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Pumpkin Seeds Benefits

The third Wednesday of October is National Pumpkin seed day! I love the season of autumn because you can create magical pumpkins and sip on hot apple cider while snacking on pumpkin seeds.

Seeds, in general, are considered excellent sources of potassium, magnesium, and calcium. Pumpkin seeds are a good source of healthful oils, magnesium, and other nutrients that enhance the health of the heart, bones, and other functions. Pumpkin seeds are a good source of magnesium, which is important for bone formation. High magnesium intake is associated with a greater bone density and has been shown to decrease the risk of osteoporosis in women after menopause. In addition, Pumpkin seeds contain omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, antioxidants, and fiber. This combination has benefits for both the heart and liver. The fiber in pumpkin seeds helps lower the total amount of cholesterol in the blood and decrease the risk of heart disease.

After carving our pumpkins for our magical spooky decorations, I collect the seeds to make a tasty snack for myself and my kids.

Directions to make toasted pumpkin seeds:

Spread the seeds in a single layer on an oiled baking sheet and roast 30 minutes to dry them out. I like to add spices, so toss the seeds with olive oil, salt and your choice of spices ( example; cinnamon, pumpkin spice, nutmeg, or all spice ). Return to the oven and bake until crisp and golden, about 20 more minutes. Below is a link that has different recipes using pumpkin seeds.

https://www.delish.com/cooking/g3019/best-baked-pumpkin-seed-recipes/

I was inspired this month to create 3D printed pumpkins for the shop from all the years of love of making tasty pumpkin seeds and carving out spooky and silly jack-o-lanterns with the kids! The 3d print is shaped as a small pumpkin painted in a bronze finish! You can follow the link below to check out the planter! Pumpkin-Seeds

https://www.etsy.com/listing/632301796/3d-printed-pumpkin-planter-for-indoor?ref=shop_home_active_2

National Ghost Hunting Day

On the last Saturday in September as part of the World’s Largest Ghost Hunt, National Ghost Hunting Day kicks off an annual international investigation of the paranormal. For ages gone by, many of the ghost stories around the world center on historical records or literature. Even their use by Shakespeare and other playwrights is often considered a persistence of that discussion in the midst of the Renaissance stage. Seeking paranormal activity isn’t limited to rundown ruins and darkened, forgotten corners of the world. With the increase of movies and television shows going on the hunt, interest has grown. There are many cities that offer ghost hunting tours to walk and listen to ghostly stories about people or places. Take for instance New Bern, NC has a ghostly tour walk. http://www.ghostsofnewbern.com/ The tour tells you about the ghosts that haunt the homes and buildings along our route as well as about paranormal investigations that have taken places.

Also Wilmington, NC has a haunted ghost walk, that I have actually been to several times and each visit that I have taken was different stories! https://www.hauntedwilmington.com/ You will take a guided tour of a 90-minute ghost walk to the city’s most actively haunted homes & burial grounds. Hear eerie tales of ghostly occurrences, including actual encounters during recent tours.

I have always had a fascination

Halloween_Skull_with_Bone_and_Witch_Hat_Clipart

of ghostly stories and growing up in a home that had some strange activity inspired me to create the skull planters in my shop! I love to read ghost story books, to me its history that hasn’t been forgotten. You can check out the skull planter by following the link below

https://www.etsy.com/listing/633107344/3d-printed-skulls-planters

7 NC Lighthouses

If you visit my Etsy shop you will notice that a few items listed are vintage collectibles. I have collected different items over the years when visiting different coastal antique shops. One of the items that I love, is the vintage Lighthouse hooks. I love that I live on the Coast of North Carolina and that I have 7 different Lighthouses to visit close by me or taking a short day trip to see one of them. When I found the hooks I knew that it had a place in my shop!

There are seven standing North Carolina Lighthouses: Currituck, Bodie Island, Hatteras, Ocracoke, Cape Lookout, Oak Island, and Bald Head Island. Living on the Coast of North Carolina I have had the opportunity to visit most of these beautiful places. These seven coastal lighthouses dot North Carolina’s shoreline from the Outer Banks to the Brunswick Islands. Long ago these structures protected fortune hunters from our shores, as of today they lure visitors for some of the most incredible sights you’ll ever see.

The Currituck Beach Light Station on the northern Outer Banks has protected North Carolina’s shores since 1875. Made of roughly 1 million red bricks, this active lighthouse’s exterior differs from a more common black-and-white color scheme to the south. You can climb and visit the Light Station Easter through Thanksgiving

When my family and I visited Kitty Hawk and Nags Head over the Spring we got to explore this amazing place. At the entrance of this protected area is Bodie Island Lighthouse (pronounced “body”). Today’s structure is the third lighthouse to stand on this site. Take the 214-step trip to the top, and then explore the lighthouse museum and bookshop in the former keeper’s quarters. You can visit the lighthouse in April through Columbus Day.

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is the nation’s tallest and most recognizable lighthouse, it’s commonly referred to as “America’s Lighthouse” and was completed in 1870. Climb its 257 stairs during the day or watch its light shine for 20 miles at night. You can visit this lighthouse the same time frame as the Bodie Lighthouse.

To reach the oldest still-operating lighthouse in North Carolina, you can take a free ferry from Hatteras to Ocracoke Island. The whitewashed lighthouse is one of the nation’s five oldest still-active facilities. Although you can’t climb the stairs to the top, the view from the base alone is worth the trip. The village is steeped in history, only accessible by water or air and was once a safe haven for the infamous pirate Blackbeard.

The Cape Lookout Lighthouse is most recognized for its large black-and-white diamond design. Originally rejected by 19th century mariners, the structure was later used as the model for future Outer Banks lighthouses. It’s the southernmost lighthouse on the Crystal Coast along the Outer Banks and is only accessible by private ferry. When climbing its 207 steps you can take in 360-degree views of the area’s turquoise blue waters and undeveloped beaches.

Traveling south of the Outer Banks to the Brunswick Islands beaches, you can cross onto Oak Island to see the Oak Island Lighthouse. With a light that can be seen for 24 miles, this lighthouse is one of the worlds most powerful. I have the opportunity to visit this lighthouse many times because my family lives near this beautiful structure.

North Carolina’s southernmost lighthouse is visible from Oak Island. Return to the mainland and head to Southport where you can take the ferry to Bald Head Island. Similar to Ocracoke, Bald Head is only accessible by water or air. Old Baldy’s appearance is a result of decades of patchwork repair and its 141 years of service. Climb to the top of its 108 steps to take in the view and explore the restored keeper’s cottage on the property.

When you get a chance to visit NC coastal areas try to stop at one of these amazing places! Also you can check out the vintage hooks at

https://www.etsy.com/listing/575275937/vintage-iron-light-house-hooks

Cape Hatteras Lighthouse with Striped Sand-crop(1,0.848,0,0.036,r3)

Oak Island Lighthouse-crop(1,0.958,0,0,r3)

Bald Head Lighthouse from Bottom-crop(1,0.848,0,0.076,r3)

Edible Plants and Flowers

About a month ago my family and I went on a little hiking trip for a day. I took along my newest book South East Foraging by Chris Bennett. This book is a starter lesson on edible plants and flowers within my area the South East. It was a game that I played along with my kids looking for plants during our day of hiking. That day we didn’t sample any of the plants or flowers since it’s our first foraging hunt plus I really want to know more before sampling the forest or fields. I wanted to share with you a few edible plants/flowers that you might be surprised that you can eat!

If you’re new to foraging, you’ll want to establish some rules before you start looking for edible plants. For example, most people know that some mushrooms can be poisonous, so it’s best to stay away from all mushrooms if you don’t know what’s poisonous and what’s not. The Southeast is abundant in nutrient rich soils and the plant life here is diverse. There are many of these plants that are edible, but you’ll need to be well knowledgeable on how to identify them before you go chomping on strange greens along the trail.

Many edible plants are classified as weeds you can start looking for plants in your lawn or other areas that are regularly cleared like parks and fields. Also, depending on the region of the United States you live in, edible plants will grow in different areas of the landscape.

The Dandelion: Its Flower, leaves, stem, and root are all edible. Flowers taste best as a bud or at a barely-open stage in salads or sauteed in butter. The leaves (best young, in early spring) are highly nutritious, good in salads or stir-fry. The root (best in winter) needs to be parboiled (partially cooked in boiling water), then drained and boiled again until tender.

Violets are edible flowers and they are high in vitamins A and C. Their leaves can be eaten raw or boiled, or they can be dried to make tea. Violets have also been used medicinally, such as a common headache cure is a warm towel soaked with violet tea and placed on the back of the neck. The flower buds can be a garnish in salads or desserts. In addition, be sure not to eat the roots or stems of the flower it can cause nausea and vomiting, also avoid African Violets its toxic.

Clover is can be found about everywhere in the United States it’s edible! It is very high in protein. Raw clover can cause problems with digestion, but it can be made into a juice form. Flour can also be made from dried clover flowers and seed pods. Tea can also be made from clover, just steep it in water and boil then drain the leaves.

Day lilies have a long history in China as both edible flowers and medicine. Young, day-lily leaves can be cut at 5 inches and sauteed or stir-fried. The buds can be eaten raw, boiled, or stir-fried. Partially opened or fully opened day-lily flowers can be battered with a mixture of flour and water and fried. The roots of the day-lily are also edible, either raw or boiled. They pack high nutrition in the late fall after storing vitamins and minerals from the summer season.

Have you tried any Edible plants or Flowers or been foraging for plants? Leave a comment and share your thoughts!

Promoting tips for your business

Promoting your Etsy shop can take time and even years to build up daily sales. Marketing your Etsy shop is a HUGE topic that many ask every day. I am still asking and researching how to get daily sales and it’s a learning process that takes patience, months, and even years. You may not have a lot cash to spend on marketing in the early stages of your startup, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t effective ways to get your brand out there. Before the Internet, small businesses only had a few ways to market their products inexpensively, through approaches like printing out fliers or sponsoring local events. Now today to help your business is the magical world of Social Media! Embrace social media because it can help you grab those customers and followers!

Take for instance, Facebook reaches so many people worldwide and by creating a page for your shop/business can help promote your name and items that you sell. Also joining multiple discussion boards/pages on Facebook can aid your shop by helping you tweak your imperfections or gain more followers and customers. Think about your items that you create and try to find discussion pages that have an interest in your creativity. I have personally joined 3 Etsy selling groups to help promote my shop, and I have join a few 3D printing discussion pages too plus I have created a Facebook page for Flymeawaycreations.

Secondly, create an Instagram and Pinterest account for your shop. This is where it takes time to build up your followers. ( I am still in the learning process of this) I try to post at least once or twice a day of one of my items or something that relates to my Etsy shop. One tool that has worked in the past with me is branding one of your items in your shop on Instagram. Brand ambassadors are essentially people that you send free product to in exchange for them promoting your brand + products on their blog/facebook/instagram/pinterest accounts. There’s another term floating around– “brand enthusiasts” who is similar, but you don’t have to give away your product for free. There are definitely pros + cons to both, but I (personally) like brand ambassadors better because they tend to push your products a little bit more frequently, simply because they get your product for free and feel obliged to make it worth your time so that you will keep them on. So how do you find these people? One of THE BEST ways to find your first brand ambassadors is to start by doing a shout-out on your social media. The people that are following you there are already some of your biggest fans and a lot of them would LOVE free product in exchange for promotion. Also think about how you tag your picture (#). For instance, what you create think about that audience and reach out by using (#) in a new way. (Example: baby items: # momtobe or #nurseryideas

Thirdly, enter email marketing. If you don’t have a mailing list yet, it’s time to change that. Mailing lists sounds so old-fashioned, but there’s a reason everyone recommends them! It’s the only marketing technique that you have complete control over. Getting started isn’t that hard– just sign up for an email service provider like MailChimp (perfect for beginners) or ConvertKit (for those a little more savvy) and start asking for those emails. Personally, I sell locally and I leave out an email list sheet for my customers and whoever that would like to sign up to receive a monthly letter/ message letting them know when I will be selling at the market and what new items that I have been creating. This is great tool to show off your newest items or even promote a sale at your shop!

Lastly, listing a new item! I’m sure you notice on Etsy that there are a lot of “favorited” items + shops. Did you know? — Every time someone favorites an item of yours or a shop, you become a part of that person’s Etsy home page ! Also, every time you list (or renew) a new item, it shows up on their homepage. It’s essentially free advertising to a targeted potential customer– someone that has already shown interest in your product.

These are a few creative marketing techniques to promote your product-based business. If you have any new ideas or creative ways that work/ promote your shop and are ridiculously effective Leave a comment and share them below!