Mini Burgers

Have you seen the commercial for the Jack in the Box Mini Sirloin Burgers? The one with the mini cowboys singing the jingle? Brian loves the song and commercial.


How about the McDonald's Filet-o-fish commercial?


I thought the McD's one was annoying at first, but it was very effective marketing as I couldn't get that song out of my head! I wonder how McD's FoF sales changed as a result of this commercial. I mean, the FoF has been around for years. I wonder if this commercial helped at all.

Funny how the other fast food chains are now playing catch-up to McD's catchy little jingle. Even Burger King has that "square butt" one. Now I find that one annoying and a bit inappropriate. :P

So, the point to all of this was that Brian and I had homemade mini burgers for dinner tonight. I made them using lean ground beef, some stale bread that was sitting in our fridge, an egg, mushroom gravy mix and some garlic salt. We didn't have hamburger buns or rolls so we ate the mini burgers between a Roman Meal bread slice cut in half, along with a slice of American cheese and some ketchup...God I love ketchup.

I've felt a bit pudgy since the holidays. I can't seem to shake the weight I gained. It's a few pounds, but a few pounds on my frame is A LOT! Ugh. I only had 1 mini burger. I planned to have some vanilla ice cream after my burger, but that never happened. It's for the best, I suppose.

I suck at blogging

Geez, it's been nearly 1 month since my last post. I wonder if my crappy blogging habits are a direct reflection on how I view life. I think our life is pretty boring. Perhaps I'm not looking at life with the correct perspective. I'm not really good at making weird, boring or random things seem interesting. I think I need to re-evaluate this whole blog thing....

Our Wedding Teaser

Our 2nd anniversary is this Wednesday! I can't believe how quickly time is flying.

(The uploaded video is so tiny!)

Featured in an Etsy Treasury!

I'm not sure how big of a deal this really is, but I'm just surprised that someone actually stumbled upon on of my items and felt compelled to feature it in an Etsy Treasury. I'm hoping this will be good for exposure. :)

Etsy Store Open for Business!

Finally. Hehe, I've only got 1 item listed, though. :P

I Did It!!!

Well, I sorta did it.

Nothing is listed my store yet, as I still need to set my shop policies and figure out if I'm going to offer international shipping. The thought of international shipping overwhelms me, but the Etsy forums say it ain't so bad. There are so many aspects to this endeavor, which is not good for an over-analyzer like me. I keep thinking of every possible thing that can go wrong and the associated risks.

I went to the store today to buy some shipping supplies, including a 25 pack box of bubble mailers. As I stood in the aisle, considering all the packaging options, I thought, "Crap, am I really going to do this?" I ended up at the checkout line with the bubble mailers so I guess I really am doing this! :P

Thanks for all of the encouragement. I apologize for being noticeably absent from e-mail and other various forums I used to frequent. This, along with work and waiting and waiting for things to start moving with our refi, has been consuming my waking hours.

Need some suggestions

I know I don't have a huge readership, but I'm struggling to come up with a potential Etsy store name! It needs to be memorable, practical and relevant.

I've been using "Handmade by Nicole"...well, that's what my custom rubber stamp says, anyway:


So, we could do:

HandmadeByNicole
CardsByNicole
808Cards
808Embossing
EmbossedByNicole

Yeah, that's about all my fried brain could come up with last night. Haven't given much more thought to it.

Any suggestions???

I'm out of practice

This took me 1 hour. :( How much would you be willing to pay for a card like this (4.25" x 5.5")? I originally thought $3/card, but with the amount of effort this one required tonight, I'm thinking $5.


Retirement card for my first "real" boss, David Stock. This man has devoted 40+ years of his life to our United States Navy. He's a great guy and he will be missed as he begins a new journey of travel, golf, and spending time with family. :)

I got an e-mail today!

Dear Nicole,

We are always happy when people use our stencils just as you are doing. Please enjoy handcrafting your creations in your card making business.

Best wishes for success and Mahalo for sharing your blog spot address so I could enjoy seeing them.

Kindest regards,
Lynell Harlow of Dreamweaver Stencils

So, is this it? I have permission?

I did a lot of research on Etsy today! Yeesh, setting up an Etsy store is not as easy as I thought it would be, especially for an overly-analytical person like me. Store names, sale price, shipping charges, paypal transactions, associated fees, etc.

About those fees, here's a breakdown:
Etsy
Listing fee: $0.20 to list an item for 4 months
Transaction fee for sold item: 3.5% of item sale price (excluding shipping charges)
For a $10 sale, that's $0.55

Paypal
Transaction fee: $0.30 (flat fee) + 2.9% of transaction amount (includes shipping charges, I think)
For a $10 sale (assuming shipping is included in that price), that's $0.59 for a total of....

$1.14 total fees for a $10 sale.

I hate that feeling of being nickel-and-dime'd. :P

Anyway, it's late and I'm Etsy'd out. Need to sleep. Gotta work tomorrow. I'm glad it's a short week. :) Have a good one!

Etsy

Etsy is "Your place to buy and sell all things handmade". It's a neat little online shopping mall that I had heard of quite a while ago. I browsed a couple of times, but it never really interested me.

Dior brought it up to me again last May (yep, went back and found that e-mail!) and suggested I sell my dry embossed cards on the site. I was deathly afraid and never acted on the idea.

Long story short, I ended up on Etsy again last week and became hooked! So many items posted by so many talented people! It's mind-boggling, really. Anyway, as I browsed, I began to think, "Hey, if these people can do it, maybe I can, too."

So, I'm now contemplating opening an Etsy store. I've actually taken a huge first step, one that I probably should have taken a year ago. Since the dry embossing stencils I use are copyrighted designs, I need to ask the company for its permission to sell any products made using their stencils. So, I e-mailed them on Friday and am awaiting a response. Dior, I took your advice regarding the content of my request and am hoping for a positive outcome. :)

However, I'm not quite sure what the tax implications are if I start selling stuff on Etsy...how to report the income, expenses, etc. Guess I should consult a tax person about that one. Perhaps I won't want the hassle and will scratch the idea altogether.

Regardless, here are some fun things I found on Etsy.

Cute zipper pouches by Etsy seller JPATPURSES:


Blue Buds Harmony Large Flat Bottom Zipper Pouch
(I actually bought this one!)


Sakura Dynasty Little Zip Pouch
(I also bought this one for a co-worker's upcoming birthday)

And of course, you know I had to search for chrysanthemums. I wish I had known about Etsy while I was planning my wedding. Although it's priced at $105, this would have made an amazing wedding day accessory:


Ivory Silk Chrysanthemum Clutch lined in blue silk
by Etsy seller Red Ruby Rose