Happy New Year!

Wow, another year!

Do you have your goals planned out...on paper? Let's start this year out with a mindset to achieve them. It's important to get them in ink. I'm so excited to see you develop and how high you're going to fly.

You read the subject line right: I'M QUITTING!

It is huge and uncomfortable for me. Cookie-ing is all I've known for 10 years. I have decided to pretty much stop taking cookie orders. Yep. It's time to really concentrate on YOU!

I have big beautiful plans for WeCookiers this year. My physical sugar cookie business has been holding me back from building the relationship I want to with you. Sound good?

Onward...

Today's Highlights

1. your question, my answer

2. cookie cutter flips

3. latest in Shop Gotta-Havs!

5. business sense

6. business tips

Your Questions, My Answer

Q: Why do my baked sugar cookies have bubbles under the surface?

A: There are few reasons for this:

-not chilling the dough enough

-adding too much flour

-over-mixing the dough

-using too soft of butter (you want the stick of butter to be bendable)

Side note:

If you do not have a heat sealer for your cookies. It's a must. You will wonder why you never bought one before. I love mine. It's sealed thousands of cookie bags.
Heat Sealer on this Page

Cookie Cutter Flips

Here are 3 cookie cutter flips I created.

-Elephant on ball to hot air balloon and cloud

-Clown head to whimsical ice cream cone

-Upside down musical note to dinosaur bust

Sorry, if you have an email with just HTML, you cannot see the photos.

Take me to Cookie Cutter Flips Galore!

...or you can tap on the photo

Latest in Shop Gotta-havs!

Since I used the 2 circus cookie cutters as flips, I thought I would celebrate the New Year with a huge discount on the entire set.

If you are looking to pump up your supply of cutters for a real deal, you'll want these. The set of 4 LARGE cutters come with their respective embosser (makes 8 pieces total)! If you include the 2 flips above, that gives you 6 shapes. Can't beat that. But hurry, it's for a very limited time. I won't be ordering more of these as the price has risen too much.

Tap on photo to be taken there.

Set of 8 pc Circus cutters and embossers

By the way, many thanks for your support of Shop Gotta-havs. This has enabled me to continue adding free content, videos, and periodicals. I appreciate you!

Business Sense: marketing yourself

1. Hook up with local businesses that complement yours (not competitors). Offer to decorate cookies live between certain hours on a given day. Have some already bagged and ready to hand out with your biz name and contact info.

2. Public service is probably one of the best ways to spread your word. Put a smile on your face, grab a group of your friends and go downtown when it is busy to wash storefront windows. Be sure to have t-shirts/aprons/hats and/or a sandwich sign by you with your info, thanking the community for their support of your business.

3. Everyone loves candles. Fortunately, you can pick them up cheap at dollar stores. Get some and put your stickers/labels on them and hand them out where ever you go. They will be used and your label will be on them for the life of the candle.

Business Tips

1. In my business, there seems to always be a handful of new people who message my phone and place orders. Although I never have turned them away unless I couldn't squeeze them in, I do stress that I only take orders via Facebook to keep them altogether. So often I nearly forgot one because I neglected to write it on my calendar as it came in.

2. Have you ever taken on an order you wish you hadn't,whether the customer was fussy or you really didn't have time? Didn't it seem to take forever and/or else you fumbled all the way through it? I raise my hand on this! Over Christmas I ran on to several of this orders. I decided to deep breath and pump myself up. I surrounded myself with music I enjoyed and brightened the room as much as I could. Surprisingly, it made them go much faster and I was happier.

3. For a time when I first started cookie-ing, I either collected the birthday of the customer, or if it was a birthday for their child, I would write it down. If I hadn't heard from them in a while, I would message them to stop by for a freebie. They loved that. I think I always got an order from them soon after.

Pepper Blair's Space

Pepper wrote this before Christmas and I made them into laminated bookmarks for bibles to hand out. I loved it. I hope you enjoy it. If you want a pdf you can download to print, I'm happy to do that for free! The photo will take you to the image pinned on Pinterest.

Pepper Blair on Pinterest

Here's hoping you will have a healthy, happy, and prosperous new year.

Many Blessings,

Nita

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