Shop Updates

Moving & Downsizing in 2025

As the title suggests, we're moving the studio back into my home! This may impact order processing times as well as restocking times. I apologize for the inconvenience!

This is the result of a few things. I explain it in this video on my YT channel, but basically last year we had the first negative profit in the business's life. Which wasn't so bad, and was due to a variety of factors, most of which of course, were out of my control. This plus my sister's own business started taking off! She wanted to devote more time to her business. Cantrips returned to a one-woman show at the start of the new year. This was honestly perfect timing. Plus we had both known that as soon as her business took off, she would be parting from Cantrips Media. 

Less perfect timing, however, was the rent increase at the studio, as well as a large water leak from ice damming on the roof. Luckily none of my products took a hit. While I have insurance that covers water damage, I have decided that I would prefer not to take a chance in the building. Since I need to move out by the end of my contract in April, I decided to start the move now. While there's no more water in my office, the office rooms next to mine have STILL been leaking for the last week. 

I thank you as always for your patience. And for continuing to support my small business. I'll link the video below if you would like more details.

Happy Adventuring,
Kylie

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Shipping Deadlines for Christmas 2023 🎄

To ensure your gift makes it in time we recommend placing your ORDER by Dec 14th, for Ground Advantage (formerly First Class) shipping and by Dec 19th for Priority Mail.

This allows us enough time to pack and ship your orders. Once the package is in the hands of USPS we unfortunately have NO CONTROL over what happens. Therefore we cannot guarantee that your order will arrive on time.

WE CAN say that we try our best to ensure every order is processed quickly. We HIGHLY recommend that you order ASAP, because we have a hard time keeping up stock during this time of year since we punch and package everything ourselves. (We've already sold out of DM notebooks TWICE. Though it was only for a few hours each time.)

Thank you so much for all the business this year and we appreciate that some of you have been trying to encourage others to shop with us as well. We are both so grateful!

Happy Adventuring,
-Ky & Aut

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Transitioning to Chipboard Backcovers!

Updated 10/1/2023

We're transitioning to chipboard back covers! This means that we are phasing out the plastic back covers and the colored/printed back covers of some of our notebooks. This tranisition will take some time though as we still have a lot of the back covers for our class-based notebooks. But any new products (like our Pathfinder line and our Vampire the Masquerade notebook) will have only one plastic cover for the front to protect the artwork and a chipboard cover in the back to add firmness. 

The Why:

▪️ 🧳Helps Our Journals Travel Better.
This is because it adds a little bit of firmness to our notebooks. We've gotten quite a few reviewers who wished the notebook was a little more sturdy when tossing it into their bag and we have found this to help. 

▪️ 💰It's cheaper than a printed colored back page.
We've recently switched to having another small business print the covers of our notebooks. The foiling process was absolute hell, to put it mildly. So now CatPrint does all our cover printing. It's more expensive to have them print a colord back to go along with our notebooks, and it honestly feels like a waste of ink to just fill a sheet with the same color as the cover. Plus you won't need a plastic cover to protect the back page which also says us a little in materials. 

▪️ 📚You can switch out your front cover more easily.
The chip board back will matach any of our front cover designs. 

You can always purchase more plastic covers. To get another plastic cover go here.

If you did not get a chipboard cover yet, and would like one, you can also purchase that. Get a chipboard cover here.

As always, Please reach out via our contact form here if you have any questions or concerns.

Happy Adventuring,
Kylie

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International Shipping is BACK!

Updated 9/15/23

We're resuming international shipping through our Etsy shop! With our new packaging, we're hoping that packages will arrive in better condition than our experiences in the past. This means that journals will ship unassembled. 

Here are some other important details:

▪️ 🌐International shipping is only available through Etsy.
This is because Etsy handles all the tax related stuff for each country so we don't have to. As a small business this saves me the headache.

▪️ 📦Tracking gets weird...
When shipping internationally through Etsy, tracking is through USPS, however, once USPS hands the package over to your country's postal service tracking WILL STOP. This is because USPS does not have access to the tracking system in your country. But don't worry! Your package will still arrive. It usually takes about a week or two for it to get through customs and to your door once the tracking stops.

▪️ ⏳It will take a while.
Even if you order expediated shipping, your order will take a while to arrive. We recommend that you order way in advance if you need it by a certain date. Orders can typically take 2-4 weeks but in the past we have seen it take longer if issues arise. Please give it some time before reaching out to us.

▪️ 📫 Free shipping is only for US domestic orders over $60.
Unfortunately shipping costs are too expensive for us to offer a free shipping guarantee for international orders and we don't see this changing anytime in the near future.

To place an international order please go here.

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We're shipping our notebooks unassembled. Here's why.

Lots of shop updates are coming but this one is the biggest. We are now shipping notebooks in an unassembled state. This is mostly due to the discs. When assembled and shipped the discs often mess up the foiling on covers, crack the plastic coverings, and so many other issues. These issues happened especially when shipping long distances, which made us stop shipping internationally.

We ended up spending a lot on shipping out replacements and eating the ever climbing shipping costs too. We hope that this change will reduce those costs and let us try shipping internationally again! (Plus they pack up easier and look more official too.)

What this means for the shop:

- We're currently working on updating all the listings and photos to reflect the packaging change, but there's a lot of listings. Please be paitent with us as we make those updates.

- We will be resuming internationally shipping in a couple of weeks. International shipping will only be via our ETSY STORE due to the ease of having Etsy handle international taxes. We will send both an email announcement and an instagram announcement when the change is official!

- We've updated our foil covers too, so be on the look out for an upcoming email about our old versions going on sale!

As always, Please reach out via our contact form here if you have any questions or concerns.

Happy Adventuring,

Kylie

WATCH THIS 2-MIN TUTORIAL ON HOW TO ASSEMBLE YOUR NOTEBOOK

---OTHER UPDATES---

New Paper Changes

(Updated From Oct 2022)

Over the course fo the next few months, we will be tranisitioning to a new type of paper. Currently this mainly effects DM sized journals and page packs, but will slowly affect Player's notebooks too. 

Essentially, we've hired a local printing company to print and cut our pages for us. Don't worry we'll still be doing everything else (covers, punching and assembly), but this allows us more time to design new things for the shop! It's very hard to match commercial paper and consumer paper types, but in the end we found a paper type that we actually like more. (Also this saves us printer and paper cutting headaches.)

What this means for you:

• If you purchased a notebook prior to 2022, your paper type will be slightly glossier and whtier than the new paper. 
• The new paper should fit your notebook BETTER than before (no more slightly off cuts from our hand paper trimmer).
• We've found that unless you are comparing them side by side, the differeneces are not major, but we know that this can bother some. We apologize for the inconvenience.

We predict all paper to be fully transitioned by early 2023. 

If you have questions, or concerns, please email us directly at contact@cantripsmedia.com!