My Orange Nightmare

What do you do when you unpack your last shipment of baskets for the season, and discover that 85 of the large ones you need the most are an unfortunate shade of orange? It was my orange nightmare revisited...ARGHHH!

I had just finished re-staining the last remaining few from a batch we got last fall. It was messy, smelly, and time-consuming the first time around...I used oil-based stain and I did it by hand with a brush. It took forever to dry, and alot longer for the odor to disappear. I was so happy to see the last one finished! The very last thing on earth I ever wanted to do again was to re-stain another basket.

But, there they were...85 more baskets that we couldn't send back and coudn't send out the way they were. We need most of them for a big project we're working on right now. Julie is beyond busy at this time of year, running the whole show. So there was no way around it...it was time for me to take one for the team.

I was pretty psyched to discover that water-based stain is not sticky, dries quickly, and doesn't smell like a carcinogen. It had to be the answer! I tried the stain-by-hand with a brush method, and it took at least 20 minutes per basket...it also looked like hell.

Plan B involved dipping the baskets in a some sort of container I could use as a vat. I scoured Home Depot for supplies, and came home with 9 quarts of stain which I diluted with water, several brushes, vinyl gloves, and a large plastic tarp. I emptied my Christmas ornaments out of a large plastic storage container and voila, I was in business!

The next part was tricky... I really have no open area in my home to work on an insane project like this. So I set up the dipping operation in my little kitchen on top of some large trash bags, and spread the long plastic tarp in the kitchen, and all across the length of my living room. I have off-white carpeting, so I was pretty much playing with fire.

Much to my delight, the new plan worked like a charm. It took only about 4 minutes to dip each basket! I was determined to finish the job up by Tuesday, just to get the whole big mess out of my little house.

Untimately WHERE TO PUT THE BASKETS WHILE THEY DRIED became the next nightmare. Picture 85 baskets the size of a shallow laundry basket. I sat on the floor and worked out a system...Dip three, set aside. Stand up, transfer into the living room. Carry in a dozen more. Dip three, and on and on. Every possible space was covered with freshly stained baskets, and I had piles more. So as they dried, I began piling them upside down in layers so they would all fit on the tarp. I worked for 4-5 hours straight, and when I was finished, I had a mountain of baskets about 4 feet high covering my living room. It was a Kodak moment!

My sense of relief and accomplishment at a job well done began to fade the next day when every part of my body began screaming at me, "What were you thinking? You are 59 years old, you have arthritis, and your knee is an orthopedic disaster zone!!! That day I dragged myself to work at the hospital, literally in tears. One of my R.N. friends threw a handful of assorted over-the-counter pain meds at me and said, "Take three of these and two of these, and don't argue with me!" It helped. Another friend went home and brought me back a miocrowaveable rice bag to use on my knee. I really have some good friends.

It's Friday and the pain is down to it's normal dull roar. My off-white carpeting is still off-white, and we're using the formerly orange baskets... they really look great! I just have to make a mental note to remind myself that I'm really not 25 anymore. And that the gift basket business is so fun...isn't it???

Our Thanksgiving Thank You

Another wild week! Our usual early-order customers did order early, and their Thanksgiving thank-you gifts are made, wrapped, and out the door. Over the years we've encouraged corporate customers to consider client thank-you gifts for Thanksgiving, and several have made it a tradition. This is a win-win for our customers and for us. Their beautiful fall-trimmed gifts are usually the first holiday gifts to arrive, making a bigger impression (we think). On our end, the plus is our holiday workload and cashflow are spread out over a little more time.


Beyond that, we've been amazed at how many of the "Usual Suspects" are checking in early this year. "Usual Suspects" is an absolute term of endearment I use for the wonderful clients we hear from each and every holiday season. It seems that this years' early Thanksgiving has spurred customers into thinking about client gifts about a week earlier than usual. This is all to our advantage in so many ways...extra time for production and the availability of stock allows us to increase our volume, and hopefully accommodate everyone who wants holiday gifts from The Syracuse Gift Basket Company. There is nothing worse that having to turn down orders because of time and stock constraints...it's something we absolutely hate to do. But integrity is integrity, and we won't ever promise anything that we can't deliver.


We had an unexpected surprise yesterday when Shelby Stafford of Channel 9 called, wanting to include our business in a piece she's working on about "Cyber Monday". I guess we're a little out of the loop(?) because we had no idea what that even meant. Apparently, after "Black Friday", there is a comparable shopping day in cyberspace, occurring on the following Monday. She talked to us about many aspects of our business and the impact of the internet, with some shots of Julie making a basket, and of our shop. Some of the Thanksgiving baskets were still waiting to be picked up, so we got to show off some of our larger gifts. As usual, I backed off when the camera started rolling...Julie is so comfortable with that whole scene, and I am so not! Shelby said the piece would air on Monday, early a.m. (5-6:00) and may possibly pop up elsewhere. No matter what, it's nice to have the exposure on TV without the expense. Thanks Shelby!


All in all we have so much to be thankful for. We're off to a phenomenal start to the holiday season, in spite of the ecomony, in spite of the late start, in spite of the fact that alot of people (including us) thought we wouldn't be around this season. In no small part, this is due to our very loyal customers, who come through for us every year with holiday orders and referrals (our best advertising!) It's always so very gratifying to know that our customers appreciate what we do.


Tomorrow Julie will be cooking Thanksgiving dinner for our family, and I will be thankful for our precious time together, probably the last until Christmas. This weekend we'll begin a month of long days and heavy holiday production. Piles of baskets and piles of stock, miles of ribbon and trim are waiting. I'm definitely not complaining, but exactly where are all the elves???

Wishing all a warm and Happy Thanksgiving!

Off and Running!

It's been a crazy couple of weeks. After looking over our catalog, we realized we still had alot more gifts to reshoot, in addition to our holiday gifts. We're actually reshooting our entire catalog---partly to update and standardize the photos, but also to get them into the format we need to easily reproduce them. Since we downsized our customer area substantially in the shop, we decided to create a catalog with color photos and descriptions of all of our standard gifts. It's virtually impossible to have all of our 75 plus catalog gifts on display at all times, and it was crazy to send people home to look at our website to see them all. So-o-o-o, we came up with the idea to have a loose-leaf type catalog at our customer service counter. Lots of work! Last Sunday, I spent about 16 hours making gifts (marathon day). Laura was scheduled to come back on Monday to finish with our pictures, so we didn't have much choice. Julie had an urgent house project to finish last weekend, so I glued myself to the work table on Sunday and got it done.

Laura commented on Monday that shooting all of these gift basket pictures was better than getting poked in the eye with a sharp stick, but not much.

Unfortunately for Julie, she is the lucky partner who knows about photoshopping the new pictures and working out the spreadsheets for our online catalog (tedious!) We needed to recalculate prices on alot of gifts due to all of the price increases we have been absorbing, so it was time for a re-do anyway. (After all, we are trying to stay in business!) Most of the time, it's just Julie and I here, so when we are working on something extra besides our normal business, it's challenging.

But, there is good news! Our previously mentioned "Girl Friday", Susan offered to come back and work 2 days a week, and more when we get down to the nitty gritty of holiday production. Yay for us! She started back this week, and has accomplished wonders of organization already. We had hoped to consolidate our operation enough to get by without the 1500 square feet we have been renting upstairs. This was just fine for everyday business. But the day the wall of baskets for holiday gifts arrived, we knew it wasn't enough space for the November-December madness. So, we are again setting up production areas upstairs.

And more good news...our biggest holiday client placed their annual monster order on October 30! Last year it didn't come in until December 1, and it impacted our entire holiday season. Most people don't even think about holiday gifts until December 1. But when you have a 2-3 week project on your plate that late in the season, it becomes extremely difficult to commmit to much more (no matter how much help you pull in.) So we talked to them early about the state of things, and they were kind enough to place their order early this year. (We love them for that!)

Several other large orders have come in already, so it's feeling like it's going to be an awesome season. We're winding up the catalog project, and things are coming together. The work area is being readied and the elves are being summoned. We are off and running!