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Too Cute Tuesday: Bamboo Wind Chimes and Haikuesday

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

Marketing Monday: Meatless 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.

Not just a campaign but a website providing useful information and incentives to step out of their comfort zone one night a week.

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.)

These Two Weeks In Business: The Package Edition

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!

My mom wanted to know how she would know what services she needed, because they all sounded good. How about a flow chart? I said. And guess what, it's clickable!

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.

Too Cute Tuesday: Pralines

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.

Chef Dan stirs the praline mixture, essentially sugar, vanilla, and pecans. Hey, even if it doesn't turn out, at least it'll taste good!

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:

Sue helpfully licks the praline dish to help me with dishes. She's so sweet...or is she just opportunistic?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.

Marketing Monday: Tom’s Terrific Tattoos

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.

Being memorable, especially in the creative industry, really pays off.

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.

A variety of promotional materials are available on the counter at Tom's Terrific Tattoos. A side effect of making your business name fun: people will want to promote it.

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.

Too Cute Tuesday: Bottle Glasses

Too Cute Tuesday is a weekly event involving a craft, a cocktail, and friends. To learn more, read all the archived entries at www.toocutetuesday.com or join us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/toocutetuesday.

This week, we attempted a craft that I (Nicole) saw in a ReadyMade magazine, or so I thought. I ripped apart the house looking for this article. I am now convinced I am crazy and somehow hallucinated it. Nicole 0, Craziness 1.

This cheesy Youtube video allows you to believe that cutting a bottle half with string is easy, involving fire, acetone, string, and cold water.

And when Nicole was on her trip to Savannah Georgia last week and saw glasses made of beer bottles inthe SCAD store (the glasses aren’t online but they have other pretty things at the online store), an attempt was going to have to be made by Too Cute Tuesday.

A final semi-successful attempt at the craft. After this ta-da moment, we called it a night. Craft fail!

Materials
Acetone, and lighter fluid
String
Scissors
Bottles of Corona, empty
Lighter
Basin of cool water
Safety glasses (sun glasses)
Sandpaper (was supposed to smooth out the small shards left over)

Cocktail of the Night: Coronas (so we could use the bottles)

Marketing Monday: Working With Creative People

Every Monday, I profile a business, person, or website doing neat things online. I thought I’d take a little break from the usual format and talk about something I see a lot: business owners working with the creative people they hire: webdesigners, writers, graphic artists, internet marketers, etc.

Admittedly, I’m somewhere in between. I do creative services for people but I feel like I also do a lot of organization of creative people to keep things moving forward too. Here’s what I’ve learned over the last couple years:

1. You might not know exactly what you need but be as specific as you can with what you do know. There is a reason you’re hiring someone to create a logo, a website, a painting, or anything really: You don’t know much about it or you don’t have the time/interest to do it yourself if you do. Creative people understand this.

That said, to get the best quote possible, be up front with what you do know: budgets, other players on the project, and deadlines are all helpful. It’ll keep the person from doing something embarrassing like bring up the name of a rival company or time wasting, like generating a quote for a project four times your actual budget.

Too Cute Tuesday: Clothespin Animals

Every Tuesday, it’s a craft, a cocktail and friends. To join the action, check out past posts at www.toocutetuesday.com, fan the page on Facebook to get the inside scoop, or contact Nicole to start a chapter where you live.

The following post is written by guest blogger Sarah, head of the Saint Louis division of TCT. They get organized on Facebook so join them there to follow their crafty pursuits!

This week, since Nicole is out of town in beautiful Savannah, Georgia, Too Cute Tuesday ) St. Louis picked up the slack and, instead of just crafting like we usually do, tried to pitch in with a blog post.

Are we above using cute orange cats to promote our crafting agenda? Absolutely not. Meet Patty. She loves Too Cute Tuesday.

This week, it was just a few of us since there’s a St. Louis Cardinals game tonight (and at 95 degrees outside, I think we have the better end of the deal). And, in honor of it being summertime and being able to hang our laundry out on the line (or, we would if we had a backyard), we’re getting crafty with clothespins.

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