It's been a hell of a rollercoaster the past 6 or so years - we opened a retail shop at the height of pandemic lockdown, I became too disabled to run it, and we closed it on up.
I've been dividing my energy between filling orders and staying alive since then, and last September I finally had a hysterectomy for adenomyosis. Y'all they told me I would bounce back in two weeks - that was a lie! It took me until April to really bounce back, because I was also recovering from so much time bedridden.
One day I just woke up feeling great and I've (largely) been feeling great since.
And that means my brain is working better than ever, and I have energy for new designs, and actually strategizing for the future of Restrained Grace. I realized we had a lot of stuff in the shop that better suited our retail store that didn't exist anymore. I had a chat with Miss Tara, and we agreed we're both way more into one-offs and small batches of ready made pieces. And that's where things get exciting.
We've decided to niche down back to kink - we're still making LGBTQIA+ and Polyamory jewelry, and all kinds of witchy things, and our activism collection is larger than ever - it's just all in our vanilla shop now: Color & Camp.
Over here we're keeping it kinky. Bondage gear, day collars, implements, collar storage, kinky jewelry & gifts for Doms, subs, and switches alike.
We've expanded to velvet chokers for a more affordable day collar option, and they work beautifully with our collar tags. We've even designed a small collection of off-the-rack collar tags to match each color of velvet choker - tres chic!
In the future you can expect to find limited edition drops like we used to have: things like custom sippy cups, stuffies wrapped in tiny leather harnesses, and hell, even harnesses for humans. We'll also be loading up the shop with stunning off-the-rack leather gear so you can add more unique RG pieces to your collection.
Do you know how much more creative freedom we have when we don't have to plan to make a hundred of something? We can get so much more funky and have so much more fun. You'll see.
We're excited to share our new ideas with you and even more excited to feel well enough to execute them.
Our last big update is this: our custom leather production time is now 3-4 weeks, and everything else custom is 1-2 weeks.
In the past few years the two of us have really struggled with getting custom orders out in our stated production time as we balanced new babies and new disabilities with the work we love. We're committing now to making sure our production time is accurate and that we'll contact you if anything holds up your order for any reason.
Survival mode is over, we're bouncing back from the upheaval of the last few years, and we're ready to be really incredible at every facet of what we do.
Thanks for bearing with us! It's because of you we're still around as we approach our 10 year anniversary in September. (Stay tuned for one hell of a celebration!)
All my love,
Miss Annie
