Back to Work

This isn't, strictly speaking, Friday eye candy. There's no picture or video, but it is a podcast that I've been loving lately. It's called Back to Work, and it's about how to get your work done faster and better. And while that's cool, it's definitely not Lifehacker (which I enjoy, but it can be hard to find the signal in the noise sometimes). It's how to get things done wrapped up in a lot of personal philosophy and pointing out that nothing works for everyone and it's your job, as the listener, to figure out what works and what doesn't FOR YOU. That last bit gets lost a lot, I think.

I got the pointer from an interview that Moxie did somewhere. And everyone knows that Moxie is awesome.

Mother's Day Gift Idea: Fruit Basket

photo by Kevin Keeker

We've previously talked about our Lollipop Collection of the Month and Salted Caramel Subscriptions as great Mother's Day presents. But maybe you've already got a great present planned and you need a little something as the icing on the cake (as it were)? No problem! Consider buying only one of our collections.

May we suggest the Fruit Basket? It's our newest collection, and focuses only on popular fruit flavors, albeit with the twist that makes all of This Charming Candy's flavors unique. Guava Colada is quickly becoming the favorite, but Pineapple Heaven, Watermelon-Basil, and Triple Berry are all fabulous.

Buy your Mother's Day present by May 1st!

Mother's Day Gift Idea: Salted Caramel Lollipops

photo by Kevin Keeker

Yesterday's post about our Lollipop Collection of the Month assumes that your mom hasn't tried our lollipops. Maybe she has. Maybe she's got a favorite flavor, and quite likely that flavor is Salted Caramel. Maybe she'd like 4 dozen Salted Caramel lollipops spread out around the year, one on mother's day and one on her birthday and another on Christmas and another one on some other day that only she (and you) knows about.

If her favorite flavor is something else - Guava Colada or Birthday Cake, say - contact us, and we can make it happen!

Buy your Mother's Day present by May 1st.

Mother's Day Gift Idea: Lollipop Collection of the Month

photo by Kevin Keeker

Did your mom always have candy around the house while you were growing up? (Or maybe other sweets - I'm personally a big cookie fan.) Was she always trying a new sweet shop or a new bakery to see how their cakes and candies tasted?

If so, one of our monthly subscriptions might be the Mother's Day present you're looking for. We'll send a different collection of our lollipops each month for 6 months. That way, she'll get to satisfy her sweet tooth and try all our flavors without being overwhelmed by getting all our flavors at once. We know of at least one mom who's bought the subscription for herself for just those reasons!

Buy a subscription by May 1st in order for delivery by Mother's Day.

Eye Candy: Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams

This Friday Eye Candy is brought to you by my family's first-ever visit to Yosemite. We did not hike Half-Dome (the mountain in the picture), but we will someday.

More Photos!

photo by Kevin Keeker

We increased the number of lollipops in our Breakfast Tray collection from 6 to 8.* That clearly meant we needed to take new pictures, right? You can see the updated pictures in our Etsy shop!

photo by Kevin Keeker

* Breakfast Tray flavors have expanded to include Blueberry Muffin, Hazelnut-Coffee, Sweetened Grapefruit, and Maple Sugar.

It's Baaaaaa-ack!

photo by Kevin Keeker

 No, not the ghosts from Poltergeist, silly! We've brought back Hazelnut-Coffee. Formally known as Lickanthrope, we've moved it from our retiring Love Triangle collection to our Breakfast Tray.

photo by Kevin Keeker

This is the next step in moving all of our collections from 6-packs to 8-packs. Spice Rack will be transitioning next, so watch this space!

Saying Thanks

photo by Nora at Create

Nora, one of our customers, posted some lovely photos of our lollipops in some of her handmade thank you notes.

We thought they were lovely and wanted to pass the link on to you so you could see how she did it!

Give Props to the Props

We had a lot of fun playing around with a new prop during the recent Fruit Basket and Friends photo shoot. It’s a flowerpot with what I guess you’d call curved metal stems that have metal clips shaped like flowers on the ends. We clipped the lollipops in place and snapped a bunch of pictures, such as this one:

photo by Kevin Keeker

You can see Pistachio-Marshmallow in the center, Sweetened Grapefruit on the left, Pineapple Heaven in the lower right. Maple Sugar is hanging off the right edge, and a few other lollipops are visible in the way back.

It looks pretty cool in person – I’m not sure the photo does it justice! The lollipops fan out around that white pot and it’s hard to capture the whole scene at once. I think displaying the lollipops as the flowers or fruits of a little plant is really cool.

Lollipops for Easter!

photo by Kevin Keeker

We've been so excited to share all our beautiful Fruit Basket photos with you, that we've let Easter fall by the wayside. How could we do that? It's one of the best candy holidays of the year! Easter is April 24th this year, which means we'll need to ship your candy on April 18th for you to receive it in time. So place your orders this weekend!

Wouldn't these Triple Berry lollipops look great in your Easter basket?

photo by Kevin Keeker

Cary Grant

We all agree that Cary Grant is Mr Charming, but somehow we can't make this work as a This Charming Candy photo. Though the Guava Colada lollipop *is* stunning. 

photo by Kevin Keeker

Do you want lollipops in your Easter basket? Order by April 18th!

Behind the Scenes at a Photoshoot

Y'all know that we sometimes snap random, fun photos while we're getting things set up to take the Etsy pictures. Here are a few from our last photoshoot.

Marika adjusting the lollipops
photo by Kevin Keeker

Marika (r) and Kate (l) getting the lollipops all set for their
moment in the spotlight.
photo by Kevin Keeker

Figuring out how this is all going to look
photo by Kevin Keeker

Laser Jet, aka This Charming Cat, investigating what's going on.
photo by Kevin Keeker

Do you want lollipops in your Easter basket? Order by April 18th!

The Background Makes the Difference

We spend a lot of time fiddling with the background of our lollipop pictures. During our recent Fruit Basket photoshoot, we started with this:

photo by Kevin Keeker

One glance told us it was too far away. So we moved in closer:

photo by Kevin Keeker

We still weren't quite happy, so we pulled out the dishes and just went with the flowers.

photo by Kevin Keeker

And we thought: hm. That's pretty good. Until Marika, our new photo stylist, quickly switched out the napkin for a brighter one and red flowers.

photo by Kevin Keeker

Much brighter and springier! That's the one you'll see in our Etsy shop Fruit Basket listings.

Do you want lollipops in your Easter basket? Order by April 18th!

Our Very Own Carmen Miranda

photo by Kevin Keeker, hat by Marika Brussel

Our Watermelon-Basil lollipop spotted this Carmen Miranda hat and couldn't wait to try it on. Doesn't she look cute?

Eye Candy: Michael Wolff

More like brain candy, or maybe business candy. A great video about design and branding.

Telling Stories about Lollipops

photo by Kevin Keeker

In this photo, I like to imagine the starlet Triple Berry is being flanked by her handlers, Guava Colada and Pineapple Heaven, as she dashes from the studio to her waiting car.

Lollipops in Shadow

photo by Kevin Keeker

Sometimes the best photos are the ones that we take just for fun. I love this one of the Fruit Basket lollipops nestled in the dark shadows.

All Collections Will Be 8-Packs

As we mentioned in a previous post, the new Fruit Basket collection is breaking new ground for us - it's a quartet of flavors, instead of our usual trio. And it's inspired us to re-imagine all of our existing trios as quartets.

photo by Kevin Keeker

It'll take us a little while to make the transitions, but here's what you can expect to happen in the coming months:

Breakfast Tray welcomes Hazelnut-Coffee

We're temporarily retiring the Love Triangle trio, where Hazelnut-Coffee has previously been available. And while coffee can certainly be enjoyed at any time of day or night, we thought it made a nice match with the breakfast-inspired flavors.

Spice Rack will include Nutmeg Crème

It's always seemed a little strange to us and to some of our customers that a flavor that uses spice, namely Nutmeg Crème, isn't part of the Spice Rack. But from now on, it will be!

More new flavors on the way!

The move of Nutmeg Crème into the Spice Rack means that we'll be looking for two new flavors to join Teaberry and Pistachio-Marshmallow in the Adventurer's Pack. We'll also be looking for one new flavor to round out the Celebration Time collection. Stay tuned for news on those fronts… And if you're a local customer in the Seattle area, send email to thischarmingcandy [at] gmail.com if you're interested in being part of upcoming taste testing research.

If you've got comments, questions, or suggestions about these changes, please post them in the comments below. Thanks!

Watermelon-Basil: Yes, Really

If you’re familiar with This Charming Candy, you know how much we love combining spices with sweet flavors:

• Tangerine-Clove
• Apple-Anise
• Vanilla-Cardamom
• Nutmeg Crème

Well, we couldn’t resist looking for another unique flavor combination when we were doing our Fruit Basket “R&D” in February. We tried and rejected a few spices, who we won’t humiliate by naming them here. They have delicate feelings, you know. But when we turned to herbalicious basil, we discovered that, if used sparingly, we had something with a lot of potential for greatness.

photo by Kevin Keeker

The first order of business was to find the best fruit partner for basil. Enter one of our favorite taste testing events: the Deathmatch! We put two basil blends up against one another and decreed that our tasters could only vote for one of them (in the event that they liked both).

Again, we won’t shame the losing flavor by naming it here, especially because most of our tasters did indeed like both blends. But when they were forced to choose only one blend, Watermelon-Basil emerged as their overwhelming selection. Most Deathmatches are not quite this conclusive, so it was exciting to see the results. We feel confident that you’ll adore that subtle hint of basil’s earthiness combined with the sweet sweet nectar of watermelon flavor.

Buy our Watermelon-Basil lollipops as a dozen or as part of our new Fruit Basket collection.

Eye Candy: Carmen Miranda

from Musicweb International

I found this awesome Carmen Miranda picture when we were looking at inspiration for taking the Fruit Basket photos. We ended up not using it - and I'm thrilled with the bright and sunny photos that we did take - but I still love how happy and shiny she looks!