will say that I am sensitive and my assistant Tig  (Tig is great she helps out with sales) is crazy sensitive and neither one of us has ever had a problem,  and in the 15 years I have been in businesses I have only had to make one return because of sensitivity reasons.   Hopefully this means that I'm doing a good job at finding materials that truly are nickle free and lead free.  

Q.   Wow a straightforward couple of answers. I might just die of shock. (hand held to hart)

A.   humph

Question 23:   What if the customer is sensitive to your product.  Can they return it?

Answer 23:   As long as the item is in good shape i.e. it was not chewed on by the dog, run over by a car or played ruffly with by a kid,  Sure.   I will say that it is my policy to not make returns for people that are mean to me  (it's only happened once in 15 years so it's a rarely used policy),  I don't like to be yelled at or made to cry.

Q.   Who Dose?  (hands in a spread open gesture)

A.   Masochists?   (head tilted to side with a look of total innocence)   Anyway I'm not one,  so I don't want to cry.  However if someone is not mean I'm fairly laid back about my return policy.   I want my customers to be happy,  so I'll repair, exchange,  or if I have to even return an item.   I admit I want to keep the money my customers gave me so I would rather repair or exchange,  but I also want them to have warm fuzzes when they think about me so I try my best to achieve that end.

Question 24:  Do you like Chocolate?

Answer 24:   Yes.  

A.   Was that the best question you could come up with?

Q.    I lost my notes and was stalling for time.

A.  Oh for the love of Pete.  (sigh)