Getting back into the swing of things
Well, so much for writing more often. 🤨 It’s not for a lack of time or things to write about, quite the opposite. I’ve been cranking out all sorts of things: more shop organization, dialing up/in manufacturing processes on the cnc router, two local community websites, a community map, a new app, a Wii balance board hack, lots of updates to the website, researching new colors for products, diving deep into code-generated 3D printing, and most exciting of all… ramping up production of some Human Crafted favorites for the holiday season.
Since I’m so far behind, for today’s message let’s focus on those new (old) products:
- Getting straight to the point, I have 4 classic products on the site and listed for sale! You can now once again order the Tissue Dispenser, Bath Container, Acrylic Trees, and Acrylic Robin, in some fun new colors.
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To get these products listed I overhauled the website and hooked up Stripe for checkout. These e-comm features are all built from “scratch” which means they are not costing me any additional subscriptions and I host/own everything. In fact, most of the content is just stored as simple text files that I can edit easily. There is some Claude-supported wizardry going on in the background, but nothing super complex, and everything sensitive is handled entirely by Stripe.
- Also on the website I spent some time working out how to integrate these products I am selling with the existing “project” grid and format I’ve developed. I ended up using the sub-brand I created for these products, Made. Since all products started as projects, they appear in the main project grid but are tagged with Made and they can be filtered with that tag. Also, Made has its own page that can be reached from the link at the top of the page, and it’s formatted more like a regular e-comm shop (with the cart and all). Finally I spent more time working on the layout of the “buy block” on product pages, the color pills, and the color thumbnails that show the colors. If you are curious for a deeper color dive, there is a co/re page that lists all of the colors I use or have used. This is more than just a list. It’s the database I use to manage these colors and their thumbnail images for use all throughout the site.
- New e-comm features weren’t the only thing keeping me from putting these products back out there for so long. I needed to re-work my prep, setup, and cutting process on the CNC for tissue and bath container tops. The way I used to make these was, honestly, not great. And while the 3D printer and laser cutter are almost harmless in the way they operate, the CNC is another beast entirely. It’s violent. I had some re-learning to do, lots of trial and error, but I have arrived at a nice and repeatable process that extends beyond these initial products. So I’m super excited about that.
Stay tuned for some additional notes about the previously mentioned projects, and in a much more timely manner. Remember this post is archived in its own spot on co/re here so you can reference it anytime.