Need a tasty snack between writing? – Or maybe you’ve got some guests coming over for dinner – and you want to serve a lighter desert? Try making my Exotic Rocky Road.
A couple of nights ago I saw a similar recipe made on tv. But the recipe had glaced cherries (sorry if you like them – but yuck) and missed some of my ingredients. I shouldn’t really call this my Exotic Rocky Road recipe – this is my Aunty Chris’s Exotic Rocky Road recipe – and if you happen to stay at her beautiful bed and breakfast, Brezza Bella, you will probably receive a complimentary indulgence in your room. But if you need a delicious chocolate fix sooner – follow these easy steps – to have a beautiful looking – delicious tasting – middle eastern influenced treat.
Ingredients
250 gms best dark chocolate
250 gms best milk chcolate
1/2 a box of your favourite Turkish Delight (use the icing sugar covered – not choclate covered version)
1 cup of pistaccio nuts – shelled unsalted
1 cup peanuts – shelled unsalted
1 cup mini marshmallows or toasted coconut covered ones
Method
Roughly chop the Turkish Delight into smaller pieces
Break up and then melt the Chocolates – either in a bowl over hot saucepan of water or in 30 second spurts in the microwave
Arrange all other ingredients in a slice tray
Pour chocolate over ingredients
Refridgerate for an hour
Turn chocolate out of tray onto a piece of grease proof paper
Using a sharp knife cut into very large chunks
Serve (or scoff)
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Thinking about starting your own blog?
Like to start building a little online business on the side?
Dream of doing something different?
Not sure if you’ve got what it takes.
Well our series Blog Startup – Essentials is a series we’ve put together to help you get your ducks in a row and find out the essential ingredients required for a Blog Startup.
Part One – YOUR thing – Experience and expertise
We’re not talking about technical skills in php to program your blog or marketing expertise to run targeted advertising campaigns (unless thats your thing) what we mean is – YOUR experience and expertise. Something that, along the long road of life, you have acquired a reasonable amount of knowledge about. YOUR thing that you want to centre your blog around. YOUR thing that people want learn about and engage with you in.
My thing
My thing is digital business solutions experience. For the last 13 years I have been involved in the 1′s and 0′s that hold a business together. Everything from building servers and websites to training and supporting people within the business to use the systems.
It’s not something I ever thought I’d be doing through my primary or high school life – I did ok at computers but I never really spent any time thinking about them. My mum and dad did buy me a computer way back in year 7 at high school. But once I’d used the ‘invitation and card making’ software a few times – I got pretty bored. My parents weren’t the least bit interested and no one at home had a need for happy birthday banners printed on our dot matrix printer more than once or twice a year.
By the time the end of high school came I had no clue what I was going to do with myself ‘for the rest of my life’ and the people I had chosen to hang out with were the ‘wrong crowd’ not really providing the kind of peer pressure that encouraged me to do much more than stay out all the time and continue my part time job at the local cafe bakery. Pretty soon my partying lifestyle saw me lose my job there – and I landed at the end of the queue for government employment benefits – or ‘the dole’ as we call it in Australia. A sad waste of potential if ever there was one.
Fortunately I saw an ad for an Information Technology course while waiting in the queue. While completing the course I started working as an office all rounder at a local business and was lucky enough to be ‘selected’ by their IT director as their unofficial IT trainee. It was a fantastic arrangement – my mentor was infinitely knowledgeable and patient. And the success of the business that gave me the opportunity to develop a broad range of IT skills together with experience in training, staff supervision, sales and marketing.
Some seven years later when the business was acquired by a public company I stayed on for the initial transition phase but knew it was time to move on and grow. I went on to do IT and training consulting with a range of different businesses and industries. So technology in business is my thing – I had a natural aptitude for it and am motivated most where I can see a clear need for it – when it becomes ‘enabling’ – achieving more than could be done without it – the whole being more than equal to the sum of its parts. I don’t love programming or tweaking hardware – so there are parts of my ‘thing’ that I don’t charge me up – but I have found a niche within technology that allows me to do what I love while using the expertise I have.
What is YOUR thing?
It might be your profession that you’ve developed over the years. Are you an accountant or a child care worker? It doesn’t matter – what ever your thing is – you can share this on your blog. Other people will benefit from your experience.
Maybe its not your profession – maybe its your hobby. Love knitting? Can you make the best jams? Do you do well with your dog at the Dog Show? People want to share the knowledge you’ve devloped in this hobby.
Another expertise you may have devloped is through life experience – travelled to far east asia? Grown up with OCD? Perhaps you’ve suffered a tragic loss? or maybe you’re planning a major renovation to your home? These too are things that can help other people through sharing through your blog.
So whats your thing?
An essential element to your blog start up is – your thing. The centre of your blog. It is what your followers will come to your blog for. It wont be the only thing you post about but your posts will relate back to your thing.
Spend some time thinking about your thing, maybe you’ve got more than one thing – would they work together or would you choose the best one?
Write your thing down in the middle of a piece of paper – now think of sub-themes of the theme and write these down on the paper drawing a line to the centre theme. Come up with as many sub themes and sub sub themes as you can. Keep this is the beginning of your blog start up plan.
What’s your thing? – this is an essential piece of your blog start up.
Next Blog Startup Essentials post we’ll be looking at your drive. What will be the fuel to keep this blog burning?
While we’re on the net learning and researching great things to share with you we come across some really great looking blogs – blogs that have got everything going for them – blogs we can’t help going back to – blogs we can’t stop thinking about – and blogs we’ve got to tell everyone we know about. Blog Crush.
Our latest Blog Crush is Wolf and Willow
Blogger Blurb
In Her ‘about’ page Nancy describes herself as a freelance writer, designer and craftress.
She writes this about her blog
“Wolf and Willow is a designer’s daily journal, an online visual diary, documenting my inspirations, passions and sometimes frivolous fancies as I attempt to live a beautiful, meaningful and creative life. As an exhaustingly creative person, there’s not much I don’t love learning, making, designing or doing! And it is my mission to share it all with you, the reader.
This blog is my show and tell. From sewing soft toys to decorating my home, baking kitschy cupcakes to illustrating children’s books; to follow this blog is to join me on my creative adventures and discover who and what inspires me!”
What we love
What can I say – there’s really nothing not to absolutely love about this little blog. Beautiful typography and rainbow ice cream colours remind us of pretty girly times from our chilhood.
She has some great little crafting projects all with beautiful photography to boot.
Wolf and willow was also voted as a winner of the Lovelies for Design Inspiration. – http://loveliesaward.blogspot.com/
If you’re looking for some pretty inspiration – or delicious eye candy – go take a look at Wolf and Willow
http://wolfandwillowblog.com/
Part of the attraction to a blogging or web-based business is the portability. No longer tied to a desk or even an office – you can work at a cafe, near the beach – on holiday really anywhere with Internet connectivity. And unless you are only planning on working from Internet cafes – you’ll probably be taking your laptop with you.
If you’re like me – you didn’t choose to buy a case when you bought yours – they add a chunk of cost and they don’t look particularly stylish.
So I’ve been on the market for a new one for quite a while now.
We’ve rounded up 3 of our favourites
Janine King Design – Totes
We like because they are:
- a great size for bigger laptops
- nice range of fabrics – to suit both professional and casual needs
- padded to keep your laptop safe
Linen Laptop sleeve
We like this one because:
- It looks so lovely – that Latvian design is so pretty
- we love the story about the stitched design “print of this sleeve originally comes from Latvian National Costume and was used in traditional woman shawl called “villaine”. In Latvian this sign is called “Austras Koks” (tree of Austra”) and it symbolic meaning is the tree of life and union of three worlds- underground, earth and heaven”
- its a nice one for taking to the coffee shop or short trips out of the house when you don’t want to lug everything with you
Handcrafted artisan genuine leather briefcase laptop bag Aaron
We like this one because:
- well if money was no object then this stylish baby would be mine
- beautiful coloured leather
- loads of pockets and space for all your bits and pieces
DIY – Make your own
If you’re the crafty type or you’re looking for a low cost option – why not use one of the free laptop bag patterns we’ve found – together with some salvaged fabric you have laying around or scored at your local op shop.
Laptop Sleeve with Button – Burda
Laptop Tote
Is your Inbox in crisis? Do the words disorganised and chaotic – spring to mind? Here’s your chance to wrangle it back into order, take control, be at peace with your inbox
Zen your inbox
The following 10 quick steps are designed to help you categorise your inbox and automate some tasks. I also mention deleting and unsubscribing – yes, its worth taking the time to do these things to clear up some space now and going forward.
So lets get started – it will help if you do the steps in order – take a deep breath and …
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Sort and conquer
Sort your existing inbox by sender. Now that they’re sorted by sender…
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Delete all obvious spam or newsletters that you don’t want to keep
Take the time to Unsubscribe from the things you don’t read – face it you’re just not that into them
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Create Folders for senders
Look for patterns – some of your senders you are probably communicating with quite often – do they deserve a folder of their own?
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Create folders for subjects -sort by subject
Like step 3 – look for patterns. You may receive automated emails from your online enquiry forms or you may receive online orders. Make folders for these items.
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Create Folders for your area’s of interest
Technical information – industry information and passwords. So you might need to create a folder for useful tips that people have emailed you. Or an industry e-Newsletter – yes it could be in a sender folder already – this is up to you – where do you think its best to sort these items to find them more easily
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Move everything into these folders
Do it now – move absolutely everything into a folder
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Delete everything that you can’t sort into a folder
Simple – if you don’t have somewhere to file it – why are you keeping it?
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Mark everything as read
Don’t kid yourself – if you haven’t read it by now – you’re probably never going to – and youcan always refer back to it if you ever need to. ….Then sort back to ‘by date’ – or however you like it sorted
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Use Rules – delegate the manual work to your Inbox
Nearly all mail clients eg. Outlook, Gmail, Lotus Notes, Yahoo etc. all have the ability to sort all this for you as new messages are delivered to your inbox – they will be moved to the correct folder -without you haven’t to do a thing.
If you know about ‘Rules’ already then you can just skim the heading in this step BUT if you don’t know about rules – this is Gold!!!
Here are some links to step-by-step guides to creating rules in two favourite mail clients:
MS Outlook – http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook-help/create-a-rule-HP005242897.aspx
Gmail (they call it a filter) – http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=6579
Check out the homepages for your favourite mail client – search for ‘how to create a rule’
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Simple mantra to keep your Inbox Zen “Read it, Sort it, Delete”
To keep this Nirvana going you MUST MUST MUST – live by this
Read it, Sort it, Delete
Namaste
If you haven’t come across it already, the Craft Hope vision combines two things that make a lot of us feel great.
- Creating something beautiful with love
- Giving to other people – who need some hope.
At Craft Hope a new project is being run all the time. Individuals, groups of friends and communities are coming together to hand make something that will brings hope and joy to someone in need.
During the project a simple item is selected like a pillow case, dolls, scarves, hand towel. All of the crafters make the item (or many many of the items) in a lot of cases. Then the lovingly made items are sent to ordinary people in extra ordinary circumstances like the victims of the gulf spill, or people devastated by Haiti disaster.
“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”
— Andy Warhol
We are constantly hearing in this current time of Internet and digital communication that we have lost our ties with the communities. I feel that a movement like Craft Hope is an evolution of the community – a global community of like minded people coming together to help those in need. Such reach is only possible due to the magic of the Internet.
Go check out Craft Hope’s latest project and be part of the global crafting community. http://crafthope.com/
I emailed my local mechanic, who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent, to ask them how much a log book service would cost. He emailed me back and I immediately called my ‘big brand’ mechanic a number of suburbs away to book in for my service. I’ll tell you why – it was nothing to do with price – in fact because he was a local small business I was prepared to pay a little extra. His service was cheaper than the other guys but his email alone turned me to the competition. How? Three points.
1. His email came 5 business days after my enquiry – bad email ettiquite
2. The email was from samsautoshop215@yahoo.com – unprofessional email address
3. He had no contact information in the reply – no email signature
Unprofessional, disorganised and out of date
These three things painted a picture to me, which rationally have very little to do with their ability to service of my car. But like all marketing exchanges there was a large element of emotional and irrational impressions that were created. And realistic or not the impression give was – unprofessional, disorganised and out of date.
Like any business communication – you will be judged on your exchange.
It’s not just me being a techno-snob. Consumer expectations are changing. Generation Y, who have grown up not knowing a world without the Internet or email, are now a major chunk of the consumer market place. Their older brothers and sisters and even their parents and grandparents are more wired than ever. These people want to communicate with you via email (and other various forms of digital communication). And like any business communication – you will be judged on your exchange.
Ten years ago – it might have been an acceptable small business exchange via email. But – this is no longer the case.
Business email etiquette
There are some basic email rules that are expected in todays business communications. Some points to adhere to are below:
- Respond to customer enquiries in a timely manner order of preference
- immediate, the same day, the following business morning
- Write business emails like you would write a busines letter. Eg.
To Orissa,
Thank you for your enquiry. Our 10,00km log book service is $349. This includes the following:
- item 1
- item 2
- item 3
For an additional $50 – we will include a wheel balance on all four tyres.
Should you wish to book in a time – please call us on 07 5555 5555 to arrange a time that suits you best.
Regards
Sam Grease – Service Technician
Sams Auto Shop
07 5555 5555
Things to note in this are
- Greeting – sounds simple but using your prospects name, a Good Morning or other greeting are part of the trust building process
- Formatting such as [Enter] Hard returns, Capitalisation, full stops, spell-check – I think these things speak for themselves but if you’re not sure write your email – and then read it as though you received it in your mail box. What would you think if you received a letter like this in the post? Would you take them seriously – would you think their 10 year old nephew was in the mail room on work experience this week? It may take time initially to get this looking correct but you will very quickly change your style to a more professional look.
- What next – how to purchase from you. Action – make it as easy as possible to make the next step and buy from you – don’t make them go to the yellow pages and look up your phone number – serve it on a plate for them
- A professional email signature. There are a few schools of though on this – some say keep it simple – some think this is an opportunity to promote yourself. Both agree that you must provide all your contact details. Name, phone number, address, web address etc. This is an opportunity for you to give your prospect everything they need feel confident that you are a professional outfit.
Professional email address
Finally, and most importantly for presenting a professional image – is a domain name based email address. Eg. yourname@yourbusiness.com.au or sam@samsautoshop.com.au This gives your prospects an assurance that you are an experienced professional and not just moonlighting from your car.
If you’ve already registered your domain name eg. your www then you’re half way there. And if you have a website already chances are you have a hosted email address (or you could have). Ask your webmaster or take a look at your web-hosting control panel. You will be able to easily set up an email address which is you@yourbusiness.com.au – email me if you need a help setting up your own email address. Once it’s set up you can either use the web-mail service that is likely provided (like hotmail or yahoo) OR you can use an email client like Microsoft outlook or Mozilla thunderbird. Again email me if you need help setting up your email
If you need to register your domain name for your business – go do it today – you can register an Australian business domain for less than $25. Try crazydomains.com.au or your other preferred domain name registrar.
These three points combined – professional domain, adhering to email etiquette and email signature will:
- give your prosects confidence to deal with you
- make it easy for prosects to purchase from you
- future proof your email address
For help with a professional email image – check out our article
If you’re like me or most of the people who I speak to who are running their own business a family and have other day to day commitments, sometimes its hard to find the time to sit down and eat lunch. On the days when I skip lunch I notice I’m less productive, more likely to snack on junk and my decision making skills and attention to detail often suffer. So if you’re up packing school lunches or if you can make some time the night before its a good idea to make something for yourself.
If you’re working from home
You’d think if you were working from home you’d be eating elaborate gourmet lunches all the time. But the truth is – it’s often difficult to get motivated to make something for one. I often end up eating one to many bikkies or a few mouthfuls of last nights leftovers. Left overs are a great lunch but its good if you can combine them with something fresh like a salad. Some other idea’s for quick, nutrition-filled lunches are:
Guacamole, corn-chips and salsa salad
Most people have a quick guacamole recipe but a simple one I use is just mashed avocado, lime juice, salt and pepper and a big squeeze of sweet chili (or chili if you like it hot – like me). The salad can be any salad greens you have in the fridge and a big handful of coriander. Use corn-chips to dig in and eat it. Another idea is kidney beans, onions, garlic, add some diced tomatoes, a little tomato paste warmed in a saucepan.
Zuccini fritter bruscetta
Just make up your favourite piklet recipe and leave out the sugar. Grate a zucchini, squeeze out excess water and add to the piklet batter. Cook up your fritters. Then dice some fresh tomato, garlic and half a small red onion. Tear up some basil and mix with tomatoes. Top your fritters with the bruscetta topping.
If you’re working on the run.
Yes, you could buy some take-away. But buying lunch together with coffees, tea’s and other costs while you’re out can start to eat into your own profit margins. The key to eating a packed lunch while you’re away from home is good packaging. Invest in a good thermo-lunch box or bag. You can buy really small ice-bricks you can pop in with your lunch to make sure everything stays fresh. Its also good to invest in a re-usable drink bottle. If you’ve got it close buy and always filled you’re more likely to get through those 2 vital litres of water a day. Some idea’s for packed lunches are:
Cheese salad and chutney wrap
Use your favourite cheese, mine is brie (trying to keep to small slices). Find a wrap you like. I’ve found a lot of wraps are quite dry and go stale quickly which put me off wraps for a while. I’ve since found a better way to store them and found fresh Lebanese bread has a moister texture. I spread it with a good quality chutney – like beetroot and chili – then fill the wrap with salad. Wrap it up and then cover it in foil.
Tuna pasta salad
Good for using any left over pasta from the night before. Add some canned tuna. semi-dried tomatoes, olives, a good tablespoon of pesto and a glug of olive oil. You can make this salad up with any of your favourite ingredients. I add a little chopped chili to mine. You could also use chickpeas instead of pasta.
I find its often easy to put time and energy into food for other people. But like most things in life – we really should be investing some of that time to ensure we fuel our own day. A well nourished body is one of the keys to a productive, happy, energised day.
Think about some of your favourite home-made lunches. Maybe its a good idea to jot them into a notebook – so they’re always handy when inspiration is needed most. Feel free to share any of your idea’s with us – we always love new inspiration ourselves.
To help you get organised for the new year we’ve found you a free 2011 calendar. If you are one of the growing number of owl-lovers then you’re in for a treat. Even if you’re not own-mad you will be able to appreciate the beautiful artwork in this calendar.
The calendar has been brought together by Shivani, a confessed owl lover and the blogger at My Owl Barn. She has brought together 30 artists to create the calendar. Most have already featured on her blog.
The calendar allows you to customise which images you want to use for the month. As Shivani suggests you could print these onto some nice high quality card stock, bind it creatively (with ribbon or some habadashery links) and it would be a beautiful gift. There are far more than 12 images so you can create many individual calendars.
http://www.myowlbarn.com/p/owl-lover-2011-calendar.html
If you are an Owl Lover – My Owl Barn looks like a one stop shop specially made for your fetish. Not only are there plenty of pretty owl products – there are also regular freebies like this calendar.
So what are you waiting for – get organised for 2011 – and go over to My Owl Barn for your free calendar now.
Markets – the traditional shop front for creative-types
I’ve recently been to a local ‘hand-made’ market on a sunny Sunday morning. It was great – I had the chance to talk to the inspiring and passionate people who design and produce their own products. I saw lots of beautiful and very unique jewellery, funky kids clothes, and lots of other amazing things I’ve never seen before, and unless I go back there, may not see again.
Unique products
I bought a T-shirt for my son – it’s not like anything I’ve seen elsewhere, the fabric is soft, the animal design on the front is very clever – and he loved it. Every time he wears it someone always comments on it and asks me where I bought it. I explain very proudly that it is locally designed and made and they might be able to pick one up from the market. The lady who designed the shirt also had a beautiful range for girls. In fact I’d like to purchase one for all my nieces and nephews for Christmas – it sure would take a chunk out of my Christmas shopping.
Help keep them coming back
As much as I loved the atmosphere of the market where I picked them up – the truth is – I may not have the chance to get back there on the one day a month it will be back. In fact I will probably only have one day between now and Christmas to actually get back there.
What do I do? I’ll just go online
Do you have a way for your customers to purchase from you when you’re not open? They could probably phone you and buy from you but I bet there are very few occasions you can think of where a customer has done this.
Buying from Australian vendors
With Australians really embracing the net – and the online world – people are more confident than ever of buying online. And if you have a locally made unique product – you are probably perfectly positioned for Australia’s maturing online market place. The term ‘multi-channel’ is being used to describe the customers ability to purchase from you via more than one channel ie. shopfront, online, resellers etc.
Australian online retailers 30% sales growth vs 3% Australian economic growth
According to the Forrester survey “Online Retailing in Australia 2010: Performance and Channels” by Steven Noble: “While Australia’s online retailers are generally small, they are growing very quickly, often selling internationally, and performing quite well against key metrics such as conversion rates.”
The study has found that “On average, current Australian online retailers expect their sales to grow by 30 per cent in the year ahead, outstripping the 3 per cent growth that the IMF is predicting for Australia’s economy as a whole.”
Cost-effective online store
We’ve been listening to our customers and looking at the current offerings on the market. Most ‘creatives’ we’ve spoken to say that they’d like to sell online but don’t have the skills, time or cash that is required to set up an online store-front. They feel that their products would get ‘lost’ on ebay – that the thousands of dollars that they have been quoted for their own store is outside their current league; and they don’t feel confident using a ‘pay-by-the-month’ store front. So we’re developing an entry-level online store – our eMarket Stall Holders Package.
Our one off set up price delivers a package consists of:
- A professional website
- Ability to accept online sales with payments made into your bank account
- Complete ownership and control
- Design and set up done for you
More details coming soon.
Click here to register your interest