The Cure for Monday is Cookies

Tweet I’m taking a break from the sewing and business coverage to talk about my other favorite activity – eating (particularly eating sweets).  It was just me and the kiddos all day yesterday, and on days like that we all tend to get a little tired of each other at about three in the afternoon.  I thought cookies would probably help.





The latest issue of Martha Stewart Living has the most ADORABLE little chick cookies on the cover.  I somehow have a chick cookie cutter (and a bunny, bonus!) so I’ve been itching to copy them.  I have only attempted royal icing-topped cookies once before yesterday and that batch was a royal mess (ha!). 





I can’t find the article from the magazine on the Martha Stewart site, but it looks like the cookie recipe is here and the icing recipe is here.  After the cookies were cool, I made one big batch of white icing, then tinted two separate bowls pink and purple with Wilton gel food coloring.  I poured both colors into plastic squeeze bottles and did my best to spread the icing evenly.





These are WAY better than my last attempt.  The cookies tasted just okay – the dough seemed really dry – so I'll probably hunt down another cookie recipe before I attempt another batch.  Also, I can’t seem to get the consistency of the icing right.  The pink icing ran off some of the cookies and the purple was so thick it made for a teeth-crackingly thick layer of icing.

Who’s got cut-out cookie tips for me?  Why do I keep messing up royal icing?  Want to share your favorite recipes?

This post contains Amazon Affiliate links.  If you click through and buy something I get a teeny tiny percentage of your purchase back, which I will promptly spend on fabric.

Weekend Links, March 12th

Tweet Read It

10 Things to Never Say to a Crafter/Artist/Indie Business Owner from Indie Pretty Projects.  This made me laugh out loud, for real.  I even had to read it to my husband.  I’ve heard some version of most of these, and I’m sure you guys have too!

2 Reasons Why Discounts are Deadly for Crafters from Hello Craft.  This is such an excellent article about the dangers of the current discount-shopper mentality being harmful to handmade businesses.  I have given a discount code here or there and this article has really made me think about if it’s a good idea.





Make It

7 Ways to Restyle a T-shirt with Cal Patch from Craft Stylish.  Who doesn’t have a few old tshirts laying around asking to be turned into something cute?  This post has some great, easy restyling ideas.

Homemade Spring Gift with Free Printable Card from Living Locurto.  I’ve never made lemon curd, but I sure have eaten my fair share.  Packaged in a sweet little jar with a a tag, this is an awesome idea for a hostess gift for a spring party.  It’s almost cookout season, right?





Be Inspired
Boy’s Room:
Sources, Projects & A Question from Centsational Girl.  This boy’s room is AMAZING!  It’s sophisticated but still totally appropriate for a boy, plus Kate gives links to must of the products and explains a lot of the smaller projects in the room.

Productivity

Tweet
My husband’s been off work since last Wednesday and isn’t going back until Monday.  While I love the man dearly, having him home has COMPLETELY thrown off my schedule!  Luckily he’s feeling better now and has returned to being Super Dad, so I’ve conquered a ton of projects that have been lurking around.




I took a short break from the to-do list to make a bunch of beanbags, which are for some unknown reason one of my favorite things to make.  I’m not sure if they’ll go up in the Etsy shop this time because shipping always ends up being kinda high since they’re heavy.  I’ll probably take a few over to the Little Green Bean Boutique and the rest will come with me to this year’s shows.





The unfinished project I gave you a sneak peak of a while back is a sweet Changing Pad Clutch that I made for a very special celebration over at Emily’s blog, DesignHer Momma.  Casey, a good friend of Emily’s, is a fellow Indy blogger who is expecting her second kiddo after a loooong wait.  Emily is throwing her one heck of a baby shower and the Changing Pad Clutch was my contribution.



What does this have to do with you, you ask?  Part of the baby shower celebration is giveaways galore!  Head on over to Emily’s blog to enter the $20 bobaloo! giveaway so you can buy yourself something pretty from my Etsy shop.  And tell Emily I said hi!

Hopefully this week I continue to destroy my need-to-sew list and build up some more inventory.  This Saturday will be fun because I get to meet my first blogging buddies IN PERSON – can’t wait to see you girls!

What are you all up to?  Being lazy, enjoying the (slightly) warmer weather, knocking out that to do list?  Motivate me to keep working!

How to Add A Tweet Button to Your Blogger Posts

Tweet After reading this post on Dear Crissy, I decided to figure out how to add a Tweet button to my posts so readers can share on Twitter quickly.  After a little googling and a lot of trial and error, I have it working!

My blog is on Blogger, so if you’re using Wordpress or any other blogging platform this probably won’t help you.  And I’m by no means an expert on html or blog customization – I mostly just try things out and cross my fingers!  Make sure before you make any changes to your template you save a backup copy to your computer.  Enough disclosures, here’s what worked for me!



First, log into twitter and click on the “resources” link, which is on the right side of your twitter home under all of the recommendations.



Click on “create tweet button”.



Choose how you want your button to look, then make sure your twitter handle is in the box in step 2.  You can add another handle to all your tweets if you’d like to – I didn’t.



Your code will show up in the text box on the bottom right, in step 3.



Now open up the design section of your blog and click the “Edit HTML” link at the top of the page, under the tabs.  Now click the “Expand Widget Templates” box.



Press Control+F, which will open up a little search box at the top of your page.  Type “<data:post.body/>” (without the quotes) into the Find: field, which should automatically bring up that line of code, highlighted, in the text box of your design page.  By the way, I found out where to post the code from this blog post.



You’ve backed up your template, right?  Okay then, go back to your Twitter page and copy the code that was generated for your button.  Paste it into the template for your blog right above the code we searched for on the last step.



Click the orange “Save Template” button.  View your blog and marvel at your new Tweet button!

For some reason pretty much all of my posts say they’ve been tweeted twice, which I know isn’t the case.  Hopefully it works itself out, maybe it’s just a syncing issue?

Try it out and let me know if it works for you!

Weekend Links, March 6th

Tweet Read It
6 Ways for Crafters to Effectively Use Twitter on Handmadeology.  I am on Twitter pretty often but I still feel like I don’t really know what to say.  My crafty buddy Martha gives some great tips in this article, including the importance of hashtags (which I never remember to use).





For Your Blog
Creating a Welcome Box for Your Blog from Positively Splendid.  You all may have noticed I have a bit of blog ADD lately - I can’t stop adding and moving things around.  This may be next on my try-it-out list.  I love how Amy both gives the html and explains what it all means.


Cook It
Leek and Goat Cheese Puff Pastry Tart from Make and Takes.  All of us are goat cheese fans, but I’m the only leek eater in our house.  I’m pretty tempted to just make this for myself in the next few days, especially since all I need is the puff pastry.  And you can never have too much puff pastry in the house.

Eat This: Best Brownie Made Even Better from Chez Beeper Bebe.  Lordy, lordy do I love brownies.  I’m probably going to make some excuse like “this would be a great activity for Bridget and I!” as a reason to whip up a batch of these.





Make It

The Bustle Skirt from Simple Simon & Company.  Oh my goodness is this cute.  I’m having some serious problems narrowing down what I’m going to make for B to wear on Easter, and this little tutorial just threw another possibility into the mix.

Crackers and Gatorade

Tweet My poor hubs had some sinus surgery yesterday so I’m taking the day off to take care of him.  I’ll be back on Saturday with some great links that, for some reason, are mostly yummy-looking food.

And don’t forget about that bobaloo! giveaway over at Just Another Day in Paradise!

One Hundreds!

Tweet Yesterday was just a crazy day.  Evidently 100 was my lucky number, ‘cause it was all over the place!




I got my 100th (and then some!) sale in my Etsy shop!






I passed 100 rss feed and Google Friend Connect subscribers to the blog!





And I have 100 (actually, it’s now 102) bobaloo! facebook fans!

Whew, I’m tired just writing it!  I have been working hard the past week on promotion and it’s obviously paying off.  The Etsy sales are probably due to renewing twice a day last week, plus I listed a bunch of new stuff Sunday and Monday.  The jump in subscribers and Facebook fans probably came from the same two sources – the (very popular) post on making a Facebook landing page, plus the Crafterminds chat about Facebook yesterday.  Plus I shamelessly begged for Facebook fan #100 just so I could make it.

It’s really, really exciting, guys.  Seriously.  It feels like some serious validation - people like what I make and like reading about it.  I try really hard not to focus on numbers and just put out the best product I can, but it’s hard to not get excited about all those triple digits.



So it’s pretty fitting that I can send you all over to a giveaway!  Head on over to Another Day in Paradise where Larissa’s giving away a sweet bobaloo! goodie for either your little man or sweet princess!

THANK YOU, all of you, for being such great supporters and making starting my own little business worthwhile!