Have Bike Will Travel
By April on Apr 30 Filed In Austin, Texas, Events, Sweet Bikes 2 Comments
When I was riding last night on the Thursday Night Social Ride, I contemplated this blog post and thought that I would start by saying how awesome it is to ride with 300 other social, bicycle-lovers around town. I LIVE for Thursday evenings for this reason. We meet up, we ride together for miles, stopping here and there to party and always end up at a bar that welcomes us with open arms and FREE beer. Is there anything better than this?
Well, yes. Now that you mention it, there is: Discover the City on Two Wheels. Thanks to Elliott McFadden (author of one of my favorite bike blogs in town, Austinontwowheels.org), who came up with the idea to help get the community into doing more than just cruising around Town Lake on their bikes by launching sponsored, social rides around town that would have specific destinations, like the upcoming Pampered Pedal Ride. Pay a little bit of money for hours of cycling around Austin to check out places like Boggy Creek Farm where an incredible meal was prepared and a private tour of the farm was given to all of the riders. Take the inaugural ride, the Taste of Downtown Tour, which led riders like Tina Gallivan (super-cool chick that works in accounting here at SLT) to various places around downtown in search of new and tasty places to grub.
I was lucky enough that my buddy, Keith Byrd had some time to sit and talk with me about why he and Elliott are making the dream a reality. He spoke to me about how great it was that on the inaugural ride riders were represented from 18 years of age up to 80 and how exciting it was for the vendors/sponsors to share this fun opportunity with the community of riders. The key with this new venture is to keep it as local as possible (vendor/destination-wise) and to show people that you can do anything you’d normally do around town on a bicycle.
Per Tina, On Saturday April 10th, I participated in the Taste of Downtown Tour organized by Keith Byrd and Elliot McFadden. It was an awesome experience, especially as a beginner to the cycling world. I went with one friend but left with a few! It’s great to meet new people who share the same interest as you-biking!
The tour started at Bo Concept on 2nd Street where we all were able to test ride the Dutch demo bikes. (I took some pix of them-the purple and white ones) They’re rather tall for me, but from a friend of mine who did test ride them, she said they had an awesome feel to them, when you get the hang of it.
Once we took off, we rode through the streets (following the laws of course) and rode through Town Lake. Our first stop was at Chupacabra on 6th street where we were fed delicious quesadillas and margaritas. I was especially impressed how they valet parked our bikes wherever we went. Then we took the streets and rode some more until we reached our next destination which was Frank. At Frank we were served different types of exquisite sausages as well delicious margs! Our last and my favorite stop was at Halcyon, just around the corner from Frank. At Halcyon we were served s’mores, chai tea and dark chocolate espresso martinis. Need I explain why this was my favorite spot? LOL! But seriously…the whole ride was amazing and I thought it was organized very well.
As a beginner rider, it gave me the confidence I need to ride the streets and the ride guides were helpful in leading the pack and making sure nobody was left behind. The sponsors for the ride: Bo Concept, Bicycle Sport Shop, etc. did a great job helping Keith and Elliot organize this thing because it was wonderful! It definitely encouraged me to want to participate in more of Austin on Two Wheels’ rides!
(Tour photos by Tina Gallivan)
How I Turned Trash into Fashion (Trashion)
By Guest on Apr 29 Filed In Uncategorized 1 Comment
| 2 months prior to April 22, 2010 Earth Day Show | I started coming up with sketches that would incorporate labels (thanks to Sweet Leaf Tea) and the aluminum tops (thank you friends for drinking all of those). |
| 1 month prior | Figured out how many labels (give or take some) I would need to make a full dress.
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| 3 weeks prior | Drink lots of Sweet Leaf Tea!
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| 1-2 weeks prior | Picked up the labels from April and Ashley! Figuring out what to do with the new aluminum can that I got from April. I’ll think of something. Measured an actual dress and took the outline to start making the SLT Dress.I took about half of the smaller and half of the larger SLT labels and cut the mission statement and nutrition facts off of each label so I can use them individually. May take more work but I think the detail will be clear.Figured out what to do with the can! Belt buckle. I started finishing the actual design (specifics). I want it to be very clear the difference in top and bottom of the dress so I took the “mission statement” off the small labels and made the entire top of the dress out of those and the face of Granny as the skirt portion. |
| Less than 1 week | Finished the majority of the dress! Made a belt out of the white, diet tea labels (hopefully it’s different enough in color it’ll stand out).I have way more labels than expected—overestimation :/ . Maybe I’ll make a shirt? Or men’s outfit?Checked with the Whole Foods Market Prepared Foods Green Mission rep and got another outfit approved! Let’s just hope this works out as well as the dress does.Cut up a t-shirt and lined it with smaller labels (the full label, not cut up at all) and estimated shorts and started taping together the large labels.
Now the final part of this project is utilizing the aluminum tops—straps for the dress and enough for a belt for the men’s outfit! I’m using a screw driver and hammer and pushing through the metal and taking threaded tape (duct tape) and cutting it into small pieces and threading it through and tying it. Hopefully it works!
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| April 22, 2 | The belt and straps both held! Thank goodness. I have a few more labels left that I could use to make some shoes but I’m not exactly sure how.I found some I can cover! Men’s slippers-they’ll hopefully look like topsiders though. I’ve stapled larger labels to the back and used clear tape to finish the rest. I took a small label face of granny and put it on the top as a flap.
Post by Sarrah Moore, Whole Foods Market Lamar Team Member |
Most Creative Lemonade Flavor Contest
By Charla on Apr 28 Filed In Activities, Austin, Texas, Events, Sweet Contests, Uncategorized 9 Comments
Lemons + sugar + water = Lemonade. Or at least, that’s probably what most of us picture when we think about a glass of lemonade. As good as it is the old-fashioned way, things can really get interesting if you start adding in other fruits and spices. Want extra interesting? Let a group of young entrepreneurs have a go at it and mix up their own special concoctions. Which just so happened to be the case last Sunday at the Best Tasting Lemonade Day Contest where I was privileged enough to be a judge.
Now, I’ve never claimed to be a lemonade expert. I’ve only run one lemonade stand in my time and I probably made a buck. But, I’ve got quite the pallet for lemonade. Besides that, I’m a softy when it comes to smiling kids behind a stand pouring a glass of their most prized recipe. So, judging this contest was right up my alley.
All of the young entrepreneurs who competed at the Best Tasting Lemonade Day Contest did an amazing job. Each one had developed a special recipe with research and the simple act of taste testing. They had signs with the name of their flavor and decorations to represent their brands. As part of the contest, they were also asked to present their flavor to each judge and talk about their experience participating in Lemonade Day. And even though some were more shy than others, each young entrepreneur had a great story to tell and seemed so excited to be involved.
There was one young entrepreneur, Alesha Barnett, who really caught my attention. This young lady had a delicious flavor called Brazilian Lemonade that she had developed and it was truly amazing. I don’t want to give away our “Most Creative Lemonade Flavor” winner’s secrets, but if your interested in tasting it yourself, please stop by the 7 Eleven on Lake Austin Blvd this Sunday, May 2, 2010 from 1:00pm-4:30pm. She might even give you a copy of the recipe! The Sweet Leaf Tea’m will be there to help “Sweeten” her stand and hopefully make sure she exceeds her goals! So, please stop by and congratulate Alesha and her brother Shawn on all their hard work.
The learnings these children have gained from this experience and the opportunity to work closely with their family on a timeless business like a lemonade stand sounds like a rewarding experience for all. In fact, there’s still time to get children involved before the actual Lemonade Day on May 2nd. Just click here to learn how you can get your child, little, students, etc. involved.
Be sure to keep your eyes peeled this Sunday, May 2nd on National Lemonade Day, for young entrepreneurs around Austin, throughout Texas, Colorado, California, the Carolinas and other participating states who have worked hard to put up a stand and sell a simple glass of Lemonade.
Sweet Leaf Mint and Honey Green Tea and Me
By Guest on Apr 28 Filed In Guest Blogger, Organic, Sweet Consumers Add a Comment
Post by Rebecca Allen-McChesney
What started off as a nice refresher to quench my constant pregnant thirst, by 35 weeks had become an obsession. Green tea does contain some caffeine so I couldn’t go overboard..all things in moderation and all, but this beverage became a main staple of my diet. I’d add sliced pixie tangerines and fresh mint, loads of ice and water or just lemon.
Often I’d pop open a bottle while doing my shopping, sharing most of it with my toddler, who now is a big fan by the way. I’ve tried fruit juice, diluting with limes, cold water..nothing would quench my thirst. You know how it is when you are pregnant and you get fixated on one thing. I was up to a two bottle a day habit at one point. I feared for my kids college funds. Would I ever recover from my addiction? Bottles started piling up in the backseat of the car. They’d rattle and clink around every corner. The closer I came to 40 weeks, the more intense the desire.
I finally delivered my little bundle of joy 5 weeks later and was kept in hospital for days far away from my beloved Sweet Leaf Mint & Honey Green Tea. Noo! My beloved husband was kind enough to bring me the odd bottle, and now that I’m home and on rest for several weeks, he still goes out to bring me my favorite liquid refreshment. You gotta get this stuff!!
We still laugh that our new little boy is at least 2% Sweet Leaf Tea.
Ivor Stewart McChesney
Granny’s Grand Prize ‘Going Green’ Winner
By Marketing Intern on Apr 27 Filed In Intern, Sweet Consumers, Sweet Contests, earth day Add a Comment
We want to thank all of you who participated in our ‘Going Green with Granny’ Earth Day blog contest. All of the ideas that were contributed were thoughtful, excellent and great examples of what we can do in our daily lives to save Mother Earth and keep her green.
After selecting seven daily winners throughout the week of April 15-22, we would like to congratulate Bryan as our overall contest winner. Bryan’s April 15th post about using worms to turn his garbage into compost was both creative and smart. We really enjoyed it!
Just because Earth Day is over doesn’t mean we can’t still share our ideas about living green. We always want to hear your ideas (we like pictures too!!). We hope our Earth Day conversation about going green has given you a few useful ideas about things you can do everyday to make our Earth a better place now and in the future!
And we’d like to leave you with just one more reminder…
keep looking »
