Workspace Wednesday | rukristin Shop

Re-organizing the office is high on my priority this week. I shared an instagram photo of some furniture rearranging and I thought it would give me a great opportunity to talk about the shop.

The rukristin Shop is located at http://rukristin.com/shop and in the third bedroom (the office) of our mid-century modern home. It’s in the smallest of the three bedrooms, but perfectly suited for the office/shop room we wanted to build. When we first moved in we added a pegboard to one of the long walls and painted the wall opposite the windows with chalkboard paint.

While I haven’t used the chalkboard wall as much as I’d like to (I put a table in front of it for shipping), I’m hoping that the new arrangement will leave me with better access to that wall to plan out future shop plans.

I founded my shop a few years ago when I started selling wooden stamps and small project kits. I started out using the Shopify software, and when I grew out of their model, Jeff and I learned the open source software PrestaShop and created the shop I have now. Between the two of us we know enough tech stuff to be able to run an internet business (so far) and that’s been an invaluable part of building the shop (and rukristin as a whole).

The shop features my exclusive (rukristin) products: clear stamps, wooden stamps, journaling cards, project kits and Currently List supplies, along with scrapbooking and memory-keeping supplies from my favorite manufacturers including American Crafts, Basic Grey, WeRMemory Keepers, ImagineCrafts, Tombow, and more. My goal is to replicate the awesome LSS (local scrapbook store) I spent my college years hanging out in.

I try to stock all the basics: paper, page protectors, adhesive, stamps, ink, embellishments, etc. Although I do stock some 12×12 paper, the rest of stock skews on the smaller end (more mini-albums, 6×6 paper pads, etc) — this is just for shipping purposes. Because I’m shipping everything off to new homes, I try to keep shipping costs as low as possible for my customers. One of the ways I’m able to do this is by sticking with smaller items.

Most items in the shop can go out in a flat-rate USPS Priority mailer for a totally reasonable price. The USPS (and all shipment companies) charge a lot more money as soon as you go over certain dimensions, and 12×12 paper always falls into that category, so as soon as you add a 12×12 sheet of paper to a box, the shipping gets to be quite a bit more. As I grow the shop more and bring in more merchandise, I’ll be adding more 12×12 paper and the like. I feel like as a customer, it’s a lot easier to justify the shipping cost of 12×12 papers when you’re also ordering a bunch of other stuff.

That being said my favorite scrapbook supplies are here in the shop both small and large — and if there’s ever something you want that isn’t in the shop, you can always send me an email and see if I can get it in for you.

After the awesome success of my Currently List, and rukristin BASICS lines, I’m in the middle of a new product line that will include an 8×6 patterned papers, 3×4 journaling cards, stamps and more. I’m grateful for this shop that I’ve built. It’s given me this great platform for which to feature my exclusive products that I wouldn’t otherwise have.

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