Not long ago I updated my Corel photo editing software from x3 to x8. The difference has been bigger than expected but in a good way. I am really enjoying the typography element I don't think x3 had in its features. Also, the gradients and patterns are better-or at least there are a few more than before anyhow. In short, I am glad I bought it especially since I got it at a really awesome price. It does seem to crash a lot if I try to do too much too quickly but so long as I try to pace myself it doesn't crash. Besides that it has made me aware of the importance of saving my work if I want to avoid starting over. In word processing it would be second nature but photo editing and graphic design I guess I was slow to catch on. One would think I would save my work automatically but I didn't expect the darn program to keep crashing on me whenever I tried to do a lot of actions quickly.
Other than my new software I've been having fun with I haven't done much with my stores lately. I guess the humidity (it's been humid since last month here) has just zapped my energy. But I did update all my store headers and most of the signs for my shops. I also took the liberty of taking any older designs of mine that were not getting much attention and 'spruced' them up a bit. Not sure it will help any but I figured since they were not getting a lot of viewing they might benefit from the changes.
Since there was a gift wrapping paper sale on a few weeks ago I also made a few new designs for gift wrap. None sold yet but I will give them more time before contemplating my next step of action with them. The idea of more is better is not true in my experience. It usually just means a lot of stuff gets skipped over. So I like to keep my product count down to a certain amount that won't overwhelm potential buyers. It does take away some of the spontaneity having to consider if a new design will mean I have to delete another to even things out (i.e. one design in one design out); but all in all it is likely better than adding more designs continually without consideration of total number of products in my shop.
On another note, I purchased two throw pillows from my shop to see how they would be. The pillow itself is nice but my design had some red marks on it that I never noticed before ordering. So I cleaned up the image some and made another version of the design on a pillow. Both the design with the red spots and the cleaned up one are available. I would have deleted the one with the spots but then I thought it would probably delete my review for the pillows I ordered. My guess is the spots were a by-product of the image being an original vintage image that had not been altered. Unfortunately I never thought about zooming in on the image to 100% because I didn't notice anything from its smaller screen view. Now I realise it was naive but I know better now and won't make the same mistake.
Here is a photo of the pillow I bought and designed. I bought two and am somewhat regretful I didn't just try out one. Oh well.