LiberTEAS on Chocolate Covered Bacon!

We had another wonderful show tonight. Anne from LiberTEAS was with us, and shared a great deal of information with us about tea. She talked about what I discovered was her most popular question, “How to brew tea properly?” Every tea that is brewed is has a different temperature and time, to get the optimum flavor. Anne explained how with some teas, such as green tea, you must use a lower temperature in order not to scorch the tea. Using a temperature that is too hot for the tea will cause it to have the bitterness that some people do not like. With the green tea the best water temperature is NOT boiling, but instead between 160-180 F and is best to be brewed for only 2-3 minutes in the water, hotter water will burn the Green Tea and a longer time may make the tea more astringent than you may like.

We also discovered some great blends that she has. Chocolate Rose Romance is the one that got LiberTEAS started and is still her favorite to this day. Some of the special blends that she makes are made with the help of an Herbologist to help combat allergy symptoms. The Alergi-Teas, as they are called, look amazing in the pictures, and I suggest you try one! All of Anne teas are specially blended to meet her high standards and come in a tin or, if you already have the tin, you can buy the refill bags. They also come with individual brewing instructions for each tea, to ensure that you get the best flavor each time.

You can visit LiberTEAS at any of her stores on Artfire, MadeItMyslef or 1000Markets. Anne also maintains a Tea blog and a blog for her other crafts, and you can visit her art shop on Etsy if you like. I would like to thank Anne for a great show, we will definitely need to have her back again, as we barely broke the surface of everything she does! Next Thursday on Chocolate Covered Bacon-The best in independent food finds, at 6PM EST, we have Emmy’s Organics with some wonderful sweets to satisfy your cravings. They are organic and gluten free!

--James ~ ClosetCreature of Birdy's Knits, your Host for Chocolate Covered Bacon-The best in independent food finds

Luca Chocolate on Chocolate Covered Bacon

Tonight on “Chocolate Covered Bacon-The Best in Independent Food Finds”, we had Leslie from Luca Chocolate! She was an amazing guest and shared so much about her chocolate! Leslie started putting Luca Chocolate together about three and a half years ago with some research and development. She had started working as a cook in professional kitchens and decided that she would rather be a pastry chef, once she completed her schooling, she migrated to the medium of chocolate, and the rest is history.

Leslie's favorite chocolates to snack on are her Vanilla Butter Cream Truffle's which look absolutely divine on her site! We also discovered that her Bacon Box came from a blogger that was looking for a special treat. Never one to turn down a challenge Leslie jumped right on it, and came up with this delectable box of Chocolate Covered Bacon and other chocolates. She has such a wonderful variety of chocolates on her site, and the photographs make you want to jump out and take a bite out of your screen! We learned to night that she actually takes all her own photographs, which are exquisitely done! You can keep up with the Latest on Luca Chocolate on their blog and their different shop locations: Luca on Foodzie, Luca on Etsy, and Luca Chocolates Homepage.

In our everlasting search for the best in independent foods, we would like to let you know that Anne from LiberTeas will be joining us next week! With her amazing assortment of flavored teas, your sure to find something delicious to drink! Let us satisfy your cravings, Thursday’s at 6PM EST for Chocolate Covered Bacon-The best in independent food finds!

--James (ClosetCreature in BHR Chat) from Birdy's Knits Your Host

I've Been Plurking

Yes I have developed a new uhm....... addiction. Plurk.

What is Plurk?

Noun. plurk (plüer-kh) - A really snazzy site that allows you to showcase the events that make up your life in deliciously digestible chunks. Low in fat, 5 calories per serving, yet chock full of goodness.

Verb. plurk (plüer-kh) - To chronicle the events of your always on, action-packed, storybook, semi-charmed kinda life.

Example use: 'Gee golly, my children are plurking all day long, what's a mother to do?'

Why join them, of course! Yes, Plurk is for everyone. We've taken the time, the complexity, and the deep introspection required out of blogging.

This isn't Billy Q. Poindexter's blog, no, no. Instead, Plurk is an easy way to chronicle and share the things you do, the way you feel, and all the other things in between that make up your life, with the people close to you. It's instant gratification, instant self-indulgence, instant celebrity, instantly YOU. Share your life stream, live your life….Plurk!

That is how they describe it. Now, let me share my experience.

ClosetCreature from birdysknits coaxed me over to Plurk. So this past Sunday I waded out into Plurk. Soon I found myself in a massive riptide and was way out. Being a smart swimmer I did not fight it.

Plurk is a social media like no other I've ran across. It is setup as an easy to follow timeline where you can keep track of the conversations. It is also great for multi tasking. You can set your Plurks up to feed into your other social networks like Friendster, Facebook, Twitter, and Multiply. So you can multi task with one Plurk. It is great for meeting new people, fun, and promotions.

I did the live shows yesterday while plurking, sing a longs, song requests, and of course a Plurk Fast Fingers. I will keep Plurk as part of BHR for as long as I can keep my sanity.

So if your are ready for a lot of fun join me on Plurk............I hope to see you there.

Here Birdy, Birdy, Birdy....

Knits that is! I have met a lovely couple, James and Birdy who are the brains, heart and soul behind Birdy's Knits, a selection of great shops where you can find excellent handmade items like knitting stitch markers, patterns, knitted items, and more! Their free pattern for a Swiffer Reusable Cloth Pad has been downloaded over 800 times! Get yours HERE!

Who ARE James and Birdy really? "Birdy is a knitter and designer. She was recently featured in Knitty (http://www.knitty.com) with her flit-n-float scarf. James is the designer and crafter of our line of Duals Use Notions for Fiber Artists." Now, if you are not a knitter you may be asking yourself just what are stitch markers? (I know I was!) James explains it quite well, "Our Dual use stitch markers are designed using leverback earrings, so they make great earrings. We have some of our knitters that say they use them as much as earrings as they do in their projects. It also comes in handy when your knitting and find you need a stitch marker but can't find one. Pop there it is, in your ear. They are also usable in crochet projects. Someone even told us they used it as a cabling needle for a small cable and they couldn't find theirs. So in reality they are more than dual use, but I just like the sound of that! We also have dual use row counters that are still a bit in development, that can also be worn as necklaces or bracelets. Also still in it's testing phase are our new Dual use stitch holders. which are also wearable as a necklace, and will be in coordinating designs with our stitch markers. As we like to say, 'They're not just jewelry for you, they're for your knitting too!'" Birdy and James launched Birdy's Knits Website about 2 years ago with just knitting patterns, then added the stitch markers one year ago.

Birdy home schools their two children while James works a full time job to take care for life's' un-fun necessities and then comes home to work on all the marketing, promoting and 'business' details of running a handmade business--something many people take for granted! As James says, "There are lots of things that go into all of that, that people don't realize. Like the emails that need to be answered about products. The website changes that need to be made. The listing of the items. The pictures that need to be taken, oh don't get me started on pictures. Then there is the promoting, if you are tring to do that on a budget, then it takes loads of time to get into forums and on chat threads talking up your products. I spend about 6-8 hours a day working on just the business, and that's on top of the 10-12 hour days at the FT job, so I could use like 6 more hours a day, 4 more for family and 2 more for sleep."

Time crunch seems to be something most handmade artisans face! It is one of the main answers I get when asking artisans what their top challenges are. Along with the time challenge, James and Birdy find themselves with the obstacle of "getting your products known." James explains, "We started our business 2 years ago, with just some of Birdy's Patterns. We then expanded to our Dual Use Stitch Markers about a year ago. We got some traffic but not a lot. We didn't know how to market online. So this year we are working on expanding our marketing for our products. We started with finally listing on Etsy this year in late January, and then we started searching our Handmade venues to sell on. So we added ArtFire, Shophandmade and MadeItMyself. For us it's all about getting our products in front of people. After reading several forums and blogs we have been discovering different ways to get your name known, and we continue to work on those. The other obstacle that we have placed on ourselves, is that we refuse to go into debt to make this work. So we are funding this business on it's own funds. I work a special event each year as a contract worker, and the money from that as well as the money from the business is what funds everything. That means we are growing slower than we might sometimes like, but at the same time we are growing."

Although it may be a slow start, there have been some great moments for James and Birdy, particularly Birdy's publication in Knitty is one of their proudest moments. James says, "It was great to see so many people discover her for the first time. We had thousands of hits on our website in a matter of days almost all new, and discovering Birdy's work for the first time!" That is indeed a fantastic achievement....no matter how many sales you get, seeing your work appreciated is an important step in the work of a handmade artisan.

There work is certainly appreciated by this mama even though I cannot knit a stitch to save my life! If you want to find MORE about Birdy and James, be sure to check all these links along with the ones mentioned above!

http://www.byhand.me/birdysknits/
http://www.birdysknits.com/shop/
http://www.birdysknits.com/blog/
https://www.ravelry.com/ (Birdys Knits)
http://facebookpage

So take a break, go check out James and Birdy and their awesome creations or just drop them a line! Tell them Blockhead Radio sent you! :)