I will be at Animazement 2009 [link] in Raleigh N.C. this coming May 22-24th. I'll be carrying around a couple of my plushies (look for the girl who has the plushies with wig hair)so stop me and tell me what you think of them in person If you can't find me, look for the Pink Door Inc. table (it'll have a pink tablecloth) that Urd-chan will be at (unless she's not able to get a table). If I'm not there, they can call me and I'll be right over. I know that I'll definately be carrying Shurei Ko (Story of Saiunkoku) and Winry (Full Metal Alchemist) but I haven't decided on who else I'll have with me. If you see me and want a certain one, please ask me - I have a few in stock and might end up bringing them with me. I plan on being there off and on all weekend so even if I leave it at home, I can always bring it the next day if you want one of the in stock ones.

****

Lately I've been doing a lot of specials on my plushies and am now in need of some suggestions for the specials. Next holidays are St. Patricks, Easter, Mother's Day, and Father's Day. So I need ideas of what I can do for those days and what kind of special discount (Halloween's was $3 off shipping) I can run for them. Pick any one or ones you want and toss out suggestions, even an off the wall one can help me. If I can use the suggestion I'll give you some kind of deal on any plushie for you, I'll mark it in my records somewhere so you can use it whenever you want. So any one have some ideas?

What I have so far:

St. Patrick’s day - leprechaun-type hats,
or ship the plushie in a black cauldron with some gold foam/felt coins


Easter - bunny ear headbands
or option of putting the plushie in a bunny suit, or Easter egg for them to pop out of

Mother's Day/Father's Day - special on a set : Inu-Papa/Izyoi, Inu-Papa/Sess-Mom, or even a set with all three.
- Or even just a plushie of a character's mom. Or girl plushies come with a little bouquet of flowers and the guys with a necktie...
- mom/ dad versions of the anime characters' parents with baby/ young versions of the main characters (child at a discounted price).
- versions of the people themselves, to give to their parents

July 4 - Yankee Doodle Dandy hat


I also don't mind non-traditional holidays:

Mardi Gras - a mask or colored beads
with your plushie.

Armed Forces Day - Dress your character in military gear
- or make the plushie a military nurse

Japan has white day and red day -have a white/red outfit that is different from the plushie's normal
garb.

Nurses day is May 6th. - an additional nurses outfit.


***********

Also I have a big bone to pick with Walmart stores in North Carolina. The rumor I heard at my two local stores is now definate, they are getting rid of the bolt fabric I depend on in the two stores closest to me. The problem is that without these two stores, if I need more fabric for my plushies I will have to either 1) order it online or 2)drive over an hour to get to the closest fabric store.

This is a major problem for me as ordering online costs more and I'm screwed if I unexpectedly run out of something right in the middle of a plushie plus ordering online adds quite a bit of time to crafting a plushie. And the drive to a fabric store is an all day thing so I would need to have more to do than *just* get some fabric.

Plus both of these options might even force me to have to raise my base price by $2-5 per plushie. Meaning instead of my $20 base price, it might be $22-25 base price which I REALLY don't want to do.

So I'm begging that everyone who can, please email Walmart and ask them to not take away the bolt fabric in the Oxford and Henderson N.C. stores. I can even provide a link to email them : [link] . They do ask for some specifics but I gave them a couple N/A on some of them I didn't feel they really needed to know and it went through (they do need a working email address). And for anyone outside of NC, you can get away with just listing your address as Oxford or Henderson NC if you want, though I'm pretty sure they're doing this on a wide scale of stores.

They say it's because sales have gone down but you can halfway never find someone in that department so if they'd just install a call button they'd get more sales without having to kill off something that's almost a lifeline to some people (like me).