Closing Up Shop
It’s so hard to say goodbye, but in the words of Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton: something’s gotta give.
Parenthood, home improvement projects, and tons of other blog related undertakings have turned us into busy bees. So much so that our little t-shirt and print shop will be closing its virtual doors since we no longer have a spare second to keep up with the whole mom & pop operation anymore. We proudly rely on two local printing and t-shirt companies to create all of our YHL wares, but we do all of the designing, stocking, packaging, and mailing ourselves. We know that we can probably outsource those responsibilities, but it just feels like something else we would have to juggle – and what can we say, we like to be the ones who get our hands dirty and do the work ourselves.
Even though we know closing this door will open the door to future opportunities (and free us up to tackle more projects and write more posts instead of standing in line at the post office and calling in orders) we’re still sad! But we keep reminding ourselves that by simplifying and streamlining our to-do list, we can continue to bring you guys lots of makeovers, before and afters, giveaways, house crashings, and other things that you know and love. Which turns our frown upside down so to speak. Anyway, we’ve assigned an inventory number to everything that’s left in our shop (about 30 items remain) but when those things are gone we’re officially sold out for good.
But enough Debbie Downering (yes, we just made that a verb). Let’s get to the hearts and unicorns portion of this post. We love you guys for your support of our shop over the past two years and we owe a huge heartfelt thank you to everyone of you lovely guys and gals who ordered from us. We’re beyond honored that our prints hang on your walls and our t-shirts hang on your bodies. Seriously, nothing is cooler than that. We so appreciate your support and your interest in our designs!
So now all you guys have to do is stay tuned for more beefy blog stuff that you love. We’ve got big plans for this fall!
First image courtesy of IMDB.
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I’m thinking I would love to get some of the dog shirts for foster dogs who are recovering from surgeries.
One questions, where are they made (the t-shirts themselves) – as in what country?
Thanks!
(http://thefosterpaws.com)
Hey GreenInOC,
The doggie tees are 100% cotton and made in India (of course we would love if they could have been made in the US, but by working with our local print shop to produce dog shirts, our resources were surprisingly limited!). Especially because we have a thing for the quality of the tees themselves (we didn’t want anything crunchy and cheap feeling like those free t-shirts you get at conferences). Dog comfort is the key to them keeping those shirts on in the first place. Haha. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
That’s sad, but it will work out. If your readers are interested in affordable art, they can check out my etsy shop at ourhumbleabowed.etsy.com and enter today’s giveaway:
http://ourhumbleabowed.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/gimme-a-giveaway-leaves-silhouette/
I bought a print of a dachshund from your shop a while back, for a friend of mine who has had two of this breed.
She adores it.
I hope that closing the shop brings you some breathing room!
I’m sure it was a hard decision, but I’m glad you guys were able to make the change in order to make your family work!
Hey Can I ask what print service you would use for your prints?
We use Uptown Color down near VCU. We love them and especially appreciate Ray Holmes and Brian Walker, who have been amazing to work with for the past two years!
xo,
s
You had me worried – at first I thought you were abandoning the blog!
Never!
xo,
s
Jeez o petes, I thought the same thing as TDY! Whew!
Oh no- sorry for the panic! You know we love a punny title, and “closing up shop” just seemed perfect!
xo,
s
I just got those prints- I have been wanting to get them forever and you just made up my mind. I am so glad I was able to get them :)
GEEZ LOUISE, I thought you were saying you were closing up this website until I read the post. Way to give a girl a heart attack!
Glad that you are sticking around! I don’t blame you for not doing the shop – it is a lot of work! I might try to nab some of your stuff before it goes away for good!
Are the prints in the post all gone? I don’t see them in the shop anymore.
Yes, so sorry they went so fast!
xo,
s
You made me nervous as well- so glad you’re website will remain. And I got all excited when I saw the picture of Diane and Jack at the top- because it made me remember that HOUSE in the movie Somethings Gotta Give. My dream home!!!!!!
Oh yeah that’s the most amazing house! We actually have a post about Nancy Meyers’ movie sets (and how much we love them) in the hopper!
xo,
s
As some other people have mentioned, my heart definitely skipped a beat when I read the title and the beginning of the post!! Good for you guys though; it’s so great that you’re making sure you have a comfortable balance of family and work :) And this post was the motivation I needed to FINALLY get a t-shirt! Yay! Haha.
Darn. I am going to have to pass. I was hoping that they were the ones made by American Apparel.
Oh, well.
What about the women’s t-shirts, where are those made (fingers crossed?!
No worries GreenInOC, we admire your commitment! The adult ones were made in Vietnam. It seemed like in order to support a local printing company we had to go with the shirts they use, so we didn’t have much wiggle room other than being picky about the quality an choosing their top tier shirts. We wish we had thought to try to get them to use tees from American Apparel (we found online shops that used them but we love working with local people so we can meet them and shake their hands). Hope it helps!
xo,
s
Oh my gosh, I literally almost had a heart attack when I read that header thinking you were stopping the whole shebang. Thank goodness that is not the case! I just discovered y’all recently and that would have been quite devastating. I am already addicted to your blog and am now in obsessive decorating mode thanks to all of your crafty DIY projects. My husband may leave me soon if I try to paint one more thing. It’s okay, though, he secretly likes it. He’s in decorating denial.
Y’all are awesome. Just so you know!
Phew! Just snagged a YHL green shirt for myself but was SO bummed that a 3XL hammer love shirt was already sold out for my honey! I’m putting together a housewarming present for him and thought it would be perfect. I really should have ordered last week! le sigh.
Oh Lordy. I almost just had a heart attack. I totally thought you meant “closing up shop for good”. Whew!
I thought you were closing up YHL and I was pretty devastated for a minute. I am sad about the print shop but am so excited to see what you’ve got in store!
I definitely thought you were quitting the blog…I may have said, “Shut UP!” out loud and then calmed down when I actually read the rest of the post…whew!! I’m excited to see the developments that come as a result of this tough decision!
Yeah, I’m another one whose heart leapt into her throat when I read “closing up shop.” Thank goodness, the blog is staying put! Really, I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have my YHL daily fix. And I’ve gotten so many folks hooked on ya, too! How would I ever explain it to them?
Eeks! So sorry to scare you guys! We couldn’t pass up the “closing up shop” pun in the headline (you know us) but we definitely didn’t mean to panic anyone! YHL is here to stay!
xo,
s
I’m so glad I purchased your botanical prints last year! They look awesome in their white frames in my master bathroom.
You scared the crap out of me, too! I saw the post on Facebook and thought that your blogging days are over! Whew!
I don’t know what storm door means? Is it a entrance door or something else? I guess I never saw some storm door in Europe…
Hey JJA,
Just google it for a visual- basically it’s a metal framed door with plexiglass or glass so you can peer through it and get sunlight into the house while the large solid wood or metal door is open. Hope it helps!
xo,
s
You can only do so much and you have your priorities in order, so all is well :)
What is the status of the design advice? Will you be selling any mood boards in the future, or are you closing shop on those, too? I only ask, because I am terribly interested in purchasing a bit of your inspiration!
Hey Meredith,
We’re desperate to get back to mood board making but to be honest we’re not sure if we’ll be able to take them on again anytime soon. We’re not throwing in the towel or calling it quits just yet though, so here’s hoping we can catch up a bit when it comes to other projects and posts so we can take on a few clients sometime soon! We’ll definitely make an announcement if we reinstate them or decide to retire them for good. And either way we’ll still whip up mood boards for the blog – they might just be more general ones (for ideas that many people can use) as opposed to boards geared towards specific clients (which take more time to create to their specific parameters). Hope it helps! And thanks for your interest!
xo,
s
I almost died, I thought you were gonna stop blogging…
Hey YHL… to keep the fun alive but remove the burden, why don’t you upload your designs to Cafe Press and allow peeps like us to order willy nilly. i’m pretty sure you’ll still receive income from it, it’s totally hands off from your perspective, but we’ll still get to sport our YHL garb…
JUST A THOUGHT!
Hey Trey,
We actually looked into CafePress in the beginning but we couldn’t put the designs and url in the places that we wanted (there’s not much control on their site) and the t-shirts felt a little scratchy to us. I guess we’re t-shirt snobs. Haha. But thanks so much for the suggestion. Maybe someday we can streamline the design so it’ll work with their parameters, and perhaps their tees have gotten softer in the two years since we last checked!
xo,
s
Oh that’s sad! I hope to one day be big enough to need to make posts like this, even though they’e sad. However that would require actually startying a store first (which is sort of in the works).
Aww sad. But jeez you guys do enough already!
Sadness. I wish you gave an ‘order by’ date instead of having limited stock left with no advance notice. I knew I should’ve order those prints last week! :(
So sorry Rebekah. We’re definitely saving the files, so who knows! Maybe we’ll suddenly have enough time on our hands to revive them someday!
xo,
s
When this popped up in my feed reader and I saw the first sentence, I almost died because I thought you were going to quit blogging. I’M SO RELIEVED! (Also, feeling slightly less silly to see there were others who thought the same thing.)
So glad I snagged YHL t-shirts for hubby and me when they first came out! And now I can wear mine since I’m not pregnant anymore! I’m planning to try to get a picture of both of us wearing them together sometime . . .
Heart attack city. I thought you were shuttering the whole blog–something I’ve been afraid might happen now that you have a larger family to take care of. Whew! Glad that’s not the case.
I almost had a freak-out when I first read the title of this post (what would I do if my fave blog ceased to exist any more?? what would I read every day?). Then I read more and see it’s about your shop. Only you know what’s best for you though, you can only do so much in a day and it’s no fun wearing yourself thin.
Sad to hear it but completely understand. I have had my eye on your leaf botanical print for a while now. Guess I need to figure out a place where it would go and make a move to buy it soon!
oh my goodness, I was soooooo worried that you were completely shutting down the blog! I’m so thankful that you are not! I would have been so depressed! lol
I was like NO NO they are not quitting the blog! I feel like you are family! So glad that wasn’t it!!! Love all of you inspiration!!!!
PHEW! Wide spread panic. But it’ll all work out. Sometimes when we take on new responsibilities we must let other things slide off of our plates. You guys deserve to have a life too!
Yeah guys, don’t EVER do that to us again!!! I also thought you were closing your blog and for a moment there it was horrible.
But, it’s obvious you have your priorities right and had you not made this decision now, it is time as a family that you can never get back later.
So go you!!!
So sorry to scare you guys! YHL will be around forever! We’ll be 92 year olds blogging about the new rooms we painted after our afternoon naps!
xo,
s
I’m sure its difficult to keep up with all the blog work, never mind house projects AND a new baby!
This is a good reminder to try to streamline things in our life, and eliminate some things if we can to reduce stress.
Totally thought you guys were closing up the blog too! Phew- now I don’t have to go out and find a new favorite diy home website :) Glad to hear you’ll be sticking around, and that this blog is becoming so successful for you.
(limited edition tees and prints for the holidays?? Just saying…)
The initial panic i felt on first thinking it was farewell blog shows me just HOW addicted I am to your site. I think I need help!
Best wishes for future projects :)
Oh God, when I read the subject line I thought that you were saying goodbye to blogging, not just literally closing the shop. Phew, what a scare.
OMG!!! Like the others who’ve posted – for one terrifying moment I was contemplating my morning cup of tea without a YHL post to read…. devastating!!!
Thank goodness I can write it off as a bad dream and move on – phew!! :)
So sorry to cause such a panic guys! YHL is definitely here to stay!
xoxo,
s (& j)
Oh my… Give me a heart attack! Thank gosh it’s the shop and not yhl blog. Looking forward to seeing the good things that come from making this decision, it may have been hard, but I’m sure worth it. Well done!
Just found your blog. Totally in love. My fiance and I are somewhat DIYers ourselves, and totally inspired by what we’ve found here. Can’t wait to see what else you two have up your sleeves. The rain barrel project is how I originally found you- we’re on the lookout for a barrel of our own to transform.
As far as standing in line at the post office, there is a program called “Carrier Pickup” and it’s free, after you print a ‘click-n-ship’ label, of course. Use it all the time and my carrier loves the business!
Hey Dan,
Good suggestion! We actually looked into that option, but since all of our orders were different weights (some people ordered four prints, others just one, and some a t-shirt and a print, etc) there we so many possible shipping weights and combos to deal with that the post office was the only reliable way to be sure we had the right amount of postage on things (and using flat rate postage boxes didn’t work for us). But you’re right about it being a huge help if you’re shipping things that you know weigh a standard amount, are shipping things in flat rate boxes, or have a reliable home scale!
xo,
s
Yeah, made me scared too! Glad you’re not ending the blog. Your can-do spirit and positive attitude is contagious and a big reason why I love your blog. It’s understandable that you’d have to prioritize your to-do list these days. Thanks for the heads up. And thanks for continuing the blog! xoxox
Thought of you guys when I saw this post. You could sub out the spray paint, and make sure the disks are large enough to not be a choking hazard. :-) http://www.nicegirlnotes.com/magnets
Thanks for the link, Jenny! Smart project. We actually already scored a set of “non obnoxious” (to use her words) letters and will be blogging about them as soon as we can. Stay tuned!
-John
You are perfect example of examining your life when things get hectic. Assess the situation to see what you can change, prioritize, eliminate and simplify. Make time for the most important things and eliminate what you can.
Enjoy your blog, especially the house crashing and look and learn segments.
Best wishes.
for the record…. I just recently discovered your blog and being a new home owner and recently married I’m officially in love….. My heart sank when I saw the words… “Closing up shop” I am so glad you were not talking about your blog!!! Thank you for all your inspiring ideas and keep up the great work! <3 crystal