LIFEFLIX

January 2010

marichelledb@gmail.com (Marichelle) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:53:00 +0000

Latest Wii Addition

marichelledb@gmail.com (Marichelle) — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 14:27:00 +0000

I've been really really bad in the workout department lately (my Jillian Michael DVDs are covered in dust), so hopefully I can give this thing a whirl asap. I've never been one for workout gimmicks, but at this point I'll take all the help I can get.

Merry Christmas!

marichelledb@gmail.com (Marichelle) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 14:10:00 +0000

Repackaged Grocery Finds

marichelledb@gmail.com (Marichelle) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 14:29:00 +0000

Hi gang! I've posted the final results of my little repacking exercise from yesterday on Nice Package - Creative Gift Packaging Solutions today! Hope you like the final product!

Wrapping up last minute presents

marichelledb@gmail.com (Marichelle) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:44:00 +0000

Hi everyone! Hope everyone had a fun weekend. It's hard not to get into the holiday spirit with lots of snow on the ground. Today I'm attempting to finish up a few last minute Christmas presents. My friend's daughter loves to be in the kitchen and she loves chocolate & candy. So I've decided to repackage a few items and make her a little S'mores kit to go along with a Dylan's Candy Bar Hot Chocolate Mix I picked up in the mall last week, using ordinary grocery store-bought items.

Here's a shot of what will be going in the kit (ooops I forgot the BBQ sticks! in the pic). I'll be working on this today and will be sure to take some photos of the entire process for tomorrow's post. Have a great Monday!

Weekend Update

marichelledb@gmail.com (Marichelle) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 13:49:00 +0000

Hope everyone had a nice weekend!
As much as we love our Honda Accord 1996 hand me down, we've come to accept that it's probably on its way out. So we spent most of Saturday looking at potential cars. We test drove a previously owned Subaru Forrester (my personal fave) and quickly stopped by the VW dealership to check out the Passat wagon (unfortunately they were super busy and we didn't get a chance to really see anything).

Sunday was really crappy - a perfect day for wrapping up new products for Nice Package. Our new manila tags came in last week and they're finally in our shops! AND... I finally made some soap for the holidays and spent the night tinkering with packaging (just for fun) - pics in a bit!

Uninspired

marichelledb@gmail.com (Marichelle) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:46:00 +0000

I've been feeling so uninspired lately... finding it very difficult to motivate myself into starting extra creative projects. I have a ton of crafty projects to tackle - make more soap, finally attempt to make body scrub a year after purchasing supplies, finish a holiday garland I started 2 months ago, go outside and take photos with my new camera.. but instead i find myself in front of my trusty computer writing this and browsing the internet.

Santa came early this year

marichelledb@gmail.com (Marichelle) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 12:19:00 +0000

I received a couple of surprise early Christmas gifts this week...

Look who has a new toy!
I'm still reading the manual + David Busch’s Nikon D5000 Guide to Digital SLR Photography! It's definitely a lot more complicated than my old Sony point and shoot!!

Hellloooo

marichelledb@gmail.com (Marichelle) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:08:00 +0000

...lost my camera charger (I've looked everywhere!), been entertaining my family from California and Texas (they're staying with us!), water pipe burst in the basement, world-record week for Nice Package... sorry I've been MIA.

Currently Away on Vacation

marichelledb@gmail.com (Marichelle) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 13:46:00 +0000

Hey gang! I completely spazzed out and forgot to mention that I was going away on a little fun-in-the-sun break with my BFF and her hubs. See ya on Monday!

In the meantime, check out our latest DIY Project: Advent Calendar.

PS. I found a new fave drink on this trip, a spin on a traditional Venezuelan drink called Cocada! Malibu Rum + Creme of Coconut + Condensed Milk (jillian DVD awaits)

Thai-Inspired

marichelledb@gmail.com (Marichelle) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 11:59:00 +0000

You guys HAVE to try this.

PS. Don't make the same mistake, please wear gloves when dealing with the peppers!

Cheap & Easy

marichelledb@gmail.com (Marichelle) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 11:39:00 +0000

... no, not like that.

Creamy Pasta with Ham & Broccoli

I made this for the second time last night and I'm officially addicted (another Everyday Foods Recipe).

Ingredients: Roasted Broccoli - 1 crown, Cream Cheese - 8oz (room temp), Deli Ham

Roast Broccoli: lightly coat florets with olive oil, season well with salt and pepper. Roast in a preheated 425F degree oven. After 8 minutes, turn the florets and roast for another 8 minutes. Use a big enough baking tray so the florets have plenty of room.

In the meantime... boil water for the pasta and cut up some ham (the sandwich kind) - I used about 1/4 lb. Don't forget to take out the cream cheese.

Cook 1/2 to 3/4 package of egg noodles (good for 2 servings). Drain pasta but reserve 1-2 cups of the water. Dump the cream cheese into the pot you just used for the pasta, slowly thin it out with 1/2 cup of the reserved water, add the cooked pasta and continue mixing. If the "sauce" is still too thick, just keep adding more of the pasta water. Mix in the broccoli and you're done!

(totally optional but I add a pinch of Cayenne pepper at the very end)

Magic Meals

marichelledb@gmail.com (Marichelle) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:29:00 +0000

I love a recipe that takes no time to prep and basically cooks itself (kinda makes me feel guilty for ordering in sometimes). Prime example - Roasted Chicken with potatoes, red onions, lemon, thyme, balsamic and olive oil. You just chop up new potatoes, onions and lemons in quarters, throw in some sprigs of thyme, season well with salt & pepper, drizzle some olive oil and balsamic vinegar (make sure everything is nice coated) and voila, a satisfying meal in no time!

Nice Package Tutorial Time!

marichelledb@gmail.com (Marichelle) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:44:00 +0000

Head on over to www.shopnicepackage.com for the free tag download more details!

Finding your worth

marichelledb@gmail.com (Marichelle) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:33:00 +0000

I've had to raise my wunderlust prices again! I'm also slowly realizing that it's impossible for me to continue offering my products at wholesale, unless I hike my prices even higher or cut my production time in half.

Working on Nice Package for the past month has been an eyeopener for me - Ez and I have quickly adapted to what we refer to as "check the document", recently nicknamed "spready". One thing that I can thank corporate America for is my love/hate relationship with spreadsheets (Excel or in our case google docs spreadsheet). Spready is a spreadsheet that I created, it tracks all of our ideas (good and bad) and lets us know whether we can go ahead and produce the item at a decent return. It tracks things like our total cost of investment (supplies + labor) and by figuring out the cost of producing one unit we're able to play with different pricing situations to figure out the balance between making money and what we think our market can bear. Don't forget to consider Paypal, Etsy fees and other marketing fees when figuring out your markup %. I think lots of creatives out there (us included) are so busy dreaming up the next big thing or have this how-can-we-make-this-even-cuter-so-our-customers-go-ape-shit mentality, but then fall short in analyzing the actual time that goes into cute-output. Spready is sort of that annoying finance guy in your office that says "NO, absolutely not!". BS (Before Spready) we've honestly had to abort production on several kick-ass ideas that were almost completed after realizing that we'd have to charge an obscene amount of money in order to cover our supplies cost and that's not even including labor.

I'm proud to say that nothing gets produced under our brand unless it's gone through mr. spreads. We certainly learned this the hard way (AND still leaning!). I hope more and more artists/creatives start taking the time to analyze their production process and pricing scheme. Nothing makes me sadder than seeing under-priced items on Etsy and other online markets, not only is it detrimental to the artist/designer but also undervalues the perception of indie products as a whole.

I found this great primer Pricing your Handmade Goods - hope you find it useful as well!

Related Lifeflix posts:
How to: Price your Craft
How to: Retail Pricing

Risotto Cakes - great for a hangover

marichelledb@gmail.com (Marichelle) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:48:00 +0000

Happy Friday!
So here's what you can make with the leftover risotto! The best part, the cheesy middle!! Roll leftover risotto into balls (a little smaller than a tennis ball), insert a cube of mozzarella cheese, then flatten into patties (make sure cheese is covered), dredge in flour, stick in the fridge for 15 mins, then re-dredge in flour and fry it up. Served with arugula and oven roasted grape tomatoes with thyme!

Hope you guys have a great weekend - we'll be raking up leaves, handing out candy and getting a head start with prepping for my family's arrival!! (my sister Ces & brother Tom will be spending Thanksgiving with us!!)

A perfect day for...

marichelledb@gmail.com (Marichelle) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:57:00 +0000

It's another cold, wet and soggy day over here. I'm in the mood for something comforting like this Risotto dish I made last week. You know what's great about this dish? You can make yummy golden brown risotta cakes with the leftovers (pics tomorrow!)

I'll be sewing up my new garlands then heading out for a quick haircut. Nothing fun I'm afraid, just a good ol' trim - my hair is so gross right now, we're talking MAJOR split ends.

In progress...

marichelledb@gmail.com (Marichelle) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:23:00 +0000

I had a day off yesterday and I finally forced myself to work on a few new color palettes for my wunderlust buntings!! It's not so much that I haven't had a second to work on my own line, it's just been really challenging to shut off my "nice package" brain. It's been hard for me to switch gears and it's something that I'm trying to work out (hopefully soon!)

I also stopped by Home Depot and picked up a couple of cans of spray paint and repainted two random chairs that I haven't been happy with for the past year (one of them has already been painted twice). I left them in the garage over night, I didn't realize it was going to rain today so I hope they're doing alright out there.

Still Cooking

marichelledb@gmail.com (Marichelle) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:30:00 +0000

Happy Monday.

Just wanted to say thank you again to my friends for taking me out on Saturday for a belated bday celebration - you guys are the best!

I'm in SO much pain right now, Hillsy and I decided to move on to level 2 (J. Michaels DVD) and man did it kick our butts. Since we haven't done the DVD in the longest time, we decided to start at the very beginning - Level 1. It took us about 2 weeks until we felt it was time to graduate to 2.

I'm also happy to report that I'm still cooking up a storm. I tried another recipe from my new fave mag - Stove-top Mac and Cheese. Basic bechamel/cheddar cheese sauce+ onions + worcestershire + dijon mustard + cayenne pepper. Yumm. (now you know why I exercise)

Spinach & Bacon Frittata

marichelledb@gmail.com (Marichelle) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:00:00 +0000

Spinach & Bacon Frittata

Things I would change the next time around....
- cut the spinach leaves a little smaller and maybe use less (one bag was waaay too much)
- add 1 or 2 more strips of bacon :)

Seared Salmon + Yummy Green Sauce

marichelledb@gmail.com (Marichelle) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 11:16:00 +0000

I did really well last week - 7 days of homecooked meals!
I'm officially in love with the Everyday Food Magazine! It's helped me transition back into cooking easy and simple to make GOOD food. The best part is that most of the ingredients are simple and easy to find (most I already have). Not like Gourmet Mag (RIP), where you end up feeling like you need to book travel tix to a faraway land so you can pick up an exotic spice or two - basically feeling like you don't get to travel enough and end up hating what appears to be a mundane non-gourmet kinda life...

By the way, this is my new favorite way of cooking potatoes (so freakin' good).

Recipe used: Seared Fish with Crispy Potatoes + Green Sauce

Pizza Friday & RR Weekend

marichelledb@gmail.com (Marichelle) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:17:00 +0000

Hope you had a nice weekend!! Hillsy and I finally had a nice and quiet full weekend. Whipped up some pizza (mmmm), finally saw Michael Moore's latest documentary (good!) and simply relaxed.

Marinated Chicken with Cucumber-Mint Salad

marichelledb@gmail.com (Marichelle) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:30:00 +0000

We loved this sooooo much even if our entire house still smells of onions 24 hours later. I used Nan bread, I love how it's a little bit more doughy & chewy than pita bread.

I got this recipe from last month's Everyday Foods Mag and I'm so glad it's up on their website (Marinated Chicken with Cucumber Mint Salad). I'm not sure whether or not you were supposed to do it this way, but I removed the onions from the pan once they caramelized and added a little bit more oil to the pan. I then cooked the chicken and a minute before they were done, I added the onions back into the pan. I wanted to get the little bits off of the bottom of the pan, so I finished it off by adding a tablespoon of water and carefully scrubbed the bottom of the pan to get the extra "flavor".

Open for Biz

marichelledb@gmail.com (Marichelle) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 14:54:00 +0000

Gettin' Back on Track

marichelledb@gmail.com (Marichelle) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 16:45:00 +0000

I spent the rest of the weekend recuperating from the unbelievably hectic schedule that Ez and I have been on this past month and a half. I was scheduled to go on a little break but given the circumstances, it had to be canceled for obvious reasons. So how did it go this Saturday? It didn't go as well as we had hoped but there were a ton of takeaways from the experience and I definitely don't regret doing it. Thank you to all of our friends who stopped by in person and in spirit! Unfortunately the weather wasn't too cooperative - it was showering most of the morning and then there was the wind. It was so freakin' windy we kept having to hold our tent + products down. Thank goodness we had a couple of friends on hand to help us out. Stuff kept flying off of our table (not in a good way!), it was definitely a nutty day. We'll be posting more about it on the Nice Package blog later today.

Both Ez and I started to feel sick once we got home from the market. I guess we've both been fighting something for the past couple of weeks but have been working like dogs and wouldn't allow ourselves to get sick, until of course it was all over. So we're taking several days off this week, trying to get back to 100%. We still need to launch the shop, post tutorials, reach out to bloggers etc etc. - so there's definitely still a ton to do.

In the meantime, I'm trying to get my life back on track. My non-Nice Package life that is. The house is a mess, I haven't cooked a real meal in god knows how long and my own brand Wunderlust has taken a back-seat to everything else. Poor Hillsy has been so supportive of everything, but I'm sure a part of him was semi-relieved to spend a normal weekend at our home. So this week, I'm attempting to do a better job at balancing. We finally did our groceries yesterday (Hillsy has been doing it on his own for the past couple of weeks), this week's menu is set - thanks to Everyday Foods Mag (Ez gave me a subscription for my birthday) and I spent an hour this morning prepping all of the ingredients for the week. I'm going to tidy up NP headquarters (dining room) and get working on a few Wunderlust items.