Submitting to His Master Plan

When Firefly began 4 years ago, it was a very whimsy impulse to just do something and it became my journey. Because it roots from my journal, a lot of my life's individual experiences have always... been encircled with it. When I had my thesis, all of you knew my stress with mission graduation... when I had my travels, you all shared the same excitement when I'd post random travelogues, when I have been ill or distressed, you all have sent in your prayers, when I worked for a fashion house's publications from morning til evening, you all accommodated my weekend replies and even waited for your parcels to ship from Hong Kong.

I never really thought I could manage such a set up from another country til it was the only choice I had... You all have been a part of this larger family that I have yet to meet or be introduced to. And while you all leave me encouraging words every so often, whatever I have here to show for my endeavors is by His immense Grace and further by your support. I wanted to say Thank You.

So recently, another little phase swept over my life, and I have a strong feeling it's going to make Firefly leap into some more changes. I am a textilian.. which means my life at some point is rooted to fabrics, design, texture and other pretty things. While my heart and soul is and will remain Firefly, I have committed to a chapter for my professional career. I am back to work during the week. It is exciting for me, and is definitely something I look forward to. This means that orders here will continue to run, but will need a bit of adjustments. The inflow of requests is huge, MashaAllah, and it puts me in a stump on how I can even consider managing so many orders with a full time role at an office.

Please don't ever feel I have sidelined you, or do not find it significant to accommodate you. I am one person with just too much on one plate. I really love everything about this life we live Alhamdulillah, and my strength to continue is solely the amazing people I meet through my work. My shows for crafters shall continue, I shall continue creating keepsakes and quirky gifts, and I shall continue to inspire as well inshaAllah as long as my life permits me to.

I will revamp my order forms and order catalog, and I will finally put stocking around the city in place. Just to make things easier for all of you in the process. Nothing is constant, but change. I find it kinda magical that Firefly has always led me to where I'm supposed to be... it's kept me connected to 'home' on so many levels. And the journey seems to get better and better MashaAllah.

Thank you everyone for being the most amazing fanbase and support system anybody could hope for. You all are #love

I will update our order status on the website this evening. Lots of you will receive happy mail this coming week! And all my unread messages and emails will also be addressed tonight.

Love,
The Firefly Girl

Four Amazing Years to Celebrate!

It probably sounds a little cliché with the idea that when I began my work, I never intended it to grow this much nor did I see it being what it is now. The truth, however is... that it's a fact! Firefly was a very whimsy attempt during a spring break in my 3rd year at Indus and I don't think I've really looked back since then. My vision for Firefly has grown. It's definitely broadened, and for a fact we've achieved several milestones. All I can say is, ALHAMDULILLAH! Isn't He Awesome?!

Every Year Allah Kareem grants me a few gifts to celebrate Firefly's birthday in March.
Here's what we've done this year...

-Managed Giveaways for PepsiCo for Pakistan Idol
-Produced handmade flowers and marble magnets for Daaman's Press and Media Kits for Fashion Pakistan Week 2014
-I, the Firefly Girl was awarded with Young Entrepreneur in the Spotlight at the 6th Annual Ladiesfund Women's Awards (that, too on 1st March!)
-We're at 18,000+ fans on Facebook
-We have 500+ loves following us on Instagram



That's probably the most remarkable bit to my journey. The unknown is beautiful... and the surprises are always breathtaking. Alhamdulillah! :)

I've been a bit of headless chicken.. my attention's been all over the place.. and it's been a lot of work trying to ground myself to life and routine here. Slow and steady wins the race, no? :)

I request each of you to make dua for me, and those of you that pray for me, I appreciate it and cannot thank you enough.

The Give Away!




Without further delay, I want to celebrate 4 years of my precious Firefly. I've been writing in it often, will think about sharing some of my writings with you all :) To party it up with our confetti, I'm rolling out the Giveaway. Given it's Crafts Month, let's celebrate by gifting one lucky crafter these gorgeous gifts to help them kickstart their crafting and inspire them to create <3

 

What's Included?

-12x12 Café Mediterranean Stack by Die Cuts With a View

-Tim Holtz Ideology Trinket Pins

- K&Co Birthday embellishment stickers

- Making Memories ornate frames

- Prima Mulberry Blooms

- TPC Studios Calendar Stamp Set

- My Mind's Eye Kate & Co Stamp set

- Acrylic Block

- Fiskers flower punch

- 4 solid color washis

- 3 patterned washis

- 1 set of bottle caps (metallic)

- 1 set of hand dyed mini pegs

- Perfect Pearls

- 4 packs of Basic Grey embellishments, canvas tags, pieces, etc

- 2 packs of Journaling cards/Pocket Pages made easy (chalkboard style)

- My Mind's Eye Collectible Wooden buttons

- mini vial packed with diamond dust

- mini vial packed with shaved ice

 

These items are all valued at over Rs 10,000!

 

How do you take part?
1- Go over to the Firefly Page on facebook. (Fb.com/whimsical.firefly)

2- Visit our product archives and go through the photos. Pick out ONE Handmade project done by me that you love.

3- Share that photo and write what you love about it, and what makes it stand out for you on your Profile Page (make it public)

4- Leave a comment here on this post once you do with your Facebook Profile Link :)

5- You can share multiple projects you admire, but do write constructively in your feedback.

6- Last date to share is the 30th of this month (March)

7- Winners get announced here on the blog on the 31st! InshaAllah.

8- All participants must have a Pakistan based postal address to ship the goodies to!

WINNER SELECTED! :D

I wanted to take out a moment to say thank you to everyone that took part in this giveaway. Reading through some of these posts and shares, I could see some very genuine feedback and appreciation, and it means a lot to me to have you share those thoughts out loud.

Out of all the entries, I fed a count into random.org's generator... we have Zain  Saleem as the lucky winner of our Craft Month and Birthday give away! :D Congrats love! inbox me your postal address so I can mail out your crafty treats!

From the shares, it's quite evident everyone loves the Romance Novel mini albums I did! :D

I have compiled the entries I had visible access to. :) It is always a blessing to be able to inspire and help others grow... and encourage them to learn. Thank you everyone for giving me that opportunity :) xx

 

A Tea-riffic Gift :)

<EDIT>
Alrighty! So we've concluded our little give away and we're excited, since you know... I'm really slow about sending out gifts -_-; Hehe. So I counted 42 entries, one was without a Facebook URL. Entries I received more than once I didn't publish.

From Random.org, I managed to pull up two winners.
*DRUMROLL*

Namrah Maham & Nayyab Zehra

please email me your postal addresses along with color preference?

whimsical.firefly@gmail.com

 *green & blue vs pink and purple*

Congrats you two! Early Eid Mubarak from me! :) <3

Now for all our participants in in this Tea-riffic Gift Giveaway have the option of availing the following discounts with this design non customized! :) 

• 4x6 frame at Rs 450 (500 otherwise)
• 5x7 frame at Rs 600 (700 otherwise)
• 8x10 frame at Rs 850 (1000 otherwise)
• Luggage Tag Rs 170 (200 otherwise)
• Keychain Rs 100 (150 otherwise)
• A5, 200 page Notebook Rs 450 (500 otherwise)
• ATM sized Magnet Rs 200 (250 otherwise)

These orders must be placed and paid for between August 1st and August 12th to avail discounts. They will be processed after Eid holiday. Courier charges apply.

-1st August, 2013

</EDIT>

Freebie Alert! Giveaway in process!

Hoping the Ramadan vibes are keeping you all fresh and energized. :) Knowing most of you can't get through the day without it, I thought I'd do a little freebie session. Last time it didn't happen 'cause my blog settings went bonkers. :/
Anyhow!

Are you fond of chai? or do you have a thing for all things caffeine in the form of little cups? Have a drinking buddy for these tea sessions? GREAT! Enter now, for a chance to win one of two gifts!

We are giving away one 5x7 plaque and 1 A5 notebook on the Tere Bina bhi kya jeena design for our chai addicts! :)

How to take part?
1- Share our Tea-riffic Giveaway blogpost on your Facebook Profile. (make sure it's public)
2- Tag two of your tea partners in the shared post! :)
3- Comment on this blog post with a link to your Facebook Profile and let us know which one of these you like more, the notebook or the frame!

Your shared link should look like this on your profile :)

I will be going through all the 'public shares' on this post through your comments on this blog entry on the 31st of July to select two random chai addicts to gift these to.

Again, don't forget to leave a message on this blog entry in the comments below to let me know which you like more, the frame or the notebook :)

This is only open to our fans and friends in Pakistan.

Celebratory Goodie Bag *throws confetti*

I realized that I have gotten so dreadfully slow about sending my 'hand crafted give away gifts out'. I feel super sad about it. In the mess of things I get myself tangled in.. ie online classes, international exhibits, new products, and how can I forget retailing craft supplies and fulfilling orders. I never intended things to be so delayed from my end.

As of now I owe Rabbiya Anwar two gifts and Iqra needs to receive hers, too. So this time I decided I won't commit to making something, in the fear that it'll take me another year to churn it out. *hides face* INSTEAD.. I'm celebrating by sending crafty gifts! :) Those ought to be fun, don't you think? :)

So read up fellows, because this is going to ohmg awesome :D InshaAllah!

Since we crossed 12,000 fans on our facebook page and the Firefly Girl has a birthday comin up... I want to celebrate with you all by sending out some crafty love. *yeay* I really adore my fans and crafty friends for being my biggest form of motivation. MashaAllah. Firefly is totally what it is because I have support from all of you :) I wanted to thank you all for being the blessing that makes me appreciate my life everyday and makes me thank Him every day for what I do :) Alhamdulillah!

Get on with the deets... how do we take part and celebrate?

1. Click 'follow' as part of the 'follow this blog' bit on the bottom right of the navigation. So that means you get a notification on your google account every time I post a new blog entry :)

2. In case you don't already, click 'Like' on our facebook page and actively participate in giving feedback or your remarks on our products, updates and other fun things. *stay engaged folks*

3. Invite 5 of your best friends to like our Facebook page :) Make sure they click Like.

4. Follow me, the Firefly Girl on Instagram for fun Firefly photos on the run. Look up Firefly_Girl23 You get  bonus point if you upload an instagram photo featuring a Firefly purchase you made with the tag 'whimsical_firefly'

5. I pick a randomly selected person for an entire parcel packed with CRAFTING goodies.. ranging from embellishments, paper, flowers, stamps and ink! (you guys know I make awesome gift packs with crafting gear!)

6. I pick two more random folk and send each one a pack of 6x6 paper AND a pack of embellishments.

7. You can keep spreading the love til the 15th of June :) ( I will select a random fan via random.org on the 19th ) inshaAllah.

8. Once you have fulfilled steps 1-4 comment on this blog post with the following:

• Your Name, The name of 5 of your friends. And Your instagram ID.

This is open to our fans across the globe. :) items will be shipped out with much love via snail mail to our fans from Hong Kong!

Types of Firefly Customers

Our customers, and our fans keep us going. This is for a little bit of humor and honesty, no offense intended. Which one are you? ♥

The type of Customers we come across...

_ URGENT! You have a dire need to request an urgent order from Firefly, but when you find out it cannot be done, your date required actually finds leverage, the flight gets delayed, or the event gets postponed. (Thank you for 

giving our work this importance you guys :D)

_ You don't like writing emails, and you need our phone number to discuss your order (BUT, we manage to sort out your order and deliver it as you like minus the phone call)

_ You place an order with specific requirements and for some reason or another your luck has your order delayed, you wish to withdraw your order, not just once, but thrice... you don't though! And when your order finally reaches your hands, you're in bliss and cannot stop smiling because Alhamdulillah! it's awesomeeee!

_ You have placed an order giving a us a 3 month window, BUT you'd like to know updates on it every 2 days... Your right to! It's for the biggest occasion in your life :)

_ You LOVE shopping with us during our specials. Everyone is on a budget, and we respect that, saving even Rs 10 adds up when you make lengthy purchases. So whether it's 20% off, 40% off, buy 2 get the 3rd free, We're happy we can cater to that for you through our promotions and special discounts :)

_ You've had a request awesome enough to launch it's one product category/album (Photobooks, Luggage tags, Photo Panels)

_ You've never ordered from us, but we chit chat on and off about how you're doing, what uni life is like or how you wish to accomplish so much one day. ♥ best feeling ever!

Thank you for giving us constant projects to work on, new genres to cater to and of course, letting us know what our potential really is. Celebrating 100's of smiles every day! The forecast is whimsical with a chance of rainbows! :) ♥

Scavenger hunt Entries

Our entries for the Scavenger Hunt so far :)

Shama Iftikhar

Rida Usmani

Areeba Behzad Khan

Ghunwa Memon

Manaal Memon

Rooman Abrar

Amna Memon

Fyxa Adeel

Sonya Khushi

Marium Khalid

Ameera Abassi

Noveen Siddiqi

Hashim Javaid

Anushay Khan

Umtus Sanna

Muhammad

Shehroze Sultan

Riffat Alam

Aatira Mushtaq

Mahnoor Munaf

Mariya Azam

Sahar Siddiqi

Alina Imtiaz

Funk Punk's Owner

Fakhra Yusuf

Rija Bakhtiar

Mirror Owner

Aliya Aliyaa

Fatima Yusuf

Xnb Haji

Hafsa Awais

Mariam Zehra

Maham Faisal

Sumaiya Yahya

Muneeb Brohi

Sana Hayat

Xahra Iqbal

Asma Khurram

Koi Nahi

Shiffa Delawer C-dra Azher Dia Zehra Nayab Zehra Sara Asif Mahnoor Naveed Mashal Hassan Hina Rizwan Yusra Muridudin Rizvi Studioc Upcake Mahnoor Malik Iqra Nasir Hiba Isshh Huda Farooqui Batool Memon Fouzia Iftikhar Syeda Tameem Syed Zarnish Zubair Ahmed  Kiran Afzal Najia Kazmi Kanza Hasan Anoshae Kamran Zahra Kamran Rabia Saad Fozia Shuja Hira Khan Rafia Amr Shahnawaz Alinawaz

Scavenger Hunt! :)

If you've been with Firefly from the start, you may have noticed our generous nature in doing 'specials' and sales... as well as doing give aways. I hadn't done my Awesome Customer Give Away for a while, we had a really big one in March for our 2nd Birthday... and now that I'm back for a bit, I wanted to do a little celebratory one. I thought I'd make it a little challenging, rather than the usual tag our page and like us on Facebook to be entered. While I understand these are all tactics and means to acquire more fans and create a hype about your brand or page... I don't quite get the point of it.. as in the +fans when not all of them order or interact on the page. Do I make sense?

I put up the Scavenger Hunt today, and it really does look like everyone's having fun. I know some who would most definitely share the photo number, so to keep it interesting and challenging, I will be changing the photo every now and then. Hehe. :)

It's fun because there are approximately 500 photos. :D 300+ just in the Chipboard Minis category. 

I see it this way, though this is a contest, even by default, everyone's just going to have to look through all my hand crafted work *wink*

Good Luck yall! :D

2k and going!

MashaALLAH, we made the 2000. :) Allah Kareem is Supreme! He is AWESOME :D Not because of the number, but because all these people I keep meeting have turned out to be individuals with whom I've quite a bit in common! Alhamdulillah!


So to celebrate, I had posted that the 20th person would get a 5 pocket tag-album... a disaster this has been. I've decided, I will give out random gifts or not announce such things because I've come across people who've gone and dwelled into petty issues. If I see your comment is the 19th, or another person's the 20th, that IS what I will go by. Emailing me about 'previous' experiences... which I honestly have let gone of is really strange. I felt really hurt to receive such an email this morning. With comments such as
"cuz of the previous things that took place btw us! mujhey tumhare competition main part lena hi nai chahiye tha".  Frankly, I don't even recall what happened to the 'previous' things... it was mis-communication. And I believe I did pretty well letting it go! What was the point of bringing this up NOW?


This never even crossed my mind! And I would be fair over what's right... I do NOT hold things against people... well.. spammers yes. They get banned.:/ But this was just sad for me. I was gifting the tagbook to celebrate. Not sit there to read such things... OR have people count the comment number they have JUST to win it... Jeez. Firefly is about genuine sentiments, I will not be holding such give-aways anymore. Or not like this anyway.


Anyhow. This aside, I'd still like to congratulate Rida Rohail... she's the 20th PERSON to comment :) So Rida gets to pick out the theme to a 5 pocket tagbook... the metal wordings don't count, as well... they're slightly out there. ;)


I am holding a special for tagbooks til August 15th. :) This means the 5 pocket which is for 900, is down to 800. And the 1200 pocket page is down to 1000. Metal wording tag albums remain 1200 and 1500.


I have some fun chipboad albums I'll be playing around with inshaALLAH. Limited pieces, but that's what makes everything awesome. :D lots of new goodies to embellish with and nifty new tools to make work awesome. Alhamdulillah. :) Today is work day. So getting started on all those tagbooks I had booked while away. :) 


I did an inventory yesterday at about 4 am of all the patterned paper I have. SubhanAllah, I have over 500 patterns and designs. hehe... Planning to utilize them to the fullest now that they're all organized. :) New paper stacks to craft with, too!


Did I mention? the Scrapper Session Kits include goodies by EK Success (K&Company), Scrappy Cat, as well as American Crafts. I use the above products in all my scrapbooking and crafting projects! Love em to bits :) Other faves, although I was unable to sneak into the kits, are the Paper Studio and DCWV. Their stuff is out of this world. REALLY. Their paper especially. Love Paper Studio's ribbons and embellishments. Die Cuts With a View have paper stacks that are beautiful. And the range is so extensive! Paper Studio's slightly less heavy on the pocket in comparison to DCWV... but there are smart ways to shop for em. ;) Those who've enrolled themselves in the Scrapper Sessions will learn all about it. :D