There are plenty of ways to celebrate Mothers Day.  All you need to do is open your e-mail or google Mothers Day for the latest and greatest ideas and inspirations.  So, instead of trying to sell you something, although would love to do that to!  I thought I would share some experiences I’ve had and what Mothers Day means to me.

Even though I’m a mother, I always think of my own Mother on Mothers Day.  While I’d love to have my whole family over my house; I realize that my parents are getting older it’s really tough for them to get around.  So, I’m thinking that we can cook and meet at my Mom’s and do something fun for her.  Next idea: do I just make it about my Mother and her Mothers Day or do I celebrate my sisters as Mother’s too?  Wow, this keeps getting more complicated!  LOL! 

I have a vision of us all at Mom’s together, preparing her gardens and planting some new perennials or annuals on her behalf.  Maybe we can install a bird house or two on the sunny side of the house.  I can have my nieces and nephews help – killing two birds with one stone as they need to do something for their Mothers.  I can get the men to prepare and serve the food and they can do something for their Mother or Mother in Law.  And, we as Mothers can enjoy our Mother and spend the day together!

Sounds like a plan.  Now all I have to do is e-mail and call the 25 odd people in my family to get it going YIKES!

Wish me luck! 

And, while we’re wishing – I wish all the Mothers out there – a wonderful, joy filled Mothers Day!  

P.S. if your interested in some awesome personalized gift....check out our site: www.SewMuchToSay.com

a few Mothers Day favorites - laundry garland, family pillow and Mom t-shirt to name a few.  Enjoy!

 

A return to blogging

Blogging isn't easy for us. We spend most of our time working and caring for our families. As I'm sure most of you do as well. But, for the life of me I can't figure out why we shy away from this. God knows I love to talk! However, talking and writing are two very different things.

So, my New Year Resolution was to get better at reaching out to the internet community and talk to customers, fellow entrepreneurs or anyone else with common interests.

Since we're talking about New Year's, this year is special to me. The Chinese Zodiac is the Dragon this year, and guess what? I'm a Dragon. So I'm feeling especially lucky. So to start the year off right, I had a close friend over for dinner last Saturday and we had Chinese food. We made spring rolls, ribs, pepper steak and chicken with broccoli. My favorite part was the homemade fortune cookies. Surprisingly - It was EASY! Really fun and everyone got such a big kick out of them. Here's the recipe I used:

Fortune Cookies I

Rated: Submitted By: Aleta Photo By: ShrinkingViolette Servings: 6

"Write your own fortunes and place them in cookies. Great for parties."

Ingredients:

1 egg white 1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract 1 pinch salt

1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour 1/4 cup white sugar

Directions:

1.	Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Butter a cookie sheet. Write fortunes on strips of paper about 4 inches long and 1/2 inch wide. Generously grease 2 cookie sheets.
2.	Mix the egg white and vanilla until foamy but not stiff. Sift the flour, salt, and sugar and blend into the egg white mixture.
3.	Place teaspoonfuls of the batter at least 4 inches apart on one of the prepared cookie sheets. Tilt the sheet to move the batter into round shapes about 3 inches in diameter. Be careful to make batter as round and even as possible. Do not make too many, because the cookie have to be really hot to form them and once they cool it is too late. Start with 2 or 3 to a sheet and see how many you can do.
4.	Bake for 5 minutes or until cookie has turned a golden color 1/2 inch wide around the outer edge of the circle. The center will remain pale. While one sheet is baking, prepare the other.
5.	Remove from oven and quickly move cookie with a wide spatula and place upside down on a wooden board. Quickly place the fortune on the cookie, close to the middle and fold the cookie in half. Place the folded edge across the rim of a measuring cup and pull the pointed edges down, one on the inside of the cup and one on the outside. Place folded cookies into the cups of a muffin tin or egg carton to hold their shape until firm.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 2012 Allrecipes.com

Printed from Allrecipes.com 1/27/2012

I found this on Allrecipes.com and it couldn't have been easier.

I wish everyone a wonderful 2012 filled with love, family and plenty of homemade fortune cookies!

Mothers Day - Hat Cake

One Year for Mothers Day, I invited my Mother and Mother-in-Law over for brunch and made this simple Hat Cake. I started with a fruit salad in a carved grapefruit shell, made a few quiches and banana nut muffins, my cobb salad made a great addition, mimosa here and coffee there and wa-la....a fancy brunch! Then I made this "hat cake" and put it on a pink glass cake stand. It was so cute, both Mom's LOVED it! Very simple, and it's really fun to do! Try it for your Mom - for all she does.....it's a little treat that she will really appreciate! I know mine did.
Follow this link to a video instruction....
http://howc.st/g62JVk


Happy Mothers Day to all of us out there!

Finds on Twitter

As I'm sure for many small businesses working on the internet, we too are interested in social media. Used as a way to find people and let people find us. So, it goes that we started using twitter. Our twitter name is "stitchedright". It's an unusual way to talk to people. You only use a small amount of characters, or so I thought. Then I realized that people are linking "bitlys" to their small comments. These "bitlys" are URL shortners (I'm not sure that's a word) that take you to a blog post or a magazine article. Funny how things work. So, now it's sort of like reading the newspaper. If you see a title to the article that is interesting then you click the link and read the rest.

However, I have found some really interesting people and places. Always on the hunt for great gifts and gift giving ideas, I came across this blog post that the "craftgossip" page posted. BTW, they have wonderful ideas and posts! This one is especially adorable, and a wonderful gift for Mothers Day! Check it out and if you get a minute spend some time on Twitter. It's a weird little world but worth the visit.

Here's that post: http://whiffofjoy.blogspot.com/2011/02/circle-album-card-by-jane-johnson.html

Happy crafting!
Best, Nancy

Adventures of a small sewing shop

Well I guess the word adventures may be a bit overstated. I tend to exaggerate, makes things more interesting - don't you think? Anyway, the adventures I'm referring to is our experiments with design. We have been experimenting with t-shirts. New designs, new colors. Very cool stuff. When we're not sewing orders....our time is spent with arranging colors and putting together applique ideas. We hope to show some new things for spring.

Color is an amazing thing....use the right combination and the design is beautiful. Use the wrong combination and the same exact design is just awful! We spent last Tuesday walking around the Fashion district in NYC looking for just the right combination for shirt embellishments. So, stay tuned for some new stuff...and let's hope we get the colors right!

Love to hear your ideas! Find us on Facebook (Wicked Stitches Embroidery)....and twitter (Stitchedright). Have a wonderful weekend. Stay warm!

Valentines Garland in a gift shop

Woke up this morning to my husband giving me the weather report. He told me that on Tuesday we may be expecting 6 - 12 inches of snow. I think, great the kids will be off from school. My day will be turned into getting snow stuff together, putting it on them. Watching them outside in the snow, shoveling snow, then taking wet snow stuff off. Drying snow stuff, making hot chocolate and numerous other food items. Of course all while "enjoying them". But I digress.

So for now, I'm drinking a cup of HOT coffee, and blogging. This may be my only chance this week. I've got to get to work in my little garage shop. I'm working on some ideas for early spring items. I just love the "garland" idea and am working on getting my Valentine and Shamrock garland into some gift shops. I think it may be a hard item to sell on the internet. It's one of those things that has to be seen. The time has come for us to try to expand our sales horizons. It's a wonderful thing to be able to do what you love, but it's even better if you can eek a living out of it!

So here's to making a living on what we love. One garland at a time!

Holiday thoughts

Boy, that went fast! It was all in a blink of an eye and it's gone! It's been almost a month since I last blogged. So hard to believe.

This year, as usual, I was preoccupied in my embroidery work, and then I couldn't decide on what to get who, all while trying to "get together" with all my friends.

So, in the end I think I gave the right gifts to all the gift givees, I got together with all the right friends, and finished all my work just in the nick of time. All in all a very successful Holiday! But, when I reflect on this I always say.... next year I'll start earlier, I'll be more organized....blah, blah, blah.

For those who know me, know that's never going to happen. I'm really a perfectionist / dreamer if there is such a personality. I'm always thinking about doing the most fun family holiday excursion, or how to spend my time more wisely so I can do more fun family Holiday things. If I'm not thinking about how to make the family thing better, I'm thinking about how to make my embroidery better and more appealing. Or thinking about how can I talk to more people on the internet so they can get to know my embroidery.

Now, I'm starting to think that it's really not the Holiday rush that's so annoying, but the everyday life stuff that gets in the way of the Holidays!

Sometimes, it's really just your point of view. Ok, so now that I've solved that problem....NEXT?