~ Review: Yogi Castle in Gaithersburg ~

Frozen yogurt seems to be the new food trend. Ok, not new, but it seems like frozen yogurt places are popping up everywhere. Last weekend, after a wonderful dinner, a few of my friends and I decided to go try out Yogi Castle in Gaithersburg.

It's a small place with a long bench and a couple of tables. There's a lot of bright green cheerfulness in there. Big words explaining about how the yogurt has live something or another in it to make it healthy. I don't see that info on their website though. Anyway, I think the place is cute.

A special thank you to the lovely model who is demonstrating how to get the ice cream. That's right. It's self serve. They have 8 flavors like vanilla, original tart, blueberry, cheesecake, chocolate and I forgot what else. If you are a true frozen yogurt fan, you may be disappointed that only the original tart is .... well.... tart. The other ones just taste like ice cream.

Then, you have to add toppings. This one has strawberries, almond, oreos, fruity pebbles, and mochi. There are other craziness like mango and gummy bears. Then, you put it on the scale and pay. $0.39/oz. It's not bad at all.

But, it does take skills and restraint to make a good frozen yogurt. Envision it before you start the process. Don't be greedy either. Only get what you can eat. Otherwise, you may end up with gummy bears swimming around in poopy yogurt that you can finish. :)

I think it's a cute place to chill. Since it's self-serve you can get as little as you want, which is good for me. I hate feeling guilty for not finishing my food and I usually can't finish 1 order on my own. It's very close to Kentlands. Just go down Quince Orchard, away from 355 and make a right on Darnestown. Here's the address: 12209 Darnestown Rd. Enjoy :)

~ Wedding Photographer: NY Wedding Studio ~

Our wedding planning has been pretty much non-existent because of everything else that's going on. But, we finally put together a guest list and picked a photographer. Well, more like a photography studio. It's in New York City and it's called NY Wedding Studio. We are getting a package that includes indoor and outdoor "engagement pictures", photography and video for the day of the wedding, poster size pictures, albums, and rental for wedding dress, bridesmaid dresses and tuxes.

Here are some outdoor pictures I got from their website. Cute right?

Here's a picture of the actual wedding:

They carry all Mori Lee Designs. Next time I go up to New York, I am going to look at the wedding dresses and bridesmaid dresses. I haven't really thought of what style I want. I am always afraid of tube tops, but that seems to be the most popular style. Do I want A-Line skirt? Mermaid style? Princess puffy style? I don't know...it also depends on what they have. But here are some I saw on the Mori Lee website.

You may be wondering, why are you renting your wedding dress? Uh....because I don't want to pay for a $1000 dress that I wear for 1 day and it'll just take up precious closet space for the next 70 years. Just like all the prom and bridesmaid dresses hanging in my closet right now. Some people want their own dresses. Nothing wrong with that. I am just not one of them :)

Though, I think I am going to get my very own Chinese wedding dress. That one needs to be fitted very well. I am not sure if I will like the one the studio provides. If the studio has nice ones and they can alter it for me, then I won't buy the Chinese dress. Maybe I should see if I can alter my mom's dress. We'll see.

Yay, finally got one a few things done. I am fairly excited about the engagement pictures. I haven't taken studio pictures in a while. It'll be fun! Depending on the price, I may do a small set in Hong Kong too.

~ New Etsy Shop Checklist ~

As you all know, I am addicted to buying supplies. I just can't work fast enough to use them all so I have to start selling...so I can buy some more. Yes, it's a vicious cycle. So, as I am starting this new shop, I thought I would make a check list here in case any of you are thinking about starting a shop. Gray steps are nice, but not necessary to me.

1. Research! Do you really think people will buy your stuff? Is anyone else selling something similar to yours? If not, is it because you are original or is it because no one wants to buy that stuff? If someone else is selling the same thing, are people buying that stuff? Why would people go to your shop instead of the other shops selling the same things? I like to think I have picked up some unique supplies that people would want.
2. Pick a good shop name. I picked Happy Cloud Supplies to keep it in sync with my jewelry shop. I think my shop names are too long, but I like them. I think one word names that are catchy and easy to remember are the best. Keep branding in mind. Here's a couple relevant articles: What's in a Name? and What's Branding?
   
3. Make sure the name is available on Etsy and other major vendor sites you want to set up shop at. Also, make sure it's available as an email address at your favorite mail provider (Gmail, Hotmail, Ymail, etc). Or, maybe just see if it's available as a web domain name. Of course, Google it to make sure there isn't already an established shop with that name somewhere else.
4. Register for an email account.
5. Register for a Paypal account if you are going to accept Paypal, which you should.
6. You may want to register for a web domain in case you ever want to have your own website. Squat on it now so it doesn't get taken. It doesn't cost much, but it's totally optional.
   
7. Register for Etsy account, then activate your seller account by clicking on the "Sell" tab in the navigation bar. You will need a credit card.
   
8. Fill in your bio.
9. Fill in your shop policies. Give information like how you package your items, what shipping service you use, return policies, wholesale inquiries, international orders and such.
10. Set up Google Analytics.
    
11. Make a logo. There are a lot of talented graphics designer on Etsy. Just search for Logo. I think they run about $50-$100 for a logo. Make sure you check out the designer's feedback.
12. Make a banner and avatar. I prefer banners with products. You can easily take one of your product pictures and crop it to the banner size. I like to take the square thumbnails of my products in my shop page and use them as avatars. They are square and perfect size.
    
13. Take great pictures of your products. There are billions of storque articles and blog articles about how to take pictures. Basically, you need good lighting, a camera with macro setting and good props/backgrounds. Taking pictures of supplies is so different than jewelry. No need to be all artistic. Just show the bead!
14. Setup your sections and shipping profiles. You don't have to have them, but it'll be nice.
15. List your first items. The more the merrier, but I personally think you don't need to list like 50 items all on your first day. Slowly list different things and see how the response is. Remember to include all the measurements and colors and such in the descriptions. Tag well. Use all 14 tags.
    

There. Do those things and you'll have a shop. The hard part is actually getting people to go to your shop and then even harder? To get people to put stuff in their cart. Then, to get people to actually check out. To do all that, you have to promote! That includes promoting in social networks like having a Facebook fan page, Twitter, writing in the forums, starting a blog, chatting in the Etsy chat rooms, or even pay for advertising on Craftcult.com or Google or Project Wonderful. There are tons of storque articles that go into more details about setting up a successful shop like this one Etsy Success for Beginner Sellers, so read up!

I listed about 20 items over 1 weekend in my new shop. Haven't set up a banner or Google Analytics yet. There's just so much to do! I forgot how hard it is to get people to heart the shop or get fans for the Facebook fan page. It's hard to run 2 shops! It's hard running 1 shop too, so think hard before you start one.

~ My Real Life Farmville Moment ~

Remember when I blogged about all the platns we have in our yard? It's been getting pretty cold so my dad has been slowly harvesting everything. He grabbed all the tomatoes earlier this week.


Then, he said it's not that cold this week. So, he'll just grab the peppers and chilis later. He told me to let him know if it will gets down to around 30 degrees. He wants to makes sure he grabs all the peppers so he can make this super spicy hot sauce before the first freeze. When I came home tonight, it felt cold. I didn't think much of it till we were talking and I was like it's getting really cold. Uh....too cold for the aloe and peppers? Hmm... maybe??


So we grabbed what we could and brought them inside. We had 2 big aloe plants outside and they were getty frosty! Then we brought in a few pepper and chili plants that is small enough to fit inside.


The rest we had to just cut the whole plant and bring in the branches. It was way too cold to cut each pepper individually. Look how many there are in just one branch!


It's gonna be fun tomorrow sorting out all these branches!


We had several kinds of chilis this year. We don't know how it happened. We thought they were all the same and then some stayed short and grew white to red chilis. Some grew up to be really high and has these huge bunches of dark green to red chilis that points up. Some grew up really tall but have individual peppers that droop down.


This is why I never got into farmville. I practically have a farm in my back yard with all my plants. This is way more fun :)

~ Hot Pot ~

I love hot pot. It's so much fun to sit around and cook and eat together. For those of you who has never had hot pot, it's just like fondue, but Chinese style. Usually there's 1 shallow pot with boiling soup and lots of different kinds of raw meat, seafood and veggies on the side. Then, you pick what you want, put it in the soup to cook and take it back out to eat it. You will also have sauce in your bowl to season the food.

Here, we have pig skin, all kinds of fish balls, crab meat, beef, tofu, oyster, squid, thinly sliced pork belly, turnip, peapods and crabs. There was also shrimp, lettuce, chicken and more! My dad usually prepares more seafood than other people I know. He also has more variety. When I do hot pot myself, I probably only have half of that stuff because I am....lazy :)

Look at these fat crabs! It was on sale at QMart (the local international grocery store) for $0.79/lb!

A closer look at the fish balls. Oh yeah, there were those fried tofu puffs too. Usually, I just get the thinly sliced fat beef from the store. It's so good, yet so bad. But, my dad likes to cut his own beef.

We got a special pot for hot pot so that we can have two different soup bases. Usually, we do one with chicken soup and the other one is super spicy soup base we get at the stores. They make soup base packets just for hot pot. See the redness? It's even spicier than it looks!

For the sauce, we like to mix this "bbq sauce" with soy sauce. Some of the boys also put a raw egg in there. And hot sauce too. I have seen fermented tofu sauce, hot sauce, garlic sauce, peanut sauce and more. Every family has their own style.

Yum! Hot pot is one of the best things about winter! It's healthy. It's warm. It's fun. This hot pot was a good start for this year. There will be plenty more later! I am excited!

~ More Swarovski Navette Pendants~

Yay! I got more Navette Pendants. There are 4 new colors and I am slowly adding them to my shop. Now there are 8 colors available. In this picture, starting with the red one, the colors are red magma, crystal copper, golden shadow, light amethyst, amethyst, silver shade, clear, and jet.

Now, let's look at the new colors. This is golden shadow. It is a light champagne color with a lot of mirror-like reflections.

Silver shade is a soft gray color. It's like the clear one, with a touch of gray. It also has a lot of mirror-like reflections.

Light amethyst is a very pretty, soft color. Very feminine.

I still love amethyst the most, but this is a close second. Red magma is a very warm shade of red. The color itself only came out last year.

Here's another look with all of the lined up. I like pictures with depth :)

Taking pictures have been hard lately! I feel like the sun has completely moved. I will write more about that later. I also got these pendants in the bigger size. They are HUGE! I don't even have bails that fit them. I think I may have to suck it up and wire-wrap them. I also made earrings out of these pendants. They are a work in progress at the moment. I am still debating whether it's too heavy for earrings. How heavy is too heavy to you?

~ You Write the Scripts, It Makes the Movies ~

I found this fun little website called Xtranormal that help you make movies. All you have to do is write the script. What he said. What she said.

They have a few different "worlds" for you to choose from. The free version has the basic background and actors. They also have premium features. I really like the Paws "world", but it's a premium feature so I didn't try it. It looks so adorable though!

If you want to get all fancy, you can add in expressions, body animations, camera angles, sounds, background ambient sounds or music. I just made a quick video as a demo. It took about 15-20 minutes. Now, just a little background about this "short film". My friend and I discussed the best way for a guy to approach a girl. He thinks it's ok to just say Hi and ask for her name. This is what I told him would probably happen if he did that.

Fun, isn't it? Depending on the response to that video, I may make another one about the right way of approaching a girl. Just a little tip though (about making videos, not picking up girls), sign up for an account of Facebook connect before you start making a video. When I tried to save the first time, it took me through the registration process. And afterwards, it didn't bring me back to the video I made! So, I had to do it again. Good thing, it didn't take long.

Make some videos and show me! I want to see what you can come up with! Ooo you can watch movies others made too. This one is totally awesome.