Celebrity Gifting

Celebrity gifting is when a company send their item to a celebrity in hopes that it gets worn by them and noticed by others. It's great publicity, especially if you can get a picture of the celeb with your item.

There are companies who do this for a living and even have co-ops for businesses to split the expense. So, not only do I GIVE the celebrity one of my items for FREE, I pay to have my item sent to them in a gift basket (usually hundreds of dollars).

Is it just me, or does that sounds insane?

Merry Chrismukkah!

My husband's family is Jewish and mine is Catholic so we celebrate both holidays now. Even before the kids were thought of and before we were married, living on Long Island, I would put up a small tree in our rental and we would decorate it with blue and silver bulbs and call it our "Hanukkah tree." This has actually become a tradition now each year.

I started a new one this year.... trying to prepare Hanukkah foods. Dylan is a picky eater so I thought this was a good opportunity to try some new foods. I made potato Latkes, homemade applesauce and pastry puffs. Dylan tried the Latkes... which he ate at first but then decided he didn't like them very much. He then gave them to baby brother and ate the rest of his applesauce. Evan had no complaints! We then had our pastry puff and there is no question that everyone liked those... fried with sugar :D

I wish I would have remembered this sooner, but a couple years ago, I found this site: www.chrismukkah.com
It has everything one needs for Chrismukkah!

Bubele Chocolate Sale!

I am having a sale on all Bubele Chocolates! I am trying to make some room for more inventory, so I now have all this season's colors/patterns 30% off!

I think this has been by far my most popular colors so far and I definitely will have them back next year.

Stress

I think I have hit my limit of stress!

I knew I was stressed out about a lot of things, but mostly about my one business(Not Bubele). I also produce clothing for other designers. I use the same factories for orders which leaves me up half the night most of the time negotiating prices, terms, details, etc. Then, I have to wake up with the kids and handle the customers, who are mostly from the U.S. I am running in and out of my home office all day answering emails, going over details, etc.

Luckliy Adam is now working from home to take on some clients and lessen my load, but the transition has been tough. I am still overworked and it's showing. I am grinding my teeth at night so bad it stripping away my enamel!! What happend to the promise I made 18 months ago that I would live a simple life?

To top it off, because of what happend 18 months ago, I have hormone issues that came from all the blood loss. So, mommy is very cranky for about 2 weeks.... it's great being a woman!! :D

Handmade bibs

I have decided to continue to sew the bibs myself for now instead of doing a mass production of these. I have had some interest in them and I know I could sell them if I did a mass production but I have recently had a TON of poly knit fabric delivered to me. I use this fabric for the neck rolls on the bib.

I have decided that it may be a good time to experiment with different fabrics on the front and back of the bib to see what sells better. I am going to pair up colorful prints with the plush neck rolls and see where it takes me! I am also going to sew matching burp cloths- just a simple burp cloth but with bamboo fleece on one side.

It's official!

I finally received my "official" certificate of trademark for bubele!

It's funny because once you apply for a trademark, the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) sends out little post cards that say you have registered, then again when it's been updated in their system and I think I received a few of these so I just assumed everything was all said and done. It's been a year since I applied and low and behold! I get this is the mail- much prettier than a post card! ;)

Getting Organized: Home and Office

Even though I do work out of my home office,and it is technically the same thing, they do have to be organized differently. For home, I have to organize to make it more efficient for us as parents and kid friendly. I am trying to find a way to minimize the "junk" in our lives. It seems that we have more than what we need and stuff just sits around. It doesn't help that our house is not finished so it is difficult to put things away in "it's place" if it doesn't exist yet :)

So, I have been organizing the office to make it more efficient. Especially for Bubele. I recently reorganized the website and came across the problem of items not being in stock because of poor inventory management. (Who do I fire for that?) So, I decided that all items need be be organized in small bins by color and size. This is a nightmare with small baby items but it is almost done!!