May I introduce my new Red Ruby Rose website. Well hello my pretty.

This has been in the pipeline for quite a while. Starting off as an idea on the back of an envelope, then a rough design mock up, and then lots of procrastinating and chin-stroking.

I'll admit I did have reservations about starting my own shop. I currently have an online presence on three shopping sites. The main being Etsy, listing in US dollars, then Not On The High Street in UK pounds, and also Dawanda in euros. With all with ever shifting currencies, varying commissions, and different visitors, where would my own site nestle between all these and could I really juggle yet another online shop, especially one that would need extra work to generate new footfall?

I came to the conclusion that it would be lovely to have my own shop listing in UK pounds, but that it would have to be very simple, both for the visitor (no need to register, easy checkout) and for me from a listing and maintenance angle. After looking round, asking the advice of knowledgeable friends and scouring the web to see what other independent designers and makers were doing, it seemed that Big Cartel was the solution; a simple, customisable shopping cart with a small monthly fee and no commission.

It is, hands down the simplest and fastest interface for listing items. Photos upload swiftly and the whole listing process is done on one page. Quite refreshing!

Customising Big Cartel from the standard template turned out to be slightly more complicated. Long story short, Tom Neal of imaketees took my rough template idea and ran with it. All kudos to him, I highly recommend his work.

So, here it is, redrubyrose.bigcartel.com aka redrubyrose.com. I'll slowly build up the shop inventory and they'll run alongside my Etsy listings but there will also be offers and items exclusive to my own shop in the run up to Christmas. Please do take a peek if you have a moment, I'd love to know what you think.