Thanks!

It has been a fabulous and hectic holiday season, y'all. We're now done shipping orders for the year and done with craft shows for the year. Susan and I are planning to enjoy some quality time with our families and to put our feet up until January 9th.

See you in the new year!

Renegade Holiday San Francisco Details

Susan and I will be at the Renegade Craft Fair in San Francisco this weekend! This is our last show of 2011, so if you're in the Bay Area and want some lollipops, head on over. There will be lots of fabulous vendors, and we'll be sharing a booth with Sora Designs, whose jewelry has been making me drool for a couple of years now. It's our first time, and we've heard great things about it. We hope to see you there!

What: Renegade Holiday San Francisco
Where: The Concourse Exhibition Center
When: December 17th & 18th, from 11am - 6pm

Renegade Vendor: Clever Hands

smartphone bandolier photo from Clever Hands' Etsy shop

I am a person who always has her phone, a journal, and a pen or two with me. This? This is the BEST IDEA EVER. I dearly hope that Clever Hands has some by the time I get to her booth.

Renegade Vendor: Sora Designs

necklace by Sora Designs

We are proud to be sharing our Renegade SF booth with Sora Designs this year. This is only our second Bay Area show, and the last one was quite awhile ago. So we're happy to share with someone who makes such mouthwateringly beautiful jewelry. My own minimalist tastes are well-documented on this blog, and Wen's jewelry fits that perfectly!

December Candy Pickup Dates

To our Seattle customers - as you might already know, we offer local pickup service for your candy orders so you can save on shipping charges. You can visit our lollipop-making facility, The Wandering Cafe - 7533 Lake City Way NE - on Monday afternoons between 4-7 to pick up your order. We also usually have a few of our lollipop variety collections available for walk-in purchase, but you'll have the best chance of getting what you want if you email your order ahead of time!

Our December Mondays for pick-ups and walk-in shopping are:

• December 12th
• December 19th

After that, we're going on vacation for a few weeks -- the next date for pick-ups will be January 9th. So, if you think you want to order some lollipops for Christmas or New Year parties... you'll want to let us know before December 19th!

Crafty Wonderland Details

We will be at Crafty Wonderland this weekend! If you are in Portland or the Portland area, we'd love to see you live and in-person. We'll be in booth #272.

What: Crafty Wonderland
Where: Oregon Convention Center in Portland, OR
When: December 10th & 11th, from 11am - 6pm

Northern Lights Holiday Bazaar

We're doing a mid-week show! This doesn't happen very often. This afternoon & tonight Susan will be at the Northern Lights Holiday Bazaar at the Swedish Cultural Center in Queen Anne. She'll have a table full of candy to sell. This is our last Seattle show before the holidays and our 3-week break!

What: Northern Lights Holiday Bazaar
Where: Swedish Cultural Center in Queen Anne, Seattle, WA
When: 2pm - 8pm Thursday December 8th (that's today!)

Crafty Wonderland Vendor: Salvage Siren

from Salvage Siren's etsy shop

This is as close as I will EVER get to a swimming medal of any kind. I kind of love it. Salvage Siren has a ton of cute earrings & necklaces, all made from recycled goods. I don't NEED it, I just WANT it.

We'll be at Crafty Wonderland along with a bunch of other amazing vendors this weekend. Hope to see you there!

Crafty Wonderland Vendor: LAS Designs

Susan came across LASdesigns at Schoolhouse Craft, I think. She had donated some lollipop coasters, which we thought was just a fabulous idea! We bought a stash, and they now go out with particularly large orders. (So if you buy a lot of lollipops from us this holiday season, you might get one.)

She makes and textures ceramics with various fabrics. It looks gorgeous. Come see her and us at Crafty Wonderland this weekend!

Crafty Wonderland Vendor: A Tea Leaf

from a tea leaf

I was perusing the vendor list for Crafty Wonderland; when I saw A Tea Leaf, I thought, "Hm, I wonder if they're a tea vendor." As soon as I clicked through to their etsy shop, I realized, "They're the amazing people who make those fabulous spice prints!" I love their prints. I've favorited a few of them, and I use them in treasuries whenever possible.

I hope I get a chance to see them in person; this is our first time at Crafty Wonderland and I've no idea how busy we're going to be. We may be slammed, we may not. If you, dear reader, are in Portland, we'd love to meet you!

Urban Craft Uprising Details

image courtesy UCU

We'll be at Urban Craft Uprising tomorrow! There will be a ton of great vendors there to help you finish your Christmas shopping, including us. We'd love to help you fill out your stocking stuffers and hostess gifts.

What: Urban Craft Uprising
Where: Seattle Center Exhibition Hall (the same building that Pacific Northwest Ballet is in). We're in booth #68, all the way down in the main aisle.
When: Dec 3rd & 4th from 11am - 5pm

UCU Vendor: Victory Garden Yarn

photo from Victory Garden Yarn

Warning: I'm biased. I bought a kerchief from Victory Garden Yarn in October and I LOVE it. It's great colors and it keeps my neck nice and warm, particularly in my chilly office on these winter mornings. This cowl looks like it might be even warmer and cozier. We're going to be 2 booths away from her at UCU this weekend - we'd both love to see you there!

UCU Vendor: Silent Goddess

photo from Silent Goddess' Etsy Shop

Over on the Urban Craft Uprising blog, they post interviews with all their vendors in the weeks leading up to the show. When I read Silent Goddess' interview, I instantly fell in love with her minimalist design aesthetic. The clean lines are so calming and beautiful. It really lets the texture shine - literally!

We'll be vending at Urban Craft Uprising this weekend. If you're in Seattle, we'd love to see you!

A Lollipop in Every Stocking

photo by Kevin Keeker

One of the things that people tell us when they buy a dozen of our lollipops is, "Oh, I can put one in each stocking!" We love hearing that, and what better way to make sure there aren't any fights by giving everyone the same flavor? Plus, if you don't have 12 stockings to fill up, you get the extras. :)

Buy your stocking stuffers over at our Etsy shop.

Brown Paper Packages Tied up with Strings

Planning to order some lollipops from This Charming Candy? Be aware that the holiday shipping deadlines are soon! Well, it's more urgent for international folks. If you live outside the United States, please place your order by November 30th (that's in 2 days). Inside the US, the order deadline is December 18th.

We're going to be taking 3 weeks off after the 18th to spend time with our families. So if you want candy for New Years Eve, those deadlines apply to you too!

etsyRAIN Handmade Holiday Show

The etsyRAIN Handmade Holiday Show is this weekend. Shake off that turkey food coma and head over to the Intiman Theater to buy some fabulous handmade Christmas presents for your friends & family (and maybe even yourself)!

Where: The Intiman Theater in the Seattle Center
When: Saturday & Sunday from 11am - 5pm

There will be swag bags for the first 50 customers to arrive each day, and some of them might even have some lollipop flavor samples....

Happy Thanksgiving

We hope that you and yours are having a great Thanksgiving today!

EtsyRain Vendor: Nikki Wheeler

Lollipop Lollipop 1 from Nikki Wheeler's Etsy Shop

Nikki Wheeler makes amazing quilts, and the tagline on her shop is "Celebrate Exuberant Joy." I can get behind that. I pulled out this image of her Lollipop Lollipop 1 quilt because I like purple, and we like lollipops! She is one of many fabulous vendors who will be at the EtsyRain Holiday show with us this weekend in Seattle. We hope to see you there!

EtsyRain Vendor: Scary White Girl

Jayne Cobb hat from Scary White Girl's Etsy Shop

How AWESOME is this Jayne Cobb hat from Scary White Girl? (If you don't know who Jayne Cobb is, I suggest you go watch Serenity and/or Firefly. It's wonderful.) She is also a Doctor Who fan (check out her Dalek and Tardis plushies), and general all-around great person. We like her. :)

She's one of many wonderful vendors who will be vending with us at the EtsyRain Holiday show this weekend. We hope to see you there!

Party Favors

photo from A to Ziti

One of our customers used our Greatest Hits lollipops to make party favors for an early Thanksgiving dinner party. Doesn't this Salted Caramel lollipop look cute? She wrote up how to make them on her blog, A to Ziti, in case you want to try something similar.

Do you have any photos or stories about how you've used our lollipops? We'd love to hear about it!

Eye Candy: Mount Rainier

National Geographic photo entry, from In Focus

The In Focus blog over at The Atlantic continues to hit home runs with their pictures. Earlier this week, they had an entry with a 45 of photos from the National Geographic Photo Contest. This one is a 6-hour time lapse of Mt Rainier. The bright lines on the mountain are hiking parties headed towards the summit. There are a lot of great photos over there. Check it out!

Lollipop Edges

photo by Kevin Keeker

photo by Kevin Keeker

This is a not-always-seen angle of our lollipops: the sides. It provides a nice contrast to our more typical, straight-on approach. These are our Blueberry Muffin and Pineapple Heaven lolllipops, both in the seasonal Greatest Hits collection.

A Happy Customer!

A happy customer of ours, Nicole, generously sent us these pictures where she's enjoying her lollipops. Here she is ogling her new set of Love Triangle lollipops.

And here she is enjoying a Honey-Jasmine flavored Sweetheart lollipop.

Thanks for sharing, Nicole!

More Storytelling with Lollipops

 I know, I know. I go on (and on and on) about how we tell stories with our lollipops. That was particularly true when Kevin & Susan took all the pictures for our Love Triangle lollipops.

The role of Edward is played by the heart-shaped Blood Sucker. Bella is played by the flowery Sweetheart (since she smells like flowers to Edward). Jacob is represented by the moon-like Lickanthrope.

Jacob is hovering over Bella in a very protective way, while Edward looks like he's glowering at them.

In this one, Edward is protecting Bella while Jacob pleads (or menaces?) them.

This is the photo we eventually went with as the product photo because it looks like Bella is thinking about Jacob and Edward - and like she might be torn between them. (Which, for what it's worth, Susan and I both think that there was never any question of Bella ending up with Edward. She might have been tempted by Jacob, but she never, ever gave up on Edward.)

Do you ever tell stories with inanimate objects? Do you think that Bella could have ended up with Jacob? Which photo is your favorite?

all photos by Kevin Keeker

Breaking Dawn

photo by Kevin Keeker

Did you know that the latest Twilight movie is coming out on Friday? It's the first half of Breaking Dawn, a book that we might have to admit Susan only got partway through and Kate never started. It's the most controversial of the four books, with Twilight readership definitely being divided over it. I'm sure, however, that the Pacific Northwest will look fabulous in the film, and that everything will be luscious and beautiful.

Have you ever read the Twilight novels? Did you read and/or enjoy Breaking Dawn? Are you going to see the movie this week?

If you want to enjoy some delicious Love Triangle lollipops while you watch Breaking Dawn Part I, head over to our Etsy shop.

Eye Candy: Lady Gaga

Just to try to prove we’re not hopelessly mired in the pop culture icons of our youth, let us point out that we’re also enamored of Lady Gaga. Like Madonna before her, we admire how deeply Gaga understands the power of visual imagery and how to make it work for her. To say nothing of her eye-popping fashion creations!

http://www.ladygaga.com/photos/detail.aspx?fid=15816&phid=15824

Near. Far.

Far:

photo by Kevin Keeker

Near:

photo by Kevin Keeker

(Why yes, I do have Sesame Street songs about near & far going through my head.) Do you like the near or the far photo better?

Art or Product Shot?

photo by Kevin Keeker

photo by Kevin Keeker

I love both of these photos, but they didn't make the Etsy cut because I think they're better art than they are product shots of our Salted Caramel lollipops. Honestly, I think these are some of the best photos that Kevin's ever taken for us. But as far as product shots go, I just don't know.

Am I insane? Should we be using these on Etsy?

Greatest Hits 2011

photo by Kevin Keeker

photo by Kevin Keeker

photo by Kevin Keeker

There are the lollipops from our Greatest Hits collection. We love taking photos of our lollipops in piles because... um... we like giant piles of candy. They're bright and colorful and fun!

Hello World

Hello to everyone who's new around here! A quick guide to the wonderful world of This Charming Candy:

• You are currently reading our blog. We try to update it most every weekday. We like sharing product photos, talking about promotions we're doing, giving details for shows we're doing, or anything else business related. Except on Fridays, when we post either about hockey or anything we like that falls under Eye Candy. It's been awhile since we've talked about hockey.
• If you want to see a list of the different lollipop collections we sell, our products page can help you out!
• Head over to our Etsy shop to buy some candy (note that you'll need to create an Etsy account). We've got a lot to choose from over there. Let us know if you have any questions!
• If you live in the Seattle area, you can also stop into The Wandering Cafe - 7533 Lake City Way NE - on Monday afternoons to buy candy from us. If you have a big/complex order, please email us ahead of time.
• We will also sell lollipops at some upcoming holiday craft shows in Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco - check the blog sidebar for dates!
• We have a Facebook page! We try to post different things over there than we do on the blog, and we do have the occasional Facebook-only deal. 
• We're also on twitter. Twitter is probably the most relaxed, least formal place we talk to folks. It's definitely where we're the most active. I've warned you.

That's it! We encourage commenting here or on Facebook or twitter - we like talking to people! 

Susan's on Television!

Tomorrow morning, Susan will be on TV!

Kaci Aitchison from Q13 Fox in Seattle will join Susan in the kitchen tomorrow to make lollipops, talk about our flavors, and all of the awesomeness that is This Charming Candy. Kaci has a regular segment called Mornings with Kaci where she goes out into the community to show off a local business or attraction. I was watching her dress like a zombie and dance to Thriller at a local haunted house this morning (in a segment from back in mid-October). We're the local attraction tomorrow! So tune in or visit their website to see Susan on your television.

Snohomish Holiday Craft Bazaar

We are selling our fabulous, sophisticated lollipops at the Snohomish Craft Bazaar in Snohomish, WA this weekend! So if you live in the area, head on over to Snohomish tomorrow and pick up some lollipops. They make great table decorations and stocking stuffers. Not to mention that they're yummy.

What: Snohomish Holiday Craft Bazaar
Where: Emmanuel Baptist Church, Snohomish, WA
When: Saturday Nov 5th, 10am - 4pm

We hope to see you there!

Snohomish Holiday Craft Bazaar Vendor: MISCRoot

image from MISCRoot.etsy.com

These birds are beautiful! MISCRoot is an etsy seller who makes amazing mobiles. These lovely birds are part of her Birds Nest Mobile - there's a corner of my office that might need to be brightened up with one of these.

She and we will be at the Snohomish Holiday Craft Bazaar this weekend. Hope to see you there!

Snohomish Holiday Craft Bazaar Vendor: LipLove

photo from LipLove.etsy.com

We'll be vending at a small show, the Snohomish Holiday Craft Bazaar, up in Snohomish, WA this weekend. LipLove is one of the other vendors who will be there. She makes these amazing looking organic lip balms. I'm intrigued by Pumpkin Pie - it's the perfect flavor for the season!

We hope to see you there!

Salted Caramel

photo by Kevin Keeker

I've been editing a bunch of photos of our Salted Caramel lollipops. This one is, I think, the best of the bunch. I'll let the rest trickle out over the next few weeks.

Trick or Treat

Happy Halloween!

Join us tonight from 4-7pm at The Wandering Cafe to get some free treats! We hope to see you there.

Eye Candy: Marshmallow Eyes

photo from King Arthur Flour Blog

I really like the King Arthur Flour blog. It's a great company blog that shows its customers all the delicious, creative things you can bake (and even some things you can't). They had a post this week all about hot chocolate, in which they also showed you how to make various kinds of marshmallow eyes to have floating in your hot chocolate. It's nice and creepy for Halloween. :)

Offbeat Bride!

We are proud to be a featured vendor on Offbeat Bride! They're a great resource if you want your wedding to be a little more you and a little less giant bridal-industrial complex. Visit Offbeat Bride for great ideas to make your wedding the best it can be!

Behind the Scenes

photo by Kevin Keeker

In case you were ever curious what our lightbox set-up looks like from a distance.

Crafty Wonderland!

image from Crafty Wonderland

There's a list of upcoming craft shows we'll be vending at on the sidebar of our blog. You can go look for it. We'll wait. We're patient that way. You'll notice that we're going to be in Portland, OR on Dec 10 & 11 for Crafty Wonderland! What you may not know is that if you order from This Charming Candy on Etsy between now and Dec 8th or so *and* your address is in the Portland area, you'll get a 10% off coupon that you can use at our booth at Crafty Wonderland. So if you live in Portland and need a sugar fix between now and then, go ahead and order.

Last Minute Halloween Orders!

photo by Kevin Keeker

Still need some last-minute lollipops for Halloween? We've got plenty ready to ship! Head over to our Etsy shop today and place your order now. After today, we can't know if your candy will get to your house before Halloween.

Eye Candy: Madonna

I know, posting with glowing affection about Michael Jackson and now Madonna reveals just how “child of the 80’s” I am. I won’t apologize. I’m still blown away by Herb Ritts’ photos of her (fair warning, there are –gasp– nudes among his gallery photos. Don’t be too shocked!).

The classic is the True Blue album cover, a piece of vinyl I treasured in middle school:

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Truebluealbum.jpeg)

I still adore the “Cherish” music video, which he directed:

Madonna - Music - More Music Videos

And I recently spent some time just happily browsing the True Blue Anniversary photo album on Madonna’s facebook page. Many of the photos in there are ones that he took. They’re gorgeous. She’s gorgeous.

Do you have a favorite celebrity photographer? What’s your favorite “look” from Madonna’s career?

Exposure!

photo by Kevin Keeker

This? This is what an overexposed photo of a dozen Salted Caramel lollipops looks like. We will not be using this on Etsy to sell our candy. :)

Working Within Constraints

Warning: this is not a typical This Charming Candy blog post.

One of the things you learn when running a small business is that there are a lot of constraints - mainly on your time and your money. You can't just throw money around and god knows there's never enough time to get everything done.

A story: I co-run the strings program at my daughter's elementary school. She's been taking group violin lessons for about 3 years now; this is an after-school music program. Most music programs are these days, what with state education funding drying up and federal standards focusing on reading and math. She's also started choir this year - she loves to sing and this gives her a great outlet. Both of these programs give her, and the other kids at her school, a great outlet for their emotions and it's a great learning opportunity for them. I've worked with my daughter to help recognize patterns in the music and she loves making music.

But these programs, along with band, are all funded solely by parent donations, and a different parent runs each program; one program, choir, even spans two elementary schools. And sometimes, today being one of those times, the inefficiency of that frustrates me beyond belief.

It would be so much more efficient, time-wise, if one person could coordinate all the musical programs across all the elementary schools. That person would could schedule all the concerts, could know what facilities are available when, could cut deals to buy sheet music, and who could develop relationships with the local businesses who rent instruments and the press who could write up a heartwarming story or two about kids learning music. The school district can't afford to fund that position, they can barely fund the bare bones these days.

Instead, it's a mishmash of people pulling together what they have because their kids want to play music. It's frustrating. Sometimes I want to cry and throw things. We work with the budget constraints we have - and the kids don't care. They just know that they get to play instruments or sing or be in a program they like with their friends. Most of the time, I see how happy the kids are and how much they're learning and it doesn't matter. I'm happy that we've found a way to help the kids express themselves and learn something about music.

And, to me, there's a business lesson there. One of our business goals is to make people happy with sugar on a stick. Susan and I wish we had unlimited time to do everything we wanted and unlimited money so we could make as much candy as possible and get it to every single person in the world. But we can't. So we look at the customers we have made happy and we figure out how to make a few more happy in the next week/month/quarter/year with the time and money we've got.

In short: we love you guys.

Back to our regularly scheduled bloggery.

Pictures Tell Stories

There are really only a couple of small differences between these two photos of our Salted Caramel lollipops, but I feel like they completely change the story the pictures tell.

photo by Kevin Keeker

In the above photo, the focus is on those two lollipops in front - maybe they're walking down the street having a conversation. It's the two lollipops in the background that make me think that, since they could *also* be walking down the street. I'd get a completely different image in my head of what was going on if they weren't there.

photo by Kevin Keeker

A small change in focus and positioning of one lollipop suddenly makes me think that this one lollipop is peering at something - a computer screen or a painting in a museum (we have the perspective of the screen or painting) - with everyone else starting to gather around to see what's so interesting.

It amazes me how such small differences completely change the story I tell myself about the photos.

Subscribe & Save—Lollipop Delivery

One of the most rockin’ items we offer is six months of lollipop delivery – in which you receive six lollipop collections for the price of five. About half of the candy subscriptions we’ve sold have been gifts, confirming what we suspected to be true: our customers are awesome, thoughtful, and generous :-)

photo by Kevin Keeker

Whether the subscription is a gift or not, I always handwrite a little note each month to say hi, introduce the lollipop flavors, and remind the recipient of which month of the six they’re receiving. Right now I’m weaning myself off mass-produced cards and transitioning to cards created by our artistic colleagues in the handmade community.

I’ve got a few lovely cards made from vintage wallpaper by Sydney Designs, and I was thrilled to get these sweet cards featuring an image of the vintage Atari joystick, by Rakkadeer, among my Schoolhouse Craft conference swag:

photo by Susan Dziadosz

If you’re a subscriber, watch for ‘em! If you’re not a subscriber, why not become one today?

Eye and Ear Candy: Billie Jean

Kate and I think this is still such a fantastic video, all these years later. We love the mad style of MJ’s incredibly shiny (and short) pants, spectator shoes, little tie, and jacket lapels. We love the video storyline. Most of all we love his outsized talent and dancing ability.

THE KID IS NOT MY SON…

What's your favorite Michael Jackson song/video?

Boo!

photo by Kevin Keeker

We would be remiss if we didn't point out that Halloween was only a couple of weeks away! Our little ghost is excited about her Maple Sugar lollipop. Order your Halloween candy from This Charming Candy on Etsy before October 24th to make sure it gets to you in time!

The First Shall Be Last

YAY, DELAWARE!!

It’s been a over a year since we published an update to this post about everywhere we’ve shipped to. In that intervening time, we shipped to all of those remaining states except Delaware, which remained stubbornly beyond our grasp. Such a tiny state – the first state! – and such a lengthy holdout.

We've just passed our 2-year anniversary of selling lollipops on Etsy, and we are thrilled all out of proportion to say that a customer recently purchased a gift to be shipped to a lucky resident of Delaware.

Offbeat Bride @ Geek Girl Con

The only downside to participating in Urban Folk Art last weekend is that we missed the first ever Geek Girl Con here in Seattle. We are mathematicians and former high-tech workers, we are fans of Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars, Dr. Who, the X-Files and the collected works of Joss Whedon. And we are feminists who love interrogating the intersections of gender and sci-fi. Dang this blasted timing!

Even though we didn’t get to celebrate geek girl culture en masse, This Charming Candy had a wee little presence at the event, via another equally awesome avenue – the Offbeat Empire, whose Sunday afternoon panel, “Rocking the geek niche: Nerdiness is your superpower” sounds pretty sweet indeed.

So what’s our connection to all this? Offbeat had a pre-con party on Friday night, and we contributed some swag to the goody bags!

First, we got some postcards from Moo.com that show all of our lollipop label colors (the reverse side is about our custom label service):


We slipped those into re-sealable sleeves from Uline…


… like so!


We happened to have 75 extra lollipop bags with custom initials (J+S and T+Z) on hand…


… so we tucked them along with a lollipop into the plastic sleeve…


… like so!


Those stupid strips that cover the sticky stuff were totally static-y and stuck to my hand…


Aaaaand here’s what the 115 finished swag items looked like:


Did you attend Geek Girl Con? Which sessions did you go to? If you attended the Offbeat Empire pre-con party and received our swag in your bag, please let us know what you think of it!