Cajun Corner – Vol.
4, No. 9 – March 10, 2012
Bon
Jour! Welcome to Cajun
Stitchery’s weekly email and welcome to our family.
ΘΘΘΘΘ
Don’t
forget to visit www.cajunstitchery.etsy.com
often. We are also on Twitter and
Facebook.
Visit
our on-line catalogs at:
Oh, what a week this has been! I don’t even know where to start. Most people start at the beginning. I will start at the end. Mama used to tell me that I always do things
backwards because I’m left handed. Who
knows!
The weather is so beautiful right now that I just
want to garden. A week or so ago there
was an article on Pinterest that said when you cook with an onion, save the
root end that you would normally toss and plant it. According to the article the onion will begin
to grow and voila, free plants and free onions.
There is logic in this. The root
ends of about 4 onion bulbs were planted in the garden and today they are
growing. If they produce more bulbing
onions that would be wonderful since bulbing onions have not been successful in
our garden in the past. You know what
this means. The root ends of all root vegetables
are now going to be replanted.
Another Pinterest article said that rather than
cutting up a potato and planting the eyes, plant the whole potato. By planting the whole potato you safeguard
against some diseases and insects that go for the fleshy part. There is half a sack of potatoes on the
counter that will be planted for this experiment.
Last year our tomato plants just kept supplying
tomatoes. They were all small
tomatoes. None of the tomatoes were
larger than maybe golf ball size. They
were tomatoes nevertheless and they were delicious. After a particularly cold few days in
January, the tomato plants were finished and placed in the compost. One little tomato plant was unintentionally
left in a pot on the side of the house.
Guess what has started blooming?
That little tomato that could has blossoms.
Our business consultant from the Small Business
Development Center
The annual Arts & Wine Craft Fair on the
beach will probably always be on our annual agenda because of our connections
with Pensacola Beach
The Cajun Stitchery Etsy Store will stay. That store has many purposes, not the least
of which is an outlet for craft urges.
It also serves as an experimental store to see if people like different
colors and different items, and so forth.
Of course, if I make it, it is made in the USA
and this is a good place to sell the Made in the USA
This week Shelby Johnson also visited for a
one-on-one meeting to get to know each other and each other’s business. Shelby Shelby Shelby Shelby Shelby
Our new Amaya commercial embroidery machine arrived
late Monday afternoon. Our SWF machine
was moved into the living room and the Amaya is now situated in the
studio. The SWF is a 1201C. The C stands for compact. The machine always seemed very large but now
that the standard sized Amaya is here, the SWF does look compact.
Our friend from Orlando ,
actually she lives in Geneva Florida
The Amaya came with some very special computer
programs. The program that I had been
using to digitize was not a bad program.
It was just the low end of the spectrum and I was teaching myself how to
digitize with it. Usually home
embroiderers use the Embird program. The new program, Design Shop, is the
professional, high end of the spectrum, program and can do some pretty amazing
things. The big bonus for the program is
that it is so user friendly. Now I need
to learn the program. While she was
here, my tech showed me how to change the fill of a design into a name or
whatever you want. I would post pictures
of the items that we did but they are presents and should not be shared before
giving.
Before the Amaya got here, however, we
embroidered a shirt for a new customer and friend. The situation was that she is still working
with her graphic artist to achieve the perfect logo. In the meantime, she needed to wear a shirt
with her company name to Bark for Life today.
She contacted me for help. She
purchased a very nice coral/peach colored polo at Sam’s Club and I embroidered
the name of her company in brown. Her
company (which always puts a smile on my face) is “We Scoop The Poop.” How cute is that?
We Scoop The Poop wasn’t our only emergency this
week. One of my WBL friends contacted me
saying the annual Maguire’s Run is this Saturday (today) and the guy who
originally began the event has passed away.
She wanted 100 black arm bands with something like “In Memory of Les”
embroidered in Kelly green. I played
around with some lettering and came up with a shamrock with the name LES in the
middle. She loved it. I told her that since we were training on the
new machine this week, I could do the 100 arm bands but she would have to get
the arm bands to me. I just would not
have time to do more than embroidery. It
was quite an ordeal. We finally decided
the best way to do this was getting some fabric cut about 5” by 25” or so. I suggested some sort of knit fabric,
especially jersey, because you can pull the fabric and it will roll the edges
and not fray. As it turned out jersey
was unexpectedly and outrageously expensive, so she got some broadcloth and had
a friend cut the dimensions needed.
Since my tech was here, anyway, my tech, George and I collaborated on
this project. It was decided that we
would fold the fabric lengthwise to hide the side edges. A rectangle was digitized to hold the fabric
down around the shamrock. This still
allowed for unsightly frayed edges down the remainder of the arm bands. Finally, we decided to use spray adhesive,
which held the side edges, and gave a nice finished look to the project. Once my tech left on Thursday, I began
working on the arm bands. In the end we
did 123 armbands on Thursday and Friday using our new Amaya. Sweet!
Not to mention we have another happy customer. And I hope Jennifer’s team won the race.
Yesterday I received a message on Facebook from
Pandora de Balthazar regarding monogramming work. Pandora owns a very high end, local luxury
bedding store. This is the type of work
I dream about. She and I have scheduled
a meeting for Monday morning. I do have
to thank some people. Pandora said that
Shelley Johnson gave her my name amid high praise of my work. Thank you, Shelley. While Pandora and I were conversing on
Facebook, Lila and then Courtney, also chimed in with praise of my work. Thank you, Lila and Courtney.
Since I’m handing out thank you’s, Shelley
Johnson and Becky Shearman were the reason that Cajun Stitchery got the
Bananimals account during Mardi Gras.
Thank you Shelley and Becky.
It is good to have friends. Apparently it is really good to have Shelley,
Lila, Courtney, and Becky as friends.
And apparently you hit the jackpot when you have Shelley for a friend. Of course, you all realize that Shelley owns
the ISLAND TIMES and if you want to know what is happening on the island, you
need a subscription to the ISLAND TIMES. Also, if you want a good laugh, you need a
subscription to the ISLAND TIMES because
whatever is going on at the beach is sure to have some comic relief involved. Visit www.myislandtimes.com
for further information. Of course, you
can always see Cajun Stitchery’s ad right next to “Peas, Porridge & A Dry
Martini” by my friend, Kathi Lewis.
No one answered the contest last week. The answer is: Small businesses employ 57% of the countr
y's private workforce.
y's private workforce.If you are not a subscriber and would like to receive Cajun Corner weekly, please email cajunstitchery@yahoo.com and let me know to put you on our email list.
========================================================
Tip of the Day: Use a lint roller to pick up glitter messes.
Found
this on the internet at http://www.meetthedubiens.com/2012/01/chocolate-lip-gloss-and-free-printable.html
How
to make chocolate lip gloss:
What
you'll need
Vaseline
cocoa powder
sugar
microwave safe bowl
lip gloss containers
labels printed on sticker paper
Vaseline
cocoa powder
sugar
microwave safe bowl
lip gloss containers
labels printed on sticker paper
Directions:
1. put about 1 cup Vaseline in a microwave safe bowl
1. put about 1 cup Vaseline in a microwave safe bowl
2.
Heat the Vaseline in the microwave in 30 second increments, stirring between
each heating (this is very important, don't just throw it in the microwave for
a few minutes!). It took me about 7-8 minutes the batch of Vaseline. It will be
liquid when it is fully melted. Make sure you wear gloves or oven mitts and
make sure children are being supervised.
If
you find the Vaseline REALLY hot you may want to let it cool for a bit before
you mix in the cocoa powder. I didn't and didn't have any trouble dissolving
the cocoa powder but some of my other readers had trouble dissolving the
kool-aid if the Vaseline was too hot!
3. Stir in a couple spoonfuls of cocoa powder and a sprinkling of sugar for some sweetness. You don't need exact measurements here. Just put some cocoa powder in until you reach your desired color. I used a couple small spoonfuls. Stir until it is all dissolved. This only took about 30 seconds. If it's not dissolving the Vaseline may be too hot. Let it cool a bit.
3. Stir in a couple spoonfuls of cocoa powder and a sprinkling of sugar for some sweetness. You don't need exact measurements here. Just put some cocoa powder in until you reach your desired color. I used a couple small spoonfuls. Stir until it is all dissolved. This only took about 30 seconds. If it's not dissolving the Vaseline may be too hot. Let it cool a bit.
4.
If starting to solidify you can heat again for another 30 seconds - skip this
step if it is still liquidy
5. Pour into your lip gloss containers and leave to solidify - a couple hours
6. Print out labels on sticker paper
5. Pour into your lip gloss containers and leave to solidify - a couple hours
6. Print out labels on sticker paper
=================================================================
C’est tout, mes amis
Cajun Stitchery
(850) 261-2462
P.S. You are always
welcome to stop by and look at all of the catalogs and pass some time with me,
cher.
No comments:
Post a Comment