Monday, July 22, 2013

Homemade Pulled Pork Pizza

As I told you in the last post, we are currently living in a 2 bedroom apartment with my parents.  If we aren't careful it could really drive us all insane.  So we have decided to find different things to do that help us stay sane.  And that also involves keeping Peyton occupied in this tiny apartment.  We decided to start a new tradition of making homemade pizzas.  I decided to make a pulled pork pizza.  It turned out AMAZING!

DISCLAIMER: I am no chef! (Which means if I can make this delicious pizza, then so can you!)


While browsing around Pinterest, I found my inspiration for this newfound family tradition from the picture below on Lovesome's blog.  I followed their recipe to make the pizza dough.  


Topping Ingredients:

Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ Sauce
Pulled Pork 
Mozzarella Cheese
Oven Roasted Red Potatoes
Olive Oil 
Grated Parmesan Cheese


After the pizza dough was made, I brushed the dough with olive oil and then sprinkled some grated parmesan cheese on the crust.  I used the Sweet Baby Ray's as the sauce.  Then put on the mozzarella cheese and the pulled pork.  As I said earlier, I am no chef so I just used the microwave pulled pork from the lunch meat section at the grocery store.  I like sweet BBQ and it was good, plus I didn't have to cook that part.  Then I put on the leftover oven roasted red potatoes from the night before.  I decided to add those at the last minute because they were in the fridge and about to be thrown out.  I absolutely loved them on the pizza.  Lastly, I topped it off with just a little more cheese and BBQ sauce.  I baked the pizza at 425 degrees for about 15 minutes.  

It was so easy and fun to make.  This is definitely going to be a new staple at our house.  Everyone had so much fun adding their own touch to their pizza.

Thursday, July 18, 2013

So Much Has Happened!

Wow! What a crazy year (especially the last few months) we have had!  It has been a long time since we have published a post and a lot of things have happened. Some of them exciting, some of them stressful, and some of them exciting and stressful.


We have sold our home and we are having a new home built.  They finally started construction of it on Monday.  We didn't think it would ever happen (we signed for the house back in April). 

It has been a crazy process though! When we sold our home, my parents offered to let us stay with them while our house was being built to save money. We knew it would be tough for all 5 of use to be under one roof, but it was worth it to save some money.  

Then during the process, we all decided that my parents needed to sell their house and move into the neighborhood too!  I know...we are CRAZY! So that meant more packing.  Peyton is a great moving helper!


So now we are all 5 under one roof in a 2 bedroom apartment!  Hopefully we all still like each other by the time our house are built and are permanently living across the street from each other.

I am very excited about decorating the new house though and have been going crazy on Pinterest with ideas.  Mike and I are really excited to work on building some of our furniture ourselves!

Unfortunately, while we are in the apartment we are having to put the LittleBunnySueSue Etsy shop on vacation mode.  But, we will use this time to let our creative juices flow and come up with some great Fall and Winter lines!


Monday, August 13, 2012

From Old School to Modern School

I am getting ready to start back to school and trying to revamp my classroom with all of the great DIY inspiration I have had on Pinterest over the summer.  I found a great old desk and chair over the summer at a garage sale and knew I had to have it.  



I wasn't sure exactly what I wanted to do, but figured I would cross that bridge later.  Then it came to me!  I decided to make it into a fun bright place for the kids to sit during independent work.  



First I used a little primer spray paint to make sure the paint stuck!



Then I went with a turquoise color and decided to accent with orange.  I thought those were some fun colors that weren't too boyish or girlish.  Then I decided to paint the top of the desk with chalkboard paint.  This will be a great spot for them to practice writing their site words!  I am so excited!





Sunday, August 12, 2012

It's Super Peyton!!


Peyton needed a her own Superhero cape so we decided to make one for her.  I found a pattern here. We  had to do a little tweaking because it was made for a bigger kid, but all in all it was so easy!  No sewing for the cape part at all.  We only had to break out the sewing machine for the felt appliqué we put on it.



We started by cutting a piece of knit fabric to the right size.  We decided to cut it to 18x22.





Next we used the pattern to cut out the shape and added some velcro.  And Voila! we were done with the cape itself.  But we thought that was way too Plain Jane for Peyton



So I grabbed some felt and started designing Peyton her own Superhero emblem.  I used spray adhesive to stick it down and then sewed around the edges to make it more secure


Ta-Da!! It's Super Peyton!!  She had so much fun flying around the house in her new cape!

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Etsy Things I Learned Along the Way


Our Etsy shop has been open just over a year...oh how time flies!  My mom and I were inspired to open our shop after I had my daughter Peyton.  We were constantly making new things for her and wanted to share these special handmade things with the world.  So we got online, opened our shop, and started listing our items.  We thought at first that people would just...come.  I mean we've all seen the movie right?  

"If you build it, they will come"   

Apparently, not so much the case for your Etsy shop.  Your customers don't just magically appear coming out of the corn fields.

Over the past year we have made made mistakes, we have had successes, but most importantly we have learned A LOT!!  So I wanted to share with you some of the things that we have learned throughout our journey.  Maybe you will find something to try and help you be more successful!  

1. Photos, Photos, Photos
We are continuously looking at our photos and trying to make them better.  This has been one of the most challenging things for us since we are not really photographers.  It is so important for your photos to be clear, bright, and sharp.  Since our customers can't touch and feel our products, we have to show them how great they are with our photography.  We have found that a white background displays our products the best.  However, it has taken a lot of work to find the right white background to use.  And we still have lots of work to do.

Here is a photo from when we first started:

As you can see, the picture is not very bright and it has a definite red tone.  Not some of our best work.  We built a light box for ourselves and bought some lights to use for it.  And this is how most of our pictures turned out.  We had to do a lot of touch up afterwards on the computer.

A more recent photo:

This is definitely a much brighter photo.  We are now trying to use more natural light when snapping pictures of our product.  This picture was taken near a window and the skirt is just laying on a .69 cent piece of poster board.  I laid the skirt down on the poster board and then kneeled on a chair to shoot from above.  The poster board background gives of much better white that the light box had for us.  And with the natural light I barely had to do any touch ups on the computer at all.  

2. Consistently Listing New Items
This is so important!  When we first opened our shop, we were working furiously to list items so that our customers had plenty to choose from.  Then we reached 50-60 items in our shop and slowed down a bit.  Our daytime jobs and other things caught up with us and we weren't listing things as consistently.  There was a definite change in how many views we were getting and the amount of sales we were making.  Then summer got here and I had a lot more time on my hands since I am a teacher.  I have been adding new items to the shop each week and the shop has picked back up again.  It just goes to show that you will get what you put in.  This was a big wake up call and we will have to stick to this schedule even as I prepare to head back into the classroom.

3. Offer a Variety of Choices
Its not just about the amount of items in your shop.  Customers want a variety designs to look at.  I see a change in the amount of views and sells we make on items as we offer more choices.  We are starting to add more skirts and dresses in our shop.  There are more views in these shop sections as we add more of these items to the shop.  We have a lot of choices for onesies and tees and customers tend to browse longer in these sections.  

4. Participate with the Etsy Community
It definitely helps to get involved.  Again, I have had a lot more time this summer to do this and I have seen the benefit.  The different teams on Etsy have a lot of great advice to offer.  You can learn a lot from just getting on the forums and reading.  Its also really helpful to have a place to go and ask a question you have and have so many knowledgable people there to respond.  Participating in things like Etsy teams and treasuries, you also drive more people to your shop.  

5. Descriptions, Tags, and Titles...OH MY!
I am no expert on this topic and still probably need to go back and edit many of my listings.  But I have definitely learned some things along the way.  When thinking about what to write, think like the customer.  Use words that you think they would use to search.  I have also found that it helps to use the same words that are in the title in the first line of your description.  Another tip I have picked up along the way is to make sure that you use phrases in your tags.  Instead of using just one word like "baby" and "onesie"  it is better to use it as a phrase like "baby onesie".  Once I started doing this, I saw a definite increase in the amount of views I was getting on my product.  Before when I would list something new it would take quite a while for it to get its first view.  Now, its a matter of hours before they are viewed for first time.  

These are just some of the things that we have picked up along the way.  We still have a lot to learn and hope that we can continue adding to this list as the years go by!


Tuesday, July 24, 2012

New Additions to Our Shop

We have been working hard and have added several new things to our Etsy shop.  We have 2 new skirts and 2 new onesies.  






Our goal is to have at least 15 skirt patterns to offer so that is what we are working towards right now.  We have definitely found that when we have several different designs to choose from, we sell more of that item.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Fabulous Etsy Finds

I had some time this morning to just peruse through Etsy and look at the beautiful items available.  So I thought I would give a little shout out to some of my fellow Etsians.  Here are some of my favorite items:



And if you didn't know, my birthday is next Tuesday.  I turn the big 28!  Getting close to the big 3-0!  So if you were just sitting around racking your brain for an awesome birthday gift for me....you could kindly choose from the items above :)

I probably need to send my husband over to this post!

Hope everyone had a GREAT weekend!
 
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