This year has gone by super fast. Happy Holidays to everyone and a huge thanks to everyone that purchased shirts this year for gifts! Next year will be an even better year as we have big plans and a whole bunch of new ideas for shirt styles!!
Saturday evening we went down to the Niagara Market. This was the first year of the event which lasts 30 days. It was described as being a “European Market” so we were interested in seeing something like this, especially because it might be something for Super Sweet Shirts to think about doing in the future. If you have never been to Niagara Falls, the American side is an armpit. Its terrible. Its nothing but a gigantic casino, and nothing else. This market was a good idea to get people to come visit the area in the winter. It didn’t end up being as big as I thought it was going to be, but for being the first year, it has the potential to be something really cool. Each vendor has its own little wooden hut that you could go into and shop from. Bigger vendors had larger huts that were like big heated tents. We talked the the owner of Sample Restaurant for a few minutes while getting some hot cider and he said that the turnout had been great this season and that he would totally do it again next year. Something to think about for us next year or the following year.
I’m a week late posting these but the shirt orders have been pretty intense and I haven’t had much time for anything. I was all excited this year to go buy a saw, venture out into the woods like Clark Griswold, and get myself a tree. Unfortunately its December and there’s no snow. This winter sucks. I was not in the mood to go get a tree in gorgeous sunny weather. Nicole and I decided to just go down to Home Depot and get a tree. I will never get a fake tree, it needed to at least be real. This was my first time picking out a tree by myself. I had done some reading in my last issue of “This Old House” and it had an article about bringing home your tree hassle free. I was definitely prepared for this. People are so picky when they are looking for their tree. They pull them out one and spin them around to make sure they are all perfect. I just grabbed one that was all tied up. I had no ideas what it was going to look like. It’s a tree. Charlie Brown didn’t care, why should I. Here are some pictures below of our first tree. Now we are going to have to gradually collect ornaments that have meaning.
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| Nicole getting the tree stand ready. |
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| My mom got us these little gems! |
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| My Harry Potter Ornament. |
Things have been crazy heading into the Thanksgiving weekend. With orders coming in and family visiting, it was impossible to stay current on here. The holiday has come and gone, so I now have a little time to ramble. I have some pics from the family gathering we had here the day before Thanksgiving. It was our first little party we’ve had since owning the house and it turned out great.
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| Our dog Ric (left) loves hanging out with my parents dog. |
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| I made two pizzas for the gathering, a Buffalo Chicken pizza and a Mediterranean Pizza. |
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| This is the Mediterranean pizza. I had to remove the tomatoes to get it onto the stone because it was too heavy and I was short on corn meal. |
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| Once I had it on the stone, I was able to complete the toppings. |
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| The Buffalo Chicken pizza was my favorite. Fresh crumbly blue, cooked chicken, and fresh mixed wing sauce, this is always a favorite. |
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| Ric and I both decided to wear Holiday sweaters, only he wasn’t excited… |
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| I posted this even though its blurry just so you can see my new Holiday sweater. |
The Super Sweet Shirt Co. Would like to wish everyone a safe Holiday! Don’t forget about Friday’s Black Friday Sale for free shipping on all items domestic! This is only at our eBay store and our Etsy store! “Like” us on Facebook for coupon codes and details!
We have busted our asses since buying the house with a set of goals that we wanted completed by winter. We would like to thank my Mom, my Stepfather Henry, and my Dad Bob for helping us accomplish everything, it would have been a lot harder to do without their help. New kitchen windows, glass block windows in the basement, roof replacement on the room off the kitchen, and redoing the dining room including a complete tear out off the bay window with new drywall. We are exhausted, but one half of the first floor is totally complete. Here are some pictures of the dining room:
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| Here is a really old picture from when we tore out the kitchen. You can see what the dining room used to look like. |
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| Here is the finished product. |
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| Nicole found an old chandelier at the thrift store that she fixed up with some paint and some TLC. |
Now its time to take a break, at least until the new year!
Christmas orders are starting to come in. Don’t forget to get your orders in as soon as possible to ensure that it arrives on time! This is my favorite time of year, not just because we get busy, but because I love the holidays, cookies, snow, tacky lights, gifts, and booze. I also love special Holiday clothes….like this:
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| I bought this. It hasn’t arrived yet….but I keep checking! |
I posted the new Poe shirt for ladies in all three shops. This shirt caught the attention of many people at the Rochester show and overall, got a good response.
Also this weekend, Nicole and I will attempt to prime the dining room once I finish sanding it tomorrow. I’ll be so relieved when its done.
Nicole and I started dieting. I hate dieting. I love food, but I’m about 10 pounds overweight. We decided to try SparkPeople.com. It’s a free dieting site that has pretty cool Apps for recipes and calorie counting. I’m on day 2 and it hasn’t really been all that bad. I went running yesterday which was sort of brutal but I made it out alive. If I can get back down below 200 I’ll be happy and celebrate with huge bag of candy.
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| This will be my reward if I reach under 200 pounds. The prize at the end of the rainbow. |
This weekend was the Mayday Underground Arts and Crafts Show. We did this show last year and this year it was just as good, if not better! I love getting to see the faces of people that look at our stuff. Being an online business, you never get that experience. It’s also a great way to test new items to see if they are worth carrying. The moss green woman’s Poe shirt caught a lot of eyes and eventually sold. I will have a picture of it this week because I ordered more and decided to carry it. I took the Poe design that I already had and added a twist. I love the way it turned out.
During the show Nicole and I met another vendor at the show who was interested in how I screened the onesies. He was a screen printer also but was at the show selling handmade fairy doors. They were these amazing handmade doors that go in garden’s, etc. Very cool and very original. We eventually started talking about our experiences as screen printers and I mentioned how I was in need of a flash dryer. For those of you that don’t know what this is, it’s an expensive piece of equipment that makes drying/curing inks on shirts a breeze. He mentioned he had one that he had fixed up, that he wasn’t using. He bought it broken from a guy for dirt cheap and fixed it, but has since gotten a new one. I could have sold nothing at this show and could have been happy. We got a flash dryer from this guy and it works great! Christmas will be so much easier to deal with this year. Its been almost two days and I’m STILL totally excited about acquiring this tool! Thanks Again Chris!
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