With a heavy heart, I will not be renewing any physical shipping of my art, and I'm closing my shop here. Why? You might have heard of terms like EPR or PPWR. They represent new EU packaging laws that sound eco-friendly on paper, but in reality, they completely crush small businesses, crafters, and artists.
Under these rules, if I ship even one wrapped painting to an EU country, I must register with their local government and pay fixed annual recycling fees. For a small business sending only a few packages abroad per year, this is financially and administratively impossible—the compliance fees would completely wipe out any profit.
Sadly, the European "free market" no longer works for small creators.
With this said - I am going full digital. I will continue to make art because it makes me happy and because it makes people happy. I am opening a symbolic $1/m appreciation Art Club for people to help me keep creating. If someone wants to give more, they can. If someone would like a digital copy of a custom portrait, they can tip me extra.
Being an artist is a beautiful thing that however comes with these kinds of conflicts all the time, just like when the US introduced tariffs and Czech postal services canceled shipping to the US altogether, and now this one in EU is another massive hit.
So, thank you for understanding and know that I appreciate all and any support.
Off to paint more requests from TikTok and Instagram comments!
With warm summer greetings,
Kate
