by Nicole Ouellette | Aug 11, 2010 | Too Cute Tuesday
Too Cute Tuesday is a weekly event involving a craft, a cocktail, and friends. To get involved, see all the TCT archived posts at www.toocutetuesday.com, join us on Facebook, or contact Nicole to start your own Too Cute Tuesday chapter in your town.
My friend John contacted me awhile back, asking if we’d be interested in doing a Japanese related craft to cobrand with a weekly tradition he has on his Facebook page called Haikuesday. (In essence, you ask him to write you a personalized haiku on a Tuesday and he will. Here’s his Facebook page if you want to ask him about doing it for you!)
While the Bar Harbor branch of Too Cute Tuesday has opted to make a bamboo wind chime, Too Cute Tuesday Saint Louis is making paper koi. Here’s the link to their craft (EnchantedLearning.com, the website is on, is ridiculously addicting just to warn… just start clicking some related links!)
Materials
tiki torches (made of bamboo)
saw (Dremel tool caused a bit of burning if you are considering that)
scissors
random bendable hardware
Cocktail of the Night: Limeaid and Pims
by Nicole Ouellette | Aug 10, 2010 | Marketing Monday
Every Monday, the Breaking Even blog takes on a business, non-profit, or website with a good marketing idea. Have one? Send it in!
This morning, I was listening to NPR (on the Maine Public Broadcasting Network) and heard about former marketer now turned non-profit marketer Sid Lerner talking about the Meatless Monday concept him and his firm started as a way to get people to eat healthier one day a week. According to the story, 20% of the American population was aware of the term. Personally, I’ve heard about it on a few blogs I read (I do like food) and I was surprised the recognition of the phrase was that low.
Meanwhile, it turns out some college campuses have also bought in to the concept but most younger generation folks aren’t going meatless for cholesterol but for the environment. (Which is a big reason why I eat meat only a couple times a week myself. Holy grain acres, Batman!(As a complete aside, you can read a whole nerdy though somewhat slanted article about grain acres here with neato diagram if you are interested.)
by Nicole Ouellette | Aug 9, 2010 | This Week In Business
It’s been said that hairdressers have the worst hair and the cobbler’s kids are the last to get their shoes. Growing up in a hardware family, we were often the last to get handy people at our house. Good thing my mom is pretty good with powertools!
Well, with web people, this idea translates to sometimes your web professional having a poorly maintained site (while still doing a pretty good job on yours).
While I do keep things up-to-date on my site, the list of little things to improve it end up stacking up until it reaches a breaking point.
Last week, mostly while I was avoiding creating a presentation, I did a lot of work on my own site. It’s not something you’d necessarily notice but mind if I give a little tour?
I created packages and then a chart to help understand them.
If you got to www.breakingeveninc.com/packages, you’ll notice a bunch of packages for businesses and non-profits starting at $200/month. I’ve asked a few business owners (and maybe they were just too nice to tell me) but they said the prices seemed fair and the packages were easy to understand.That said, if anything with my packages seems off/weird, please comment! If you’ve ever met me (and heck, even if you haven’t), I hope you know I appreciate it when people are honest with me. :^)
Basically, I calculated prices based on my hourly wage, since I know about how long it takes me to do something. Also by pricing monthly, I was hoping to make people understand a lot of this stuff is on-going and is something I am able to maintain/create on a regular basis that’ll add value to the business.
I am all about making things simple to regular people… so I made this handy dandy flow chart.
I was on vacation with my mom, who owns a business, when I showed her my service packages. (Admittedly, this is probably a pretty biased audience to start out with but I thought it was better than nothing!)
“These all look good,” she said, “but how do I know what I need?”
In the hotel room, I immediately began sketching a flow chart. When I got back home to Photoshop, I made the chart below and emailed it to her.
“Oh this is great!” she said.
When my friend Matt told me making an image map is ‘easy’ (i.e. making it so when you click on parts of the chart, it goes to different links), I gave it a shot. And you know what? It was. Now when you click on the package you need, poof!, you are taken to a web page with the package description and, in the future, example clients, testimonials, screenshots, etc.
So you can click on the chart to see it up close… Let me know if you find it easy to follow or if you see any improvements I could make!
I sent out my monthly newsletter, and got tons more subscribes from it than ever before.
I got an email from my sister about a month ago about blogging software and, since I had practically written up a whole thing for her, I thought I would also send the information in my monthly email newsletter. To see my summary of some ‘free’ blogging technology out there, here’s the archive link to it. ‘You should put this on your website’ my friend Chris said. And I did, along with a way to subscribe to the newsletter. So if you want, you can subscribe on the main page of my site or on the Breaking Even Facebook page.
by Nicole Ouellette | Aug 4, 2010 | Too Cute Tuesday
Every Tuesday, it’s friends, a craft, and a cocktail at Too Cute Tuesday. Get in on the fun, start your own TCT chapter, check out the archives, or connect with us on Facebook.
I just got back two weeks ago from Savannah Georgia, home of River Street Sweets and their wonderful pralines. I bought some for Chef Dan and proceeded to eat them all in the hotel room (shhh). I brought him back some pecans (in a sealed bag) and vowed to make some pralines when I got back home.
Then, I proceeded to sprain my ankle for the third time this summer. Thank goodness my pantry is stocked and Chef Dan only needed to pick up two of the ingredients on his way to Craft Central. Also, thankfully, there wasn’t too much involved in praline making and people were able to 1) relax and give me sympathy for my injury and 2) recover from last week’s epic craft failure, the first in Too Cute Tuesday’s history.
As Sue said of the experience, “Our crafting egos needed a reality check anyway.” True. But we were back on game tonight with this super easy craft. Dan whipped us up a signature drink: The Sad Lemonade to celebrate him finding blue curacao in our geographic area (for those wondering, Global Beverage Warehouse in Ellsworth).
Materials:
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons dark corn syrup
1 cup evaporated milk
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups pecan halves
wax paper
Cocktail of the Night: Sad Lemonade
Put 1 oz vodka and 2 oz blue curacao in a glass. Fill with lemonade (or if you’re fancy like us,pomegranatelemonade)
Looking for something non-alcoholic or just more southern? Try the sweet tea recipe I was going to make before I got gimpy.
by Nicole Ouellette | Aug 2, 2010 | Marketing Monday
Every Monday, Breaking Even looks at a person, company, or website doing something cool to promote itself online. Have an idea for a future Marketing Monday? Let Nicole know!
I recently went with a friend to Tom’s Terrific Tattoos, located in Ellsworth Maine. I’ve long seen the bumper stickers on people’s cars. I feel like I even heard about the place before moving to Downeast Maine, probably because the name is so memorable.
When one of my friends wanted me to go with her to get her tattoo, I jumped at the chance to finally see the inside of TTT’s.
Have a memorable name.
If you are thinking of naming a business or rebranding a part of your business, a memorable name can help people keep you in mind when they are ready to make a purchase.
Give away free stuff with your memorable business name on it.
I noticed on the counter, Tom had bumper stickers and business cards with the business name on it. Also, he give my friend a ‘goodie bag’ which included one of the bumper stickers as well as care supplies for the tattoo.
Have a website with examples of your work.
Tom has a fairly basic website with examples of his work. If I was shopping for a tattoo place, I’d want one with a website, if only because I would feel a business with a website is more established. Is this important when I’m considering someone putting a needle into my body? Absolutely. Is it important to other people? I can’t say for sure but probably.