HOLIDAY SHOPPING - EASY AS 1-2-3

At Laurel Mountain Basket Company, we make your Holiday Shopping as easy as one-two-three.

One - make your list (check it twice)

Two - set your budget. We have great Holiday Gift Baskets to fit every budget.

Three - pick up the phone and call!

It really is that easy. All of our gift baskets are hand made in our Easthampton, Massachuetts studio with quality products, many from local vendors. We use maple syrup that comes from sugar houses in Easthampton and Northampton, past and herb mixes from Colrain, Salsa from Williamsburg and chocolate covered cranberry candies from Cape Cod.

Ordering is easy too. You can call us at 413-527-1243 and speak with one of our design experts. We will custom design a basket for you or you can check out and order your Christmas gift baskets on line.

Kosher, gluten free or other special diet? Our design experts can assist you in creating a beautiful gift basket that suits your needs.

Let us take the stress out of your Holiday shopping.

Best wishes for a very Happy Holiday!
Marie

Holiday Rush

It was the first week in October and I was pricing floor tiles in one of the big box stores. I overheard the manager explaining to his crew that they would be getting their Christmas Holiday merchandise in by the end of the week. They were to start making room for it so that it could be out on display as soon as it arrived.

Now, in addition to being on line, Laurel Mountain Basket Company has a retail gift shop located in Easthampton, MA. I know I have to start planning for the Holiday Season early. We need to start creating our new designs in July and August so that we can order our supplies for an October delivery. But, I am NOT going to put our Holiday designs out on display in our store before Halloween!

I love all of the Holidays and I want to enjoy each of them to the max. I celebrate Take Your Dog To Work Day! So I think it is a shame to rush over any of them.

Celebrate Halloween! Make a huge bowl of pop corn, turn down the lights and cuddle on the sofa with your family while you watch scary movies together.

Thanksgiving is one of my favorites. Roasted turkey and pumpkin pie are the best. And in our family there is always a birthday cake. I was born on Thanksgiving day so it is a really special holiday to me.

I absolutely love Christmas!!!! Only my friend Jeannie out does me with Christmas decorating. I do think she starts decorating around now because every nook and cranny in her beautiful home is filled with the Christmas spirit. And then, she bakes enough cookies and sweet breads to feed the town.

So, my advice to you is that you savor each day because each one is a holiday. Don't rush over Mad Hatter Day, Cookie Monster Day or Cat Herders Day. Enjoy each one to the fullest.

It's Personal

Gift baskets are a great gift idea. That's why you will find them in discount stores, large department and grocery stores and pharmacy chains across the country. Especially during the Holidays. Some of the gift baskets are actually pretty nice, but to me, they lack imagination. Getting a gift basket filled with coffee mugs, flavored coffee and cookies, all sporting the logo of a major national coffee chain, tells me little thought went into buying that gift.
At a gift basket company like Laurel Mountain Basket Company you will find gift baskets with personality. Gift baskets designed especially for events like birthdays or bereavements, or for individuals with a passion like golf or fishing. A gift basket can be so much more than the sum of its parts. It can be a gift as unique as the person giving it and the person receiving it.

Seasons Greetings!

I know, it's August, but in our world it's time to start planning for the Holiday Season. It's actually lots of fun. Catalogs from all of our suppliers are arriving daily and we get to go SHOPPING! Shopping is my favorite sport.
This year we are putting together a new line of New England gift baskets but will continue to feature locally made treats like pancake mix and maple syrup from the Pioneer Valley, chocolates and cranberry candies from Cape Cod, jams and jellies and even salsa from the Berkshire hills. We will be bringing back some of your old favorites like Little House of Thyme and adding some new ones we know you will love like Appalachian Naturals.
We love the shea butter soaps and beeswax candles handmade by local craftspeople and will be featuring these items in many of our Bath and Body Gift Baskets like our Holiday SPA Gift Basket shown here.
We will be posting our new designs on our blog so check back with us regularly. If you have any design favorites, let us know.
Enjoy the rest of your summer,
Marie

Ready, Set,Shop!

Shopping during the Holiday Season can be quite stressful. Crowded stores, limited time, and limited money, are all factors contributing to a stressful shopping experience. Here are a couple of tips to make Holiday shopping more enjoyable.

Plan ahead. Planning ahead is one way to limit the amount of stress brought on by shopping during the Holidays. Start by making lists. Make a list of people who you want to buy gifts for and determine how much money you are going to spend on each gift. Next, write down one or two gift ideas that fall within the pre determined price range next to each name.
Start your Holiday shopping early and plan to shop on more than one occasion if at all possible. By starting early and knowing you don't have to buy everything on your list that day, you will have a better chance of finding the gift you want at the price you can afford. If you wait until the last minute, you may find yourself spending more for a particular item or spending money on a gift simply to have "something" to give because you have run out of time. Spending more than your budget allows will certainly add stress to the Holiday Season and beyond.

Finding the "perfect" gift for that "hard to buy for" individual can create a lot of stress. The way to avoid this type of stress is to realize that you can't please everyone. Simply select a "nice" gift that is within your budget and be done with it.

Gift baskets are wonderful gifts for "hard to shop for" people. At Laurel Mountain Basket Company, we have a large selection of gift baskets designed for every occasion and we work with our clients to help them select ones that are appropriate to their needs.

Laughing Out Loud

The other day I received the funniest e-mail I have ever seen. Well, maybe not THE funniest but it sure was close. It made my day!

You don't have to work from home like the character Adam in the comic strip "Adam" to feel isolated in the work place. I work in a studio outside of my home but most of my business is done over the phone or via my website http://www.laurelmtbasket.com/ . Don't get me wrong. I love to work alone in an environment without distractions when I'm designing a new gift basket and especially at this time of year when I am designing a full line of gifts and gift baskets for the up coming holiday season.

But eight or ten hours is a long time so I'm really glad I have my on line friends who fill my inbox with the most insane e-mails. There are so many fun things out there that I'd never have time to find on my own. I don't spend time on You Tube but I'm sure glad someone does, because I really enjoy some of the amazing videos found there.

Many of my friends are artists, writers, crafters, designers of one sort or another or other professionals who also work solo. Swapping silly e-mails with them is a great way to take a break and spread some cheer.

There are days when you will catch me LOL for real. I especially enjoy photos and videos of cats and dogs (or any animal really) doing something silly. I love the Cats on a Treadmill and the Moose with the Sprinkler type videos. They are too cute and hysterically funny.

Be a good friend and share a laugh today!

Where Does The Time Go?

I like to get to the Studio early. The uninterrupted quiet time before my fellow shop keepers and the pubic arrive is great for getting lots of work done. The other day I arrived at the Studio at 6:00 a.m. and worked until 3:00 p.m. On my way home, I was reviewing my day and felt that I hadn't done much in all that time. I realized that a huge chunk of my time was taken up with one simple project, getting my monthly e-mail ready to send to my clients. I couldn't believe that one simple e-mail could take hours to prepare.

I love using e-mail to communicate with my clients and the technology allows me to do so many things. I can link to other sites or link to specific pages on my own site including the pages containing the gift baskets we are featuring that month and our on line newsletter. I can add photos of our gift baskets and other graphics.

In the olden days (eight or ten years ago) this part of my marketing campaign consisted of sending out a monthly newsletter. Done in a simple format, the newsletter was a single page and the graphics consisted of a piece of clip art or two. The cost of sending a newsletter with photos of our actual gift baskets was far too expensive for our young company so we settled for black and white clip art of something related to whatever we were talking about in the newsletter.

Once the newsletter was completed I would take it to the copy center, have it copied on colored paper and folded. We handled the mailing list ourselves until the client list got too large to easily manage in house, then we hired a mailing service.

You would think that using a computer and e-mail would be much easier and more efficient than hand mailing a couple of thousand newsletter. Not so. It all has to do with choices. When we were using black and white clip art, our choices were limited. With e-mail we have full color options and can use photo images. We can now use actual photos of our gift baskets and the web is full of beautiful images that we use to illustrate and add to the topic of the newsletter. I love www.iStockphoto.com but there are several good sites where you can purchase great images very reasonably and not have to deal with copyright issues. The problem is that there are so many great images you can spend hours searching for the "perfect" one.

I fact check as much as possible and depending on the content of the message, this can take some time. I also include a quote that pertains to the message so I need to do a search for an appropriate one. Reading quotes can be fun so this part of the project can take even more time.

Before you know it, hours have flown by but I think it is well worth it.

If you'd like to be added to our e-mail list and receive our fun and informative monthly e-mail including discounts and other web only offers, just go to our website at www.laurelmtbasket.com and sign up right on the home page. It's getting late, got to get back to work. Hey, thanks for your time!

When Do You Get Your Great Ideas?

Having a difficult time finding a solution to a problem or making a decision? Try following the age old advice and "sleep on it". Okay, so there's no scientific evidence to prove that "sleeping on it" will help solve a problem or make the right decision, but it works for me.

Anyone who owns their own business will tell you they never stop looking for solutions to problems or making decisions about something or other. I've spent many sleepless nights trying to solve some problem that had come up during the day. On other nights, especially just before a holiday when I need to come up with several new gift basket designs for Valentines Day or Easter or Christmas, I would fall asleep thinking about creating these custom designs. Often on those nights, I'd wake up and a design idea would be crystal clear. I'd get all excited about starting the project the next day and fall back to sleep. The problem was that when I woke up the next morning, I'd remember that I'd had a great idea, but couldn't remember what it was.

Now, I keep a note pad and pen on my night stand and jot down a word or two to trigger my memory. This method works great although, because I write my messages in the dark, trying to read them the next morning can be a challenge.

I also get ideas for new gift basket designs while I'm vacuuming. I think the repetitive motion and the monotonous sound of the vacuum helps dull my conscious mind and allows my creative subconscious to work. I can achieve this same kind of zoning out during my step aerobic class or while walking the dogs. More than once I've left my aerobic class, written a cryptic note on a piece of paper towel, tucked it into my sock and jumped right back into the routine. I've been working out with Sue for about 14 years now, so she's gotten used to this behavior. My dogs love walking in the woods near our home, so they're happy to help me walk and think.

So, I'll continue taking step aerobic classes, walking the dogs, and "sleeping on it", in order to keep my creative mind open for new gift basket design ideas. Check out some of my best ideas at http://www.laurelmtbasket.com/.

Every Day is a Holiday!

In the gift basket business, we help people celebrate special occasions every day. Today we get to celebrate a special occasion in our own household. It's my husband's birthday. It's also the day in 1839 when baseball was born which is very appropriate since Vic is an avid baseball fan. Living in Massachusetts, he favors the Red Sox most of the time, but has enough enthusiasm for the game to spread around, especially during the playoffs and the World Series.

June 12th is also Magic Day, Machine Day and Crowded Nest Awareness Day. Being so involved with birthdays and baseball, we don't celebrate these other events too much.

I love holidays! I was born on Thanksgiving Day and for years I thought everyone got the day off from work and had a big party because it was my birthday. It's still one of my favorites. That's probably because we get to enjoy my sister's hospitality each year and I don't have to do any of the cooking. Bringing a fresh baked pie from one of the local farm shops and a bottle of wine is the extent of my contribution.

Sunday is Father's Day. I hope Vic is not expecting too much this year since the dogs and I have not had a chance to shop yet. The old saying about the shoemakers children not having shoes also applies to gift shop owners and their families not receiving gifts!

Have a happy June 12th! Celebrate your life!

Marie

Greetings From Laurel Mountain

Greetings from Massachusetts! My name is Marie. I live with my husband Vic and our two rescued dogs, Dana (left) and Fox (right) on a very large hill situated in a very small town in Western Massachusetts.

We own and operate Laurel Mountain Basket Company a full service gift basket company with a retail site in Easthampton and on line at http://www.laurelmtbasket.com/.

The company newsletter, in which I write about all kinds of irrelevant things, is called The View From Laurel Mountain. I wanted to keep my life simple so I gave my blog the same name.

Keeping life simple is getting more difficult every day. I am a very low tech person trying to get along in a very high tech world. Last week I changed the telephone service provider at the business and today I spent a good hour trying to reprogram my speed dial numbers. For someone who still remembers party lines, reprogramming a telephone is a challenge! My 15 year old nephew can't believe I am so inept.

I love living in the country. We have a little red fox (not the one pictured above) that has set up housekeeping down the hill, humming birds visit our feeder every evening, and a really insane Cardinal pecks at our family room window while we watch television. I wish I knew what she wants. She probably doesn't like my choice of programming.

Time to put on another hat and get back to work.

Thanks for visiting. See you again soon.

Marie