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As I finish up the holiday gifting, I got to put together some gift packages for my staff too. Some version of this will be going out to the Serendib House crew: Stephanie Bailey, Emmanuel Henderson, Darius Vinesar, Cara Bogehegn.

I couldn’t do a quarter of what I do without their help, so thank you to everyone who’s ordered from us this year, and helped me keep employing them, even during a pandemic. They alleviate a lot of stress for me in a variety of ways, and multiply my efforts enormously.

(We really need to take a staff photo sometime, folks!)

These include (roughly left to right):

– five different soaps: knitted mitten (pomegranate-vanilla), knitted tree (fir), ice dragon crystal (sweet orange & naiouli), dragon’s blood egg soap (rosewood, clove, and cinnamon), dragonheart knitted soap (pettigrain and cassia cinnamon)

Whew. Kavi said, as she watched me pick them up, “That’s a lot!” Yes, yes it is.

There’s one more level above this, “Interstellar.” I just need to make a few more items for it…

– two little flower bookmarks

Sometimes you have an idea, and you get all excited, like — oh my gosh, wouldn’t it be great to have a pumpkin curry tea towel to sell along with the Sri Lankan cookbook!!!

So you design it and Kavi draws you a pumpkin, and you get it printed, and you sew it up, and all the while, you’re wondering if anyone will actually think it’s as cool as you do. Cool enough that they’ll want to actually spend real money on one for a gift, along with a cookbook and maybe some curry powder?

And then yes, someone actually orders it. Whew.

I am not going to get rich off pumpkin curry tea towels, but it’s still rather nice to know I’m not completely off-base with the concept.

We’re happy to customize the boxes to work with people’s allergies (although keep in mind that we do use nuts and gluten in the kitchen, so trace particulates may be present for those extremely sensitive; we don’t use peanuts at all, though). We can also accommodate scent sensitivities, either by skipping body & bath products entirely and substituting in other items, or by sending unscented versions.

The base level (“Earth”) is $10 / month (which works out to $30 / box). This is what’s going in the next level up (“Sol System”), $15 / month ($45 / box):

– and a silver star, just for fun

These are shipping out today! The theme for the winter box was Dragons Knitting; the spring box will be Unicorns in the Garden.

Link to Patreon here. Quantities are very limited, as they kind of take over my life for two weeks, and that’s about all I can spare, time-wise.

After yesterday’s frustration with the dragon candle and its many, many failed attempts, it was really a delight to have this one come out perfectly on the first try. So cute!

I can’t include it in the small Patreon boxes, because it’s just a little too big to fit into the small priority mail box, so it’ll be in the other tiers, and available for individual sale. I’ll ask Stephanie Bailey to add them to our Shopify site (once I try wrapping them in a padded envelope and weigh them, so she knows the shipping cost), and as always, we’re happy to offer porch pick-up. They’re lightly scented in cedar leather and amber, as part of the dragons knitting theme. Color may vary, depending on what mica powders I have on hand, but if you have a color request, let me know when you order, and I’ll try to oblige.

The next box will go out in March, and I’m thinking “unicorns in the garden” for the theme. I’ll also note that I’ve now enabled annual subscriptions on Patreon (a big commitment for me, but I think do-able). I think that means that instead of paying $10 / month for the first tier boxes, you’d pay for the whole year at once — it comes with a 10% discount, so a little bit of a deal. The boxes will still arrive quarterly.