Share our Success: WilmothFarms

Our very own Rachel Blanton of Wilmothfarms soaps was featured in the News-Enterprise paper today on October 7th 2009 !

We are so proud of you Rachel! The write up was great and so were the pictures! Congratulations and here is to your continued success on Etsy and Artfire and also Locally! You go girl!

Feature Friday: Wandering Whimsies

Today we feature Belinda Johnson of Wandering Whimsies, a talented member of our Bluegrass Etsy Team!


How did you first hear about etsy?

The first time I heard about etsy was several years ago while I was sitting in the school parking lot waiting to pick up my son. I always carry a project to work on, no matter where I'm at, and the lady parked next to me was sewing also. We started talking about crafts and the local shows coming up. I told her about my website and she told me about etsy and her shop.


Tell us about a little about yourself and your favorite craft/art!

I'm located in Radcliff, KY, just outside of Ft. Knox. We are retired Navy and when the US Army offered my husband a job here, we packed up and relocated one last time. I'm now a stay at home Mom with two teenagers (one a freshman and one is a senior) and work full time on my crafts. I have my etsy shop, a .com website, wholesale to specialty giftshops around the country and do several craft shows a year.

My favorite craft is sewing! I love primitive country decor and enjoy designing and creating my stitcheries, little "critters" (such as my sheep) and seasonal items, like pumpkins and snowmen.

How did you get started as a designer?

I was taught to embroider and sew at a young age by my mom, aunt and grandmothers and it's always been something I've done. As an adult, I spent my spare time working on projects and doing craft shows wherever we were stationed.

What inspires you to create?

Anything can be an inspiration! Things I see, something that someone says, a piece of fabric, etc. It stays in the back of my mind until an idea just "clicks". My best ideas seem to happen right before I fall asleep or in the middle of the night! My husband isn't concerned anymore when I get up to write down an idea or sketch a rough pattern.


How long have you been a member of Bluegrass etsy and how did you hear about the team?

I joined the Bluegrass team near the beginning of this year. I kept reading in the forums about being part of a team. So I checked all the teams listed (and there are quite a few) that sounded interesting and I may have common interests with.


Any advice you would give to aspiring designers?

To keep working at what you like to do, don't be afraid to try something new and challenging; and above all, never give up! Keep going even though you may want to quit - success, personal and otherwise, doesn't happen overnight.

*****************

Thanks Belinda for the interview. It was great learning more about you and we are happy that you selected Bluegrass etsy when you were looking for a team!

To see more of Belinda's art and craft, please visit her Wandering Whimsies etsy shop!

Team Meeting In Bernheim Forest Fall 2009

Our team meeting at beautiful Bernheim Forest was a blast! We went over quite a few topics during our meeting thanks to the impeccable organization skills of Kim Ries, who made an agenda of topics that need attention from the team.

First thing was handing out a team roster, this is invaluable to all of us since we want to encourage shopping within the team, and its nice to be able to have an easy way to contact other members for networking. The team roster is available for download if any member would like it please contact me or Kim and we can send you the file.

We talked about our ad coming in the October-December issue of Arts Across Kentucky. Kim passed around the printed out ad to show how it will look in the magazine. Many many thanks to our resident graphic designer Brandy of WickedSisterDesigns for designing this ad for us, it will make each of us so proud to see it in print!

We talked about our monthly giveaway, and have taken sign ups into next year for this. We will be having 2 giveaways in October so get ready!!

We talked about the samples box that our wonderful Jackie Alberti (Of Kentucky WIld weeds fame) of Glorybeherbals will be accepting donations of samples for the box which will be sold in our team shop to raise funds for the team treasury. Anyone wanting to send a donation for her box can contact Jackie.

We also talked about membership issues...this has been a hot topic all year since we do have a large portion of the team that is not active in any way. We will be taking action in the next few days to hopefully thin out the team a bit and get us into one smaller and more organized and active group that can have each member promoting the team and their fellow team mates on various social networks to help us all gain more overall sales and boost ALL of our shops popularity.

We all had a wonderful lunch served by Isaacs Cafe, All the food was large portions and in my opinion very much worth the money spent. The vegetables were very tasty and very fresh. Everything we got looked so delicious I wished I had more than one stomach! I would definitely go back there with my family just to hang out and eat! Thanks so much to Carolyn of CowgirlRosie fame for running our lunch orders over there, and many many thanks to the staff at Isaacs for preparing such a wonderful delicious and nutritious lunch for our team! We needed the extra vitamins after all that talking and trading we did!

We got to hear some wonderful stories from our members. One such story was the story of Angus McEwan. He is the handsome ram/sheep that is pictured to the right and at the top. He apparently was a very naughty boy and got his twitter account deleted....now he spends his time blogging about the Whimsybeading husband and wife team of Kelly and Joey Graves. Thanks guys for bringing Angus - he made my day! I hope he didn't cause any trouble on the way home.


We got to meet with two of our newest members of a sewing team called SewFriendzy. They create gorgeous dog leashes, beds and other pet wares. Leighann brought a beautifully made halloween bag with a kitty applique on it to the meeting...I left with it! My daughter adores kitties and I had to have it for her! Her work is VERY professional and this is coming from a long time seamstress. I highly recommend checking them out if you're in the market for an item for your pet.If you are a jewelry lover, one member does jewelry! Her shop HumanKindness is full of treasures to behold! Many warm welcomes to our newest members of the team! Its a pleasure to have you all!

In summary it was an awesome day and we get to get together again very soon as we will be having a Christmas get together at Brendans on Shelbyville Road in Louisville on Dec 12th. Thanks so much to Joey Graves for setting this up for us I cant wait to try that Veggie Quesadilla Kelly mentioned! This venue serves alcohol so bring your designated driver and goods to swap! I am so looking forward to getting together once again with the team for good times, lots of laughs and trading!


Team photo from left to right:
Libby Goldsmith ( Mayleesgarden )
Kelly Graves (Whimsybeading)
Carolyn Campbell (Cowgirlrosie)
Joseph Graves (Whimsybeading) Angela Latham (Spoolofplenty)
Paulena ( Paulena )
And our wonderous meeting organizer who deserves more than a thousand thank yous for all her hard work for the team, Kim Ries (Creativeeyestudio)

Not pictured but who came to the meeting (we were having so much fun we forgot about pictures till it was time to go!)
Toni of Vernon Ave (Who by the way is having an article about her in the new issue of Haute Handbags! GO TONI!)
Leighann and Sherry from SewFriendzy
Tina Mackin from SmackinArt
And Asha from MisfitDreamers

Thanks so much to all who were able to come out, and next big meeting hopefully will be in the spring in Lexington!

Bluegrass Cookin: Deep Fried Candy Bars

Welcome to my first installment of Bluegrass Cookin'! It is my goal to bring you unhealthy sinful treats you can make right in your own kitchen with as few ingredients as possible to make an awesome treat! Of course from time to time I may bring HEALTHY choices, but for now lets do the fun stuff. Now lets get cookin'!

Today I bring you: Deep Fried Candy bars!!!!

I had an oppurtunity to go to the mega spectacular Heartland Music festival in Elizabethtown and while I was there I was tempted by the smells of sausage and onions cooking, cotton candy being spun, and deep fried candy bars! I stood and watched carefully the nice man who was serving up these treats and I uncovered a secret...they use funnel cake batter. Or you can use my recipe and have a batter almost as awesome!

The nitty Gritty:

*1 cup of self rising flour ( who has time to mess with baking powder!)
*5 or more tablespoons of sugar (I recommend Turbinado cause its healthier)
* 1 egg
*water/soy or rice milk or regular milk use enough to make a batter that is thinner than pudding but thicker than water...kinda like a pancake batter. (Sorry I never measure this part!)
*vegetable oil to fill the smallest pan you got. These arent very big so you don't need a huge pan. Its best to cook one at a time.
*And last but not least you need packs of those "fun size" candy bars. Snickers, Milky Way, Reese's cups, whatever your favorite is! You can also use Oreos for this too!


How to pull it off:

Mix up all the above ingredients with the exception of the candy bars. While you're doing this, put the oil in the pan and fire it up on medium heat. You don't want the oil TOO hot but you want it hot enough to start cooking the batter as soon as you drop these puppies in there.

Once your oil is hot, and your batter mixed up, let's get busy!

Take some tongs and pick up a candy bar...dont eat it! resist the temptation! Drop it in the batter and get it coated REAL good. Make sure its a pretty thick layer. Drop it all in the hot oil....turn when one side is brown. They should float on top of the oil too, so turning is tricky.

When your candies are nice and golden brown, take them out with the tongs and put them on a paper towel to drain real good.

Resist temptation to eat, and repeat this process till you have enough candy bars to feed the crowd that has now gathered around you.

You can sprinkle these with powdered sugar if you wish! Best served warm and melty. With vanilla ice cream is best.

Sorry I do not have pictures of the finished product as my son and I ate them all before I thought about posting the recipe! Boy were they GOOOD!

Share our Success: Pearlbuds

Our very own Pearlbuds was featured in a really interesting article called "All Atwitter About Tweeds" That is on handmadenews.org

If you click the highlighted word "tote" in the article you see this GORGEOUS tote.

Lets all give Miss Stacy a big pat on the back for some recognition for her AMAZING work!

GO STACY!

Finding Serenity in Kentucky:Part 1

Last weekend my family journeyed to Lake Cumberland. We have a tradition amongst my siblings and me, that on your birthday you can plan any activity and we all join you. My sister, Amy, asked we plan the first weekend in June (for her 34^th Birthday) to camp and enjoy the lake.

I should tell you, we are not campers, so there was quite a bit of shopping prior to the trip, simply to acquire tents and other basic necessities when camping. At least it was not roller coasters, which was Amy’s 30^th Birthday trip to Cedar Point Amusement Park.

We reserved camp sites at Waitsboro Recreation, where the view from any site is breath taking. Everyone set up camp Friday night. Then we gathered for a bon fire, a few drinks and good conversation. We were also entertained by my 2 year old niece, Lucy, who snuck a few sips of orange soda earlier in the evening. She was quite the little tornado.

We rose Saturday morning and headed to the marina to jump on the boats. There were 14 of us, so we rented a pontoon and used my brother in law and sister’s cruiser. The kids had a great time flying through the air on a tube my sister rented. The rest of us strolled down the Lake Cumberland in the pontoon. The scenery is amazing.

Eventually we settled in a cove where we could swim and eat lunch. My dad taught the little ones to skip rocks and the rest of us floated in the lake. It was very relaxing. One of my favorite parts of the day was following a butterfly with my niece. It was striped yellow and black with very fuzzy body. It fluttered around the pontoon probably for 45 minutes or so. I rested my hand on a yellow t-shirt, which I believe it was particular drawn to. However, I do not know if butterflies can see colors. After a short while, it landed on my fingers and showed off its beautiful wings. Later that afternoon, a striped black and white (zebra print) butterfly circled the boat.

In the evening we returned the boats and headed back to the camp site, where we grilled hamburgers and hot dogs. Again, the scenery was priceless and so inexpensive ($20 a night per camp site). None of us missed our TVs, computers or cell phones. We roasted marshmallows, which was a first for Becca and Lucy and carried on with stories of our childhood.

We were only gone 36 hours, but it felt like we were away for 3 or 4 days. We plan to come back another weekend this summer. Next time, I’ll be prepared with my camera to capture the butterflies.

Happy Campers Becca, Lucy and Shelby

Lucy at Lake Cumberland

Many Thanks to MelodyJune who was kind enough to submit this wonderful article. Looks like it was a great time! Beautiful views!