here we go...

so i mentioned that i'm going to be selling my handmade wares at a christmas boutique at the bean's school next week, right?  i thought about signing up for it back when this school year first started and there was some chatter about the boutique at the first room parents' meeting.  i was trying to get the bean to put together some of her cute little hand sewn creatures, but she's so busy with cheer and school and tutoring and everything else that she hadn't had time to sit down and crank any out.  but then she came up with a plan B:  selling her homemade slime.  i don't know how we didn't think of it sooner, considering that the kid is a freaking slime connoisseur.  heh.

i realized then that it was probably a good time to finally make myself a business name and slap together a quick logo so i could have some business cards and stickers to put on my stuff.  i asked the hub to throw some ideas together for me as to what i could call myself, and while the girls and i stood in line at disneyland one day the old lady pulled up a quickie logo generator website and showed me some fun ideas.  when we got home, i pulled it into photoshop and tweaked it a little, and voila:

while we were at it, we decided to use this for the bean:

she's super stoked.  unlike her sister, who bristled anytime anyone in the real world called her "the teen," she practically beams with pride at the knowledge that she has an internet alias.  we ordered her some custom stickers for her slime containers and she was over the moon when they arrived in the mail.

so now i have an instagram account that i can post all my stuff to, and i can keep it all separate from my personal account so that people don't roll their eyes when i talk about sewing or cookies or whatever.  i got myself a twitter handle too, along with a facebook page that i haven't promoted yet.  and now i'm debating whether or not i want to do an etsy store or just set up a website using shopify.  so many things to think about!  not to mention...i think this means that now all of the crafting supplies equipment i pick up are going to be write-off...able.  right?  i don't know.  i better talk to our accountant about that before i get excited.

in any case...yay!  i'm pretty excited about all this.  out of all the home-based business ideas i've had (and there have been a LOT, from MLMs in the 90s to wedding planning, a short-lived travel agency, custom invitations, stella & dot jewelry and now cookies and handmade sewn items), i think this one will be the most fun for me.  and to think...it really started back when i was making and selling those mermaid tail blankets a few christmas seasons ago.  and unlike those other ventures, i'm really just doing this for fun.  it's not a get-rich-quick scheme or even something i'm trying to make actual money from.  that makes it all so way better.

heat press action

for the longest time after i got my heat press, i was convinced that i'd received a defective machine.  because for some reason, it would come up to the right temperature but none of my transfers would stick to the shirt unless i left it pressed down for a couple of minutes.  i knew this wasn't right, because everything i'd seen and read online said that it should only take maybe 20 seconds for the transfer to adhere properly.

one day, when my co-leader came over to drop something off, i decided to ask her if she could take a look at my machine and see if she could help me figure out what was wrong with it.  hers was working perfectly fine and we'd both bought them from the same place, so i figured she'd probably know right away from looking at it.  and sure enough...she looked at it for about five seconds and realized that it wasn't clamping down hard enough.  we fiddled with it for a few minutes and then voila - it was fixed!

ever since that day, i've pretty much wanted to heat press ALL THE THINGS.  and i kinda have...starting with about 25 shirts that i modeled after the bean's birthday party invitation.  we had shirts for all of the kids in attendance, plus a few of us adults too.  they looked like this:

i think i've shared this one before, but you get to look at it again.  i swiped the quote from a post that my xtend barre studio had recently instagrammed.  pink glitter makes everything look fancy, yes?

remember our trip to the price is right taping?  yup, made that shirt too.

the old lady's BFF rock-ell is getting married.  let that sink in for a bit.  we good now?  yeah, it took awhile for me to grasp that one too.  anyway, she's ballin' on a budget and we've been trying to help her cut as many corners as possible.  i helped her get her save-the-date cards done and used my favorite vendor to print them at a super awesome price, and then when she mentioned wanting to do shirts for her bridal party - well, you know i was all over it.  she bought some plain tees at target, i ordered some shiny silver heat transfer foil, and here's what we came up with:

she came over another time and we did shirts for her, plus her mom and the groom's mom, and she promised to send me pictures when everyone has them on.  they'll look way better with proper lighting, i think.

and with some leftover foil, i threw this together for me:

guys...i think i should do custom shirts.  i mean, cookies are fine and all, but these shirts are super fun to make too.  i even have access to a supplier that i can get everything from basic tees and tanks to hoodies and pullovers and stuff.

hmmmmmmm.

always trying to make a buck

so yes - i am, indeed, going to give the cookie business a go.  no, i don't think i'm particularly super talented.  and no, i don't have any creative recipes that will make me stand out from the rest of the crowd.  but i do have a lot of enthusiasm, i love to bake, and i seem to have friends who trust my skillz enough to actually give me money to make cookies for them.  heh.  i decided to keep it separate from my current online persona, though, and nixed the idea of naming the business with another play on "wan."  besides, i couldn't think of anything that wasn't super cheesetastic and lame.

it actually started with one of my junior league sisters, who contacted me via facebook to see if i could help her out of a jam.  she needed 3 dozen heart-shaped sugar cookies with red royal icing, and she said "i'd rather pay you than a bakery if you can swing it."

um, hell YES.  i'd rather you pay me than a bakery, too.

and so although i was already busy last week with lots of other things, including those candy cane macarons for a junior league cookie exchange (which i still need to blog!), i accepted the job.  i always want to help my friends whenever i can, and it wasn't difficult to squeeze it in with the other stuff i had going on.  i did a little research on pricing, got back to her, and she seemed pretty happy with it.

the bean "helped" me out with the rolling and cutting:

and while she was happily squeezing her little ball of dough (which i didn't bake, obvs. what kind of businesswoman do you think i am?), i got the hearts all cut out and in the oven.

i always have meringue powder on hand, so royal icing is just a mixing bowl and a pound of powdered sugar away.  i used an ungodly amount of red food coloring gel to get it this bright:

i had debated using a shortcut - tinting some fondant red and cutting hearts out to cover the cookie and then just piping the icing to outline it - but decided against it.  after all, she had specified "royal icing," so that's what she got.  i did the outline first:

and by the time i was done with the 36th one, the first one was dry enough to start the flooding process.

i sprinkled some red sanding sugar on top of them to make them extra sparkly and pretty.

i left them overnight to dry, and the next morning, i got up early to get them boxed up.  the purple tissue really makes the red icing pop, don't you think?

i thought a red grosgrain ribbon would be lovely to tie around the box.  and so that she didn't have to open it to see the cookies, i packaged an extra cookie in a cellophane bag and tied it in.

i wasn't satisfied with the width of the ribbon, though.  so i went into my ribbon stash (which is ridiculous, let me tell you) and ended up settling for a satin one that was only slightly wider.  oh, well.  still pretty, right?

she was so happy with them, she placed another order for 4 dozen gingerbread men for this weekend!

and i have an order for 100 cookies for saturday - which are for a last-minute holiday shopping extravaganza at my buddy's party store, where i'm also repping stella & dot.  woo-hoo!  and yet another order - for two dozen macarons on new year's eve.  yeeeeeuuuuh.

fun stuff, all of it.  i just hope i keep getting orders - maybe valentine's day?  easter?  there's always a reason to have cookies.  at least, that's the case in my world.  heh.