Red Hot Love: Outtake

The Sweet Valentine lollipops were interesting to photograph because they’re curved on one side (our usual lollipop shape is a flat disc). Let’s take a look at some of the pictures of Red Hot Love, our cinnamon-cherry creation for Valentine’s Day.

We took most of the pictures with the curved side facing forward:

For fun, we flipped it around so the curved side was facing the wall. This changed the way the light passed through to cast the colored shadow. It also created an interesting outline effect on the candy:

In the end we decided this view, while pretty, might be too distracting to use on Etsy. What do you think?

Photos by Kevin Keeker

Valentine's Day

I'm constantly amazed by how beautiful so many things are on Etsy. In honor of Valentine's Day (and to promote our own Sweet Valentine Lollipops), here are a few of the Valentines I found.

two hearts by annieWHERE


Red Heart Earrings by aleia24:


Love Candy - Lemon by jenniferramos



Vintage Typewriter Key Cufflinks by GwenDelicious


Happy Shopping!

Flavor Rotation

As we go introduce new collections and flavors this year, we're also going to phase out some collections and flavors. Not because they've been bad, but because it's easier to manage production with fewer flavors.

The first one that's going to take a break will be Fruit Basket. We won't be making any more of it come the end of February - it's going to make room for the Adventurer's Pack (which will have Pistachio-Marshmallow, Teaberry, and another yet-to-be-announced flavor). So we suggest that if you want to order the Fruit Basket and its yummy Pomegranate, Mango, and Coconut-Caramel flavors, you do it sooner rather than later.

Photo Blooper!

During the same outdoor photoshoot when Kevin took the amazing “Aliens Have Come to Study Us” picture, we also tried posing the lollipops by a little stream. Most of those came out way too dark and not very interesting. And one of them came out looking like total crazytown:

Overexposed, out of focus, colors totally whacked out. And yet, it’s still strangely attractive in a way. Kevin’s been using it as his desktop background!

Photo by Kevin Keeker

May We Suggest: Starry Nights Catering

Is anyone planning an event in the Seattle area? Starry Nights Catering & Events in Kirkland is where we cook our lollipops. It’s a great place, run by great people who make great food and spectacular cakes! Check out their recent work for a Cake Wrecks event. Note: the cake is decidedly not a wreck :-)

Starry Nights having an open house on Saturday Feb 6th where you can check them out. This Charming Candy will be there too, among other vendors.

Here’s the blurb from their site, and link to sign up.

Starry Nights Catering's Winter Open House is February 6th

Are you getting married, organizing a party, or planning a corporate event in the spring or summer? If so, please stop by Starry Nights on Saturday, February 6th from 12-3pm. We'll have food and cake samples, and Chef Matt will be glad to sit down with you and plan that event!

Click here to RSVP now.

Photo: Aliens Have Come To Study Us

Back in the fall, we experimented with taking lollipops outdoors for photoshoots in natural light. One of our all time favorite pictures resulted from this day:

Three lollipops loom in the background, studying with great interest the soft-focused flower in the foreground. Lush green leaves curl in and out of the afternoon shadows.

This photoshoot was totally spur-of-the-moment, and I didn’t have any fresh lollipops ready for it. Not only does this trio of lollipops have a color scheme we don’t use in any of our collections, the pops themselves are old and wrinkly from sitting around in their bags for a long time. You’ll never see this photo in our Etsy store, but we still thought it was quite interesting enough to share here.

Photo by Kevin Keeker