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Posts Tagged ‘cookie gifts’

Hi world.  After starting, and selling, My Kids’ Cookies, I now am happy to announce that I’ve started a new business – www.RescueDogCookies.com.  Please check out my new site.  If you like, please follow us on Twitter and Facebook and tell your friends about us and how we support shelters that rescue dogs until they can find their forever homes.  Thanks.

If you have a dog you have rescued and/or a shelter you think does a great job of helping dogs find homes, let us know and we’ll add your dog’s photo or the shelter’s link to our site.

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Would you believe…. that one of My Kids is turning 17? 

Would you believe… for Christmas we adopted Max, a 9 year tabby from our local shelter?

Would you believe… my daughter suggested that instead of our normal My Kids’ Cookies sale for her birthday, we donate a portion of sales to PAWS of Bainbridge Island so that other pets like Max can continue to be cared for until they find their new home?

Would you believe… for all online orders placed from now through Friday, January 14th, we’ll be donating 17% of sales to PAWS?

Would you believe…you can get a free cookie for your dog? For local pet lovers, drop off canned or bagged pet food at our cookie shop during January. We’ll drop it off at PAWS for you and your donation will earn you a free dog cookie for your favorite pooch.  We’re located at 400 Winslow Way E., Bainbridge Island, WA.

Would you believe… I love my kids, cookies and pets?

Barbara Reininger
My Kids’ Cookies

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Join the celebration this Saturday, November 27th, and support your locally owned, independent businesses as downtown Winslow celebrates SMALL BUSINESS SATURDAY on Bainbridge Island.

Small businesses across the country are joining more than a dozen advocacy, public, and private organizations in declaring the Saturday after Thanksgiving as Small Business Saturday. Small Business Saturday recognizes the importance of small businesses to the overall economy and local communities, emphasizing  that small business is the heartbeat of local communities and the engine of the US economy and serving as a day to support the small, independently owned businesses that help preserve the unique character of our towns’ main streets across America.

Over the past two decades, small businesses created 65 percent of net new jobs. In addition, for every $100 spent in locally owned independent stores, $68 returns to the community through taxes, payroll, and other expenditures.

Here are the top five reasons to support a small business on Small Business Saturday:

Pass these five reasons around your community —

1. Buying local creates jobs:

We all want more jobs, but no one seems to be able to create them.  Buying  local is YOUR chance to do something about it.

Did you know that half of all employees in the U.S. work for small business, and that small businesses create 60 percent of all new jobs? By participating in Small Business Saturday you foster job creation in a very real and tangible way.  Buy local, create a job.

2. Small business fosters community:

If you go downtown in your city, the community you will likely find is one of small business owners. When a downtown has a bustling small business district, it is usually said there is a strong community there. By buying local then, and supporting your neighborhood small businesses, you are fostering a strong community in your community.

3. Buying local keeps the dream alive:

A small business is someone’s dream.  Being an entrepreneur is a risky enterprise that usually happens when someone’s passion is so overpowering they cannot help but start their own business.

By supporting small business, you are allowing someone to live the dream another day.

4. Buying local boosts your local economy:

There is an economic ripple effect that occurs when you support a small business.  First of all, as indicated, it fosters jobs; the owner needs to hire people to service his customers.

But the economic ripple goes far beyond that. There are the employees with money in their pocket; they spend that money with other small businesses. Moreover, there is the business owner with profit in her pocket. She spends that on buying more goods to sell, on taking care of her family, and on growing her business. Then, there is the business. That business pays taxes, which helps build roads and fund schools and the police.

Buying local creates an economic cycle that helps everyone.

5. Buying local creates a ripple in society: Think about throwing a pebble into a still pond. It creates a concentric circle that starts small and then ripples out bigger and bigger, right? Well, that is exactly what happens when you support a local small business, and this ripple is different than the economic ripple. This is a spiritual/psychological ripple.

When a small business person succeeds, it is noticed. It may be a child who sees that dreams do come true. Or it may be the entrepreneur’s neighbor, who sees the successes and decides that he could do it too. The ripple grows.

One successful small business begets others. New entrepreneurs create more entrepreneurs. Enthusiasm breeds imitation. Suddenly, that blighted block downtown is bustling with energy.

And it all starts, literally, when you choose to spend some money at a local small business.

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Project Wishbone & Project Dog Bone = Free My Kids/Dogs Cookies

On Bainbridge Island, we’re fortunate to have two local organizations that provide wonderful help and service to human and pets –  Helpline House and PAWS of Bainbridge Island and North Kitsap.

A small way we’re able to help these organizations is to encourage generosity in others.  We can do that through baking.  From now until Thanksgiving, My Kids’ Cookies is sweetening the incentive to support these organizations.  Anyone that brings in canned food donations for people or pets will get a FREE cookie for them or their dog.  And we’ll drop all the donations off to the organizations in time for Thanksgiving dinner.

Wishing everyone a bountiful Thanksgiving!

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October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. One way My Kids’ Cookies helps towards finding the cure is through baking.

During the month of October, My Kids’ Cookies will donate 10% of all website baked goods sales to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Send someone a Red Gift Box and support the Pink Ribbon and The Cure.

Everyone benefits.

Treat yourself, families and friends to a gift of baked treats this month. Not only will they enjoy the treat, but we’ll be one step closer to finding the cure.

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There’s a nice piece in a local paper about our new retail location right in downtown Winslow on Bainbridge Island.    My Kids’ Cookies Takes the Retail Plunge.

We also are smiling over the fun art work on our walls.  Nationally known local artist Sally Prangley has bedecked our walls with her whimsical mirrors and clocks.  You can visit our shop and head home with treats for your belly and your walls.

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It took some time, but we finally launched our new website.  With the help, knowledge, advice and guidance of KTWebDesigns, we’ve created an even better shopping site.  With wonderful photos showcasing all our delicious freshly baked goodies, My Kids’ Cookies is a great site to shop for all your baked treats, and fun gifts ideas like caps, aprons and more.

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There’s a new website in town – BainbridgeBusinessWomen.com.

Bainbridge Island, WA, located in Puget Sound west of Seattle, is a short ferry ride away from the hustle and bustle of city life.  Although our island is small (just over 23,000 people and approximately 9400 families) that’ s still alot of buying power.  (Most recent demographics on Bainbridge.)

The brainchild of me – Barbara Reininger (My Kids’ Cookies) – Bainbridge Island has an abundance of women owned businesses.

It began as a small idea.  After purchasing a listing in an annual publication in the Bainbridge Review called Women in Business, I decided to hold a get together inviting all the other women that were in the publication.  I soon realized that there were many, many more Bainbridge business women that either didn’t know about the annual list or choose to use their marketing dollars in other ways.   The next networking meeting was open to any B.I. business woman.  Word spread and soon there were lots of female entrepreneurs who wanted to be part of this growing group.

In a past life (pre-cookie baker), I worked in the domain industry.  So, I purchased yet another domain (50+ domains and growing), with the idea of creating an inclusive comprehensive resource for finding whatever you need on Bainbridge Island, while also creating a way to advertise and support other island women owned businesses.

While I’m pretty darn great at baking, creating an attractive and functional website was beyond my range of skills.  Along came Debbie Hulbert, Executive Insight, Inc. Another B.I. business women, she graciously offered to join technology forces with me and create the website.  The result is Bainbridge Island’s resource for women-owned products and services.  From cookies to CPAs, we hope you find what you’re looking for.

Wander our site and see the variety of products and services you can get on the island.  We’d love to get every business listed on the site.  Pretty simple membership requirements: be a woman and own a B.I. business.  If you know of someone that should be listed, point them our way.  If you find a local business through the site, let the owner know how you found them.  And thanks for taking your time to read about our new resource site.

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Everyone has their personal favorite cookie.  And that may change depending upon the season, your mood, your waistline, your lifestyle.  Take our poll and let us know what your favorite flavor (at least as of today) is.  See sidebar for poll.  Happy and sweet cookie polling to you.

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Some basic info about these fascinating flavors:

Chocolate – made from cocoa beans that grow in pods on the cacao tree. The seeds of the cacao tree have an intense bitter taste, and must be fermented to develop the flavor. After fermentation, the beans are dried, cleaned, and roasted, and the shell is removed to produce cacao nibs. The nibs are then ground to cocoa mass, pure chocolate in rough form.  Because this cocoa mass is usually liquefied, then molded with or without other ingredients, it is called chocolate liquor. The liquor also may be processed into two components: cocoa solids and cocoa butter.

Unsweetened baking chocolate (bitter chocolate) contains primarily cocoa solids and cocoa butter in varying proportions. Much of the chocolate consumed today is in the form of sweet chocolate, combining cocoa solids, cocoa butter or other fat, and sugar. Milk chocolate is sweet chocolate that additionally contains milk powder or condensed milk. White chocolate contains cocoa butter, sugar, and milk but no cocoa solids (and thus does not qualify to be considered true chocolate).

Vanilla – an edible seed pod harvested from orchids of the genus Vanilla.  The beans develop their flavor after months of drying and curing.  Vanilla extract is made by soaking chopped vanilla beans in water and alcohol.  Different beans produce different flavors.  Bourbon (aka Madagascar) is the most common variety giving the classic vanilla flavor.  Mexican vanilla is smooth and spicy with hints of run and caramel.  Tahitian vanilla is a sweeter, almost cherry licorice flavor.

Vanilla flavoring is a combination of real vanilla and synthetic flavorings.  Imitation vanilla is just that, an imitation made from synthetic flavorings.  Vanilla paste, made from ground vanilla beans in a and vanilla extract, is a concentrated flavor.

Both chocolate and vanilla provide the basis for many sweet treats.

source: Wikipedia

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