4 Summer's End & Fall's Beginning

Summer officially comes to an end today, September 21st, which of course means fall officially begins tomorrow.  As much as I LOVE everything about summer, I’m really excited for fall this year.  Along with some cooler temps, I look forward to football season (gig em Aggies!), some of the new TV shows (I hope The Crazy Ones with Robin Williams is good), family gathering for the holidays, and food like pumpkin cake roll, baked apples, and pecan pie. 

Speaking of food (as I so often do), I love collecting recipes.  Now with all of the incredible posts on Pinterest … well, I’m getting more than I can handle.  If I tried to make everything that looked good, I wouldn’t have time for anything else!  So I’m trying to limit what I collect (which is very difficult!).  But I HAD to keep this one... check out the Caramel Snickerdoodle picture (recipe below).  I probably should have tried it before posting, but doesn’t it look SO darn good.  I really hope it’s as good as it looks! 

I also enjoy decorating for each holiday.  It’s fun, even if you just set out a few decorative items (it’s better not to go overboard!) - from ceramic pumpkins (or acorns as pictured), to napkins and placemats in wonderful fall colors.  A little decor can bring the season right into your home.  Especially when you live in a warmer climate – at least it feels more like fall inside than out!  :)    

Fall - the time for things like...

Beautiful light weight scarfs

Decorative fall dishes

And football... with refreshments :)

Enjoy the changing of the season!  We certainly are going to!!

Love & Happiness, Donna (& Diana)

Recipe for Caramel Snickerdoodles:  (Courtesy of Pinterest & Ohbiteit.com) 

Ingredients for 20 Snickery Doodly Delights: 1 Pillsbury Crescents Seamless Dough Sheet, Caramel Candies - one per doodle, 1 cup of Cinnamon/Sugar blended to your taste. Directions:  Cut out a 2″x2″ piece of dough and wrap it gently and snuggled around one caramel.  Roll it in the Cinnamon Sugar and place them onto a baking sheet about 1″ apart.  Bake them at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes, or until they’re firm and slightly puffy.  Let them cool for just a few, but these have to be eaten warm, for maximum caramel flow.  *SIDE NOTE:  Unless you want to play Hockey and use these as pucks, microwave them for a couple of seconds OR warm them in a low oven for a few minutes before eating them, just to get them gooey again.

4 the new & redo - a celebration!

If you’ve read any of the previous blogs, you can see a recurring theme with us - change or redo!  (Although, after this blog we might need to “change” the theme to celebration!) :)  When we started our business, we began with just an online shop.  Our website went live September 26, 2011.  As you can imagine, there was a lot we had to do before that day.  It took us about a year and a half to get everything ready prior to launching the site. We were so excited to finally get to this point.

Website Launch Day... Celebration! 

It’s been almost 2 years (already!) since the launch.  Obviously, a lot has happened since that time. Some of you attended our 4sistershop home parties, school parties, or craft shows.  And for that, we thank you!

 Home Party... Celebration!

A few months later, we moved our products into a store called The Brass Armadillo.  This store has locations in 5 different states, 6 cities.  If you haven’t ever been there, and there's one located near you, you should go.  It’s a fun store to check out.  Just be sure to schedule lots of time, because there is SO much to look at.   

Shortly thereafter, we began searching for our very own space.  At the time, we never dreamed things would happen so quickly.  Now we have our own store and couldn't feel more fortunate!  Happy times!   

 Cave Creek Opening Day... Celebration!

We also plan to continue to maintain our online store as well, although we recently decided to make a few changes to it.  We have redesigned the site (only) once over the years, so it’s time!  Actually, it’s not going to look all that different; we’re just changing some of the products/categories online.  Once complete, I believe there needs to be some celebrating though – don’t you! :)

And if you can’t make it to Cave Creek, 

visit us at 4sistershop.com.   

Cheers!  Donna (& Diana)

 

 

4 Great Anticipation

The word anticipation immediately makes me burst into song. Watch out Carly Simon - ha ha!  OK, NO.  But I do love the word.  We anticipate so many things in life, which makes everything even more exciting!  Don't you just love that?!!  Yes!  As long as you are living life along the way (and not getting too wound up), anticipating all new things can be positive and enjoyable.

We are currently anticipating the arrival of ... SO many new (& old) products!  One of our business friends traveled around Europe recently and is bringing back some awesome merchandise.  We are in the process of selecting some of the unique pieces they found (which is so difficult because we want everything!)  :)  Here are pictures of just a few of the incredible items we will be picking up.

We do love old, rustic items!  We also love brand new too.  I think we have a great mix of both.  We’ve also reordered some of the items that we only had a few of and that have sold out very quickly. (Frames, Soap Dishes, Signs, Pillows, etc.) 

Unfortunately we can no longer get our (sold-out) “happy wife happy life” signs, but we are hoping to find some new ones! 

In addition to the large quantity of home décor items, we have a lot of beautiful new jewelry pieces arriving soon also.

So as you can see, we are anxiously awaiting (anticipating!) lots of new fabulous items.  We hope you are as well! 

“Wake up in anticipation, something great is going to happen today!”  

Love, Donna (& Diana)