Jul 29th, 2008 Posted in Business Topics | no comment »
I am excited to share that after getting them out into the public last month I have already received a great response to my Made Of Money jewelry pieces. It seems you all are just as excited about them as I am! Aside from selling quite a few of them already, I have received tons of compliments, and customers have often asked about the possibility of me creating these pieces with coins they have had for a long time without having much use for them but special to their history. I am please to say that I am more than happy to make something with coins you provide! I love making custom orders because every single time I design and create something I hope it’s something special to the person that ends up wearing it, instead of something disposable and meaningless. When making a custom order I know for a fact that the piece will be very special to the recipient, which makes me love what I do all the more.
After happily receiving such a great response already I went ahead and sorted my big stash of coins from around the world so I can have a better idea of the variety I will be able to offer as I make them. At my disposal at this time I have Italian lire, Spanish pesetas, Portugese escudos, French centimes and francs, Belgian francs, German pfennigs, British pence, and Japanese Yen. But now that I have a purpose for these I am hoping to actually grow the variety of coins I own. Ebay here I come!
So after the sorting I went ahead and got a batch of the coins ready for production. I just finished a total of 10 necklaces and 10 earrings which I will be bringing along to my shows and a few of them will appear in the Etsy shop before the end of the week!
Tags: Custom work, Designing, Gift idea, New Products, Product Development
Jul 28th, 2008 Posted in Business Topics | no comment »
As you can tell I am sure I will use any excuse to use potatoes in my meals. I think that so far this year I have cooked more with potatoes that I have in the past 12+ years that I have lived here in the US of A. At the farmer’s market new potatoes have been popping up allover the place and they are so delicious, I’ve been bringing home pounds of them and substituting them for the regular potatoes recipes have been calling for. So that’s what I did with this recipe, instead of fingerling potatoes I just used red and yellow (or white?) new potatoes. I also didn’t use any wax beans, which the recipe does call for, but I failed to find any at the market. I don’t know if it would have changed the flavor of this salad much as I have actully never eaten wax beans. It sure would have made the salad more colorful! This salad paired up with a grilled cheese burger topped with bacon, which I had conveniently fried some extras of while preparing some to put in the salad, this was a great summer meal sure to be repeated.
Tags: Food etc, Recipes
Jul 26th, 2008 Posted in Business Topics | one comment »
This is a little something of a pattern for me; I know paperwork and filing and organizing is to be done, and I don’t do it, and then I don’t do it some more, and then I do it too late. And then when I finally buckle down and do it I realize I actually do enjoy doing it.
Then why do I keep procrastinating on these tasks so much? I really don’t get it. Maybe it’s because it’s the farthest thing from being creative connected to running my business? Or maybe it’s because I secretly don’t want to know how much I spent on supplies, show applications, or advertising? Or maybe I don’t like to see that I didn’t make as much as I would have liked to that month? Or maybe it’s because I wish I could afford to hire an office person who could to these things for me instead? Whatever the reason, I need to get over it and keep reminding myself that I really actually enjoy doing these tasks, just so long as I do them in a timely fashion and keep them from piling up too high.
What’s one of your procrastination issues? Come on, make me feel less alone in this!
Tags: Growing Pains
Jul 25th, 2008 Posted in Business Topics | no comment »
With corns and squashes abundant at the farmer’s market I thought a squash and corn soup would be appropriate. As I was preparing the dinner I nibbled on the leftovers of the delicious beet salad I made the day before ofcourse.
This soup was okay. The recipe goes a step further than I took it- it makes you strain the soup after tossing it in the blender to take any solids out, but I like my soup with a little more fiber in it so I skipped that bit. I think I would have also preferred to cook it with a little more salt in it, but that’s nothing a little maggi (the seasoning trick of my youth) can’t fix! I am not sure if I will make this soup again. I wasn’t bad, just a little to bland for my taste me thinks.
Tags: Food etc, Recipes
Jul 24th, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | one comment »
One of the things that I absolutely love about selling at the Moore Square Farmer’s Market this summer is that it kind of reminds me of how things would have gone back when markets was where people did all their shopping. Before malls, internet, big businesses, cars, and consumer reports. Back in the days when if you needed a pint of salt you’d go to the market and find it there, and if you were lucky the salt salesman was in need of some of the pottery you create so instead of just paying for the salt you trade a pint for four clay dishes!
The simplicity of the farmer’s market is great, and the bond you slowly grow with the vendors around you is so sweet. There’s the organic cupcake lady who slips us a slightly smushed cupcake, or a half dozen (!) every now and then when it’s the end of the day and the unsold sweets are deemed for the trashcan otherwise. And as if that’s not good enough she’ll also cook a great big pot of chili and corn muffins to share with all the vendors from the giant crate of tomatoes a farmer gave her at the end of the market the previous week and refused to take any money from her. Then there’s the nursery vendor who was more than tickled to trade jewelry for a lovely assortment of lavender, oregano, lemon verbena, and rosemary plants. And let’s not forget about the gruff flower vendors who swing by during clean up every now and then to surprise all with great little bouquets of zinnias.
Next week cupcake lady (yes she does have name, but some things I like to keep to myself) is making mango salsa to share. Some day I hope to marry her.
Tags: Little Things, Shows
Jul 23rd, 2008 Posted in Business Topics | 3 comments »
So I finally cooked with beets! I love them so, but my husband does not and so I have avoided cooking with them for a long time. But now that I am making such a big attempt to cook with local and seasonal veggies, as soon as I saw the beets appearing on the farmer’s market stands I just had to go for it. I loved the beet salad, the recipe used golden beets, but I couldn’t find any and used red instead. I also didn’t have pine nuts so make it without, which was fine. The potato salad was leftovers from the previous meal, and then I also grilled some brats along with some zucchini and red bell pepper that I had just put some olive oil, salt and vinegar on before tossing them on the grill. Bratwursts are one of those things that I could eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the rest of my life and be perfectly happy. So this was a well enjoyed meal full of favorite components for me. Greg ate the beets too. It took some convincing, and he never ended up telling me if he did like them or not. To me that sais keep trying! I’ve finally got the man drinking coffee after 10 years, maybe beets need to be the next hurdle.
As you can see I had to really restrain myself to keep from licking the plate when I was done. (Also isn’t the beet juice just so pretty on the teal plate!)
Tags: Food etc, Recipes
Jul 10th, 2008 Posted in Business Topics | no comment »
I’ve been considering this for a little while now, and decided to go for it as I am sure that with all those crazy gas prices and groceries, utilities and who know what else getting more expensive, it may help some here and there if you can buy a little something Lucky Accessories and not have to also pay shipping on it. Well, at the Lucky Accessories Etsy shop you can! The free shipping applies to US and Canada. For international shipment I can not offer the same deal (remember, I too have expensive gas to buy) BUT I do offer only $3 flat rate shipping for international orders. And that ain’t bad!
All Etsyshop purchases ship first class mail, unless you want to pay for priority mail.
Tags: Available Online, Etsy stuffs, Savings
Jul 10th, 2008 Posted in Business Topics | no comment »
I don’t think I have mentioned yet here that I’ve been adding lots of peapod necklaces and earrings to the Etsy shop in quite a few different colors. Go check ‘em out if you want. I have started to also make some of the earrings with more than one pearl in a wrap so they also look more like peapods. Look for many more of those in even more fun colors in the future.
Tags: Available Online, Etsy stuffs, Gift idea, New Products
Jul 8th, 2008 Posted in Business Topics | one comment »
I have been back into the swing of things planning meals, grocery shopping and cooking lots while sticking to the planned meals (I can get really burnt out for a long time from home cooking) and I’ve been able to stick to a good bit of only getting my produce at the farmer’s market. I can tell such a big difference not only in the flavor of those bought locally, but they also keep so much longer before being eaten/cooked with! Who knows how long a potato sits and ships before I add it to my shopping cart in the grocery store. It must be a while because the minute the thing makes it into my kitchen it starts sprouting. But farmers market potatoes I bought two weeks ago are still waiting patiently, not eager to grow green limbs yet.
Sunday I made a fingerling potato salad and some chicken just I cut up into strips and marinated in some store-bought mesquite marinade, then skewered and grilled for about 5 minutes on each side. It was delicious BUT really I couldn’t wait for desert.
As peaches are what you get pummeled with the minute your toe reaches the farmers market floor, I had to get a good bunch of them. I used most of them making this heavenly and easy peach cobbler.
And while it was still hot from the oven I ate it with vanilla icecream. Eating something baked with ice cream is my favorite desert bar-non. I only just found out this is called ‘ala mode’, so if you are ever itching to appease me with some sort of desert (I know you are) just know that anything ala mode paves the way into my heart. Just FYI
Tags: Food etc, Recipes
Jul 7th, 2008 Posted in Uncategorized | one comment »
Tags: Lists, Other Topics, To Do
