Branding

How does your branding go? Do you put a business card into every package of product you ship? Do you add a brand to your handmade crafts? Just when I think I have got this micro-business finely tuned, I discover something that once realised, I think, “Now, I should have already known that!”

Give ‘Em the Pickle

You are always reading about my Rhino Principle escapades. Well, here’s a new principal about which you may not know. The Pickle Principle! Find out how customer disappointment led to one of the best customer responses ever!

Give ‘Em the Pickle

Turning Bits-N-2-Better

Turning Bits-n-2-Better 

Either the good news is that I receive a lot of gifts, or I simply hold on to ribbon for years until I can figure out what to do with it. Such was the discovery I made recently when cleaning out a bin-o-bits I’ve been saving for a while.

As mentioned in a previous post, I have a penchant for saving ribbon from packages. I dunno…it just seems a shame to throw it away, especially if it’s wire ribbon! Depending on the length and color, I can sometime reuse it to wrap a package, but if I end up with a piece of 10-12″, then I’m left to figure out what to do with it so I always tuck it back into the bin-o-bits.

While making up the package perk Thank You’s included with Hide A Heart orders in anticipation of 2012 holiday sales, it occurred to me that those bits could be created into better use + reduce the clutter in the bin-o-bits!

Personalized Gift Tags for Christmas

I customized gift tags for Hide A Heart customers who buy one of my little hearts that say a lot. I enjoy being able to offer this special customer service.

For Christmas this year, I decided to create a ‘customized’ gift tag for the gifts I will give to my friends.

I pulled up one of the HAH gift tag templates and decided to use a ‘phototag’ of me having fun for the front side and adding the year to the back side of the tag.

Sto Lat means…..

For many years when my husband traveled two weeks out of nearly every month for business, I would hide our heart by tucking it into his shaving kit, suit pocket or briefcase. When he found it, he would call me to let me know and tell me how much it meant to him to find that little heart because, “the road can be ‘lonely.” This was one of the ways we were able to keep the language of love alive, even when apart.

The Meaning of Heart

The heart (♥) has long been used as a symbol to refer to the spiritual, emotional, moral, and in the past, also intellectual core of a human being. While the heart in the Western world is largely the symbol of love and affection, the heart symbol itself has various meanings throughout other parts of the world.

Perking a Package with Bold of the Day

My friend Carrie works at Starbucks. After morning walks, I often stop by her store to order a “grande ‘bold’ coffee of the day, room for cream”. Sometimes I stop to pick up the coffee to take along on the walk simply because it makes me happy. I like feeling happy and figure my customers do too. Have you noticed tucking a little extra ‘happy’ into every order might have value beyond the obvious immediate?

Purple Hearts A $1500 Remembrance

I have been an Etsy seller since October 2009 and read a great deal in tutorials from Etsy, Handmadeology, EverythingEtsy and other helpful home biz blogs about how to price my product based on both materials and labor. I thought I was pretty well informed but I forgot to expect the unexpected! 

A Purple Heart for A Loving and Lasting Remembrance

It’s tax time and you’d think I’d already know the number of purple hearts I had on hand, but my husband has been ill and no longer driving so I have been taking him back and forth to doctors for over a month. I’d forgotten about doing inventory until gently reminded by my accountant that it was, “important to complete before the end of January.”

A week ago when checking phone messages I had received two saying, “Please call me ASAP. I want to make a substantial order of your purple hearts.” I was prepared to receive an order for perhaps 35-50, but she said, “I…

What Happens to Biz if YOU get sick?

Good question that deserves consideration that is no cartoon of a laughing matter. Have you given any thought to training someone to cover your boutique, home-based online business should you become suddenly ill?