Blessings of Autumn to You!

 Here we are at the end of October and I just ordered some last minute candy for the little munchkins that will be heading here on Friday. Other than that, I don't celebrate Halloween anymore as the secular occasion that it is. I leave my festive lights and celebratory decor for the real holiday on December 25th. Though, I do love to see the little ones in their costumes. That doesn't mean that I don't celebrate all Hallows Eve though. I do, with a Mass and extra prayers, as well as All Saints Day which is November 1st and a holy day of obligation in the Catholic Church. Every soul that is in heaven is celebrated on that day, and I mean ALL, and I believe I know many that have attained that glorious place with God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit and all those that have gone before us. What a glorious day to remember them all. All Souls Day, which is November 2nd, is another day of prayer and remembrance. Don't forget to celebrate both of those days and all those that we know and love that are no longer with us.

I have been having many health problems lately and have been putting the ebay store on vacation mode.  (The website is always open for business, but has mostly sterling products available.) Even though the store is on vacation mode, we usually leave it so that you can still purchase items. Thank God, Tom has been filling my shoes and taking care of the orders for me, as well as the other administrative things that go along with running a business. The reason why we put it on vacation mode is because ebay has strict guidelines that we must stick to, like our handling and shipping time, and the time away mode gives us a bit of breathing room. Items still ship, just a little slower and emails may not be answered right away, but it still works well and we haven't gotten any complaints about it. I would love to say that it won't happen again, but that's just not how life works, so I expect we will continue to do that until at least the end of the year.

We have an amazing collection that is being added to the ebay store and that is Art Deco framing! All of them have 8" x 10" pictures with 11 1/4" x 13 1/4" art deco frames. They are all gorgeous pictures and are made in Italy. Prices currently starting at $65.99 with free shipping! Here's one of our beautiful Sacred Heart of Jesus prints.

 

You can find all our pictures, plaques and icons at our ebay store at: https://www.ebay.com/str/gloryglorygifts/Pictures-Icons/_i.html?store_cat=50747474013. 

Just a reminder, we have many forms of payment available at our ebay store, now including Venmo!! Start your holiday shopping now and give faith based gifts this year.

Have an incredible day, in the Lord and a fabulous Autumn!

Peace,

Mare

Is It 17 Years Already?

I can't believe we are (I am) still here and working with Glory Glory Gifts. This year, marks our 17th year in business. If someone had told me, way back in 2008, that I would still be doing this I would never have believed them. In fact, I remember being at a barbecue back in the early Summer of 2008 and mentioning that I was going to be selling holy land products and people actually laughed in my face. They thought it was a joke. We (me with Tom's help) started very small. I wasn't quite sure how I was supposed to do this, but it slowly evolved from a flea market/fair business to where we are today. The website was started in 2010, while I was convalescing, and had about 300 olive wood crosses & statues, crystal, hematite and scented rosaries, nativities, ornaments, incense, icons, incense burners, ceramic pieces and jewelry available. After working hard to create the website, and upload all those products on there, as well as payment buttons from Paypal, a friend actually said to me that's it? That's all you got? 😃 (I seriously needed to find more supportive friends.) I'm sure that same friend would say the same if she saw today's version of the website, which has only a little over a thousand products. But, my business model today is the same one that I was given back in 2008 and that is to, "bring prayer to those that no longer come to My Father's house." The products are a nice way to subsidize it and are my means to an end. It is solely by the grace and goodness of God that I'm still able to do this, and have done it, through many health and family crises. 

In November of last year, I faced an incredible setback when someone created a fake instagram account, stole my identity of the facebook business page, and then posted erotic and disturbing posts. Meta took down every single thing I ever did on Facebook, including my personal page, biz page and marketplace listings. There was nothing of me, or Glory Glory Gifts left on there.  I ceased to exist on there, after 15 years of hard work and dedication to my thousand followers. It was a tough decision, but, in February I decided to just create a new page on there for myself. Last month, I created the Glory Glory Gifts Prayer Page. I actually prayed for direction and that is exactly what I got, direction. Alleluia! So the new page was born. 

Also last year, our house was completely gutted and the interior rebuilt because of issues. All products were removed from the website and the ebay store was open only a few days over a 7-month period. Literally half of our products were removed from it as well, so our sales were erratic and 1/8 of prior years. Sigh. The very good news is that both sites are once again up and operating and we are all settled into our newly refurbished home space. Products are being added almost daily to our ebay store, we are restocking out of stock items and bringing in new collections! 

The moral of the story? Keep going! If God has given you a mission to accomplish, well then do it through all of the obstacles that you come across. If God brought you to it, He will bring you through it. (Which reminds me, I got a new St. Benedict medal hanging from my neck.) (Look! Squirrel!) 

 This week, we will be replenishing many of our popular items, like our auto statuettes, mini-prayer books and our very popular Blessed Trinity Book of Catholic prayers. They should be in by Friday. 

Moving onward and upward with great enthusiasm, I'm introducing some new products that we are getting in May. How AMAZING are these?  Prices start at $43.99 USD.

 

We also have two new collections of framed art available right now at the ebay store, with gold and silver leaf frames that are 3.5" x 4.5", made in Italy. Currently $24.99 with free shipping.

Beautiful!! Aren't they? You can find all of these products at the Ebay store. We look forward to working with you. https://www.ebay.com/str/gloryglorygifts.

Have a blessed day in the Lord.

Mare