Cash and Carry Show!

Christmas and New Year’s have come and gone and we are getting ready for our busy spring season. We are starting this season by exhibiting at the Market Square Valley Forge Cash and Carry Tradeshow. We have changed our booth location to booth number 2209. It is a much larger booth, which we need to display our expanding product line. Some of our new products are, quilt holders, towel bars, watering can lawn ornaments, votive sconces and large wall hangings. Other non metal items are rag quilts, table runners, and pillows, country and primitive woods items, primitive dolls and nodders. We are expecting a very busy show due to the rising of fuel cost and shipping costs. Many attendees that I have spoken with said they are going to be stocking up at the cash and carry to save on shipping charges.

Our monthly special for the month of January is a huge saving on the votive holders and votive sconces. Normally they are $6.50 each including the glass holder, this month only they are on sale for $5.75 each.

FREE GIVE AWAY……When you visit our booth at the Valley Forge Cash and Carry show and if you mention this Blog we will give you a free gift. So don’t hesitate to stop by and say hello.



Please visit our website and sign up for wholesale access to view our product lines.

What does Black Friday mean to you?

If you were to ask my husband he would say “HE double hockey sticks”. It’s nothing more than middle aged women fighting over the last singing Elmo. To me it’s the start of the crazy hectic holiday shopping season.

We create our wish list over maple pecan pumpkin pie on thanksgiving. We all chat about the upcoming shopping day and gloat about the bargains we plan to find. This year the kids (now 12,10, & 7) want cd’s and video games. It seems the older they get the more expensive their lists become. My mom sits there listening as she sips her hot chocolate while dad boasts he wants a new digital camera. He wants to start an online scrapbook of the sights of Maine.

We head out Friday morning “early” with coffee in hand. We arrive at the first major department store and see the line going out the door. I turned to my mom and sighed, “Are you ready for this?” There was green garland, white lights, and red bows outlining the soffit over the door. Inside we see paper white snowflakes hanging from the stark white drop ceiling and we hear jingle bells playing over the load speakers. We can’t help but sing “oh what fun it is to ride…..” The mood is in the air for the buying spree.

I go to the major department store to entertain my mother, but it is the smaller gift the give me real joy. The shop owners always greet you at the door with holiday cheer. A personal touch you don’t receive at a chain store. I always seem to find that special and unique gift at these gift shops. I mentioned in a previous blog post about the ornaments we share as tradition. It is at these gift shops where I find hand crafted quality made ornaments. A moose fishing for bass is a sure bet for dad’s ornament this year.

Mom and I tally up all the packages and cram them into the trunk and we start the journey back home. It’s amazing that they say consumer confidence is down because the crowds and the lines at the check out seem to say something different.

Visit us at http://www.oldetownmetalworks.com/ because we are offering FREE SHIPPING until the end of the year. You won’t have to wait in line, and you won’t have pay the nasty gas prices to shop at our wholesale only site. You don’t want to miss out on this special.

Maple Pecan Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients – Crust
1 refrigerated pie crust, softened as directed on box

Ingredients – Filling
1 can 15 oz pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)
1 can 14 oz sweetened condensed milk
2 eggs
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1 ½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice

Ingredients –Streusel
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup finely chopped pecans
2 tablespoons all-putpose flour
2 tablespoons cold butter or margarine

Ingredients – Topping
1 cup whipping cream
2 tablespoons packed brown sugar
2 table spoons chopped pecans, if desired

Directions
1. Heat oven to 425°F. Place pie crust in 9-inch glass pie plate as directed on box for One-Crust Filled Pie. In large bowl, beat filling ingredients with electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Pour into crust-lined pan. Bake 10 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, in small bowl, mix 1/4 cup brown sugar, the chopped walnuts and flour; cut in butter until crumbly. Set aside.

3. Reduce oven temperature to 350°F. Sprinkle streusel over pie. Cover crust edge with 3-inch-wide strips of foil to prevent excessive browning.

4. Bake 30 to 35 minutes longer or until knife inserted 1 inch from edge comes out clean. Cool completely, about 2 hours. Serve or refrigerate until serving time.

5. To serve, in medium bowl, beat whipping cream and 2 tablespoons brown sugar with electric mixer on medium-high speed until soft peaks form. Serve pie with whipped cream; garnish with chopped walnuts. Store in refrigerator.

6. Enjoy!

Our Christmas Ornament Tradition

I was in the attic over the weekend looking for some of our winter clothes, now that the air is getting frosty cold, and I saw our box of Christmas ornaments. It immediately brought some wonderful memories to mind that I would like to share with you.

Every year we dig out the ornaments, the lights and the tinsel to decorate the tree. It is often done on a Sunday night after a big family meal. Every ornament we place on the tree is a memory of something, someone or sometime. Every year I give my husband and my kids (the dogs) a new ornament for the tree. These ornaments are carefully bought or made. Each of these ornaments are marked with the year they received them. I started this tradition because as a child I remember my granddad giving me those silver “girl” ornaments with my name and year engraved on them. I still have these ornaments and think of him and the memories of him when I was a child as I place each one on the tree.

Thanks to my mother, I have all the ornaments I made as a child. Every year my husband is forced to listen to me explain how I made these special ornaments. The popsicle sleigh was made with 4 sticks from popsicles that I ate. Or the santa made from pasta. Calvin our boxer pup is sure to notice these. I should know, he knocked the tree down last year and ate all the salt dough ornaments. That’s a memory I am not going to forget year after year when I pull out the ginerbread man that has no head left.

We have glass ball ornaments that have tags hanging on them with our family member’s names that have passed away. Aunts, Uncles, Brothers, Sisters, Grandparents, Parents, even our Pet. As each name goes onto the tree, we can’t help from sharing a special story of that someone.

Another Christmas ornament tradition we have is the Christmas pickle. Legend holds that an ornament shaped like a pickle is a sign of good luck. Dating back to Germany, the pickle ornament was always the last one to be placed on the tree on Christmas Eve. Parents would hang the glass pickle ornament inside the boughs of a fir tree, hidden amongst other ornaments. The first child to find the pickle would receive a special gift. We’re all adults now so the finder of good fortune gets to hide the pickle next year. Over the years we have found some really good hiding spots in the tree for the pickle. It’s one of my favorite traditions.

We have a wide variety of ornaments at MSMCO. Visit our website to see some of them and to start your own christmas ornament tradition. Do you have a special request, no problem! We do offer custom design. Please see our terms and conditions for details and minimums.

Under the comments tell us a little about your Holiday traditions. We’d love to hear them.

It isn't Easy Being Green!

You know Kermit the Frog was on to something when he said “it isn’t easy being green.” But what he failed to say was that there are a million ways to be green. We focus our green attention on our packaging and try to use as many recycled goods as possible. Here are some tips on how to stay green when shipping.

*We use “rejected boxes that other companies may throw away because of whatever reason: wrong size, wrong color, and wrong text. 99% of these boxes have been made from recycled materials.

*Bubble wrap: We have surrounding businesses save bubble wrap and packing peanuts they receive in packages. These companies would normally throw away these valuable and expensive packing materials. This saves these companies waste removal fees and keeps these non biodegradable products from ending up in landfills. What a great way to meet other companies in neighborhood.

*Architectural Drawings: Many of you will notice that we wrap our product in architectural drawings that a local company saves for us. In return they do not have high waste removal fees. These drawings are great because they are heavy weight, and when scrunched makes great filler. We also run these drawings through a paper shredder and use this as filler too.

We conclude that not only are these ideas good for the environment and is a great way for the community to come together to help each other out. It allows us to maintain an affordable price on all of our products and keeps our handling charges very low. I will discuss other methods of how Olde Town Metalworks stays green in future blog entries. Please don’t hesitate to add your suggestions on ways to be green under our comments section.

DON’T MISS OUR END OF THE YEAR BLOW OUT SPECIAL….
FREE SHIPPING
ON ANY ORDERS OVER $100.00 until January 1st, 2008

Visit us at http://www.oldetownmetalworks.com/

Thank you for joining us!

Welcome to MSMCO. Our products are all made in the USA and are of a quality that that will leave your customers pleased and wanting more. In addition to our wrought iron metal art line, we have a country wood line and foam and fiber including Pet Blankets and Polyester Fiberfill.

The purpose of this blog is to let you know the happenings of what is current here in Limerick, Maine and the wholesale industry. Some topics will include, new product updates, gift shows and how they continuously improving, features on some of our customers, promotions and general announcements. Let us know what you want to hear about.

I’d like to start with the story of how we have come to be known as Olde Town Metalworks. We opened the doors of our manufacturing shop October 1, 2004. We started as a cnc (computer numerical control) machine shop. We called it MSMCO (Maine Source Machining Company).

Here in Maine there is a ton of competition for this sort of work. We wanted to be different! I love designing new things and with my interior design experience I said to my husband “let’s do something more artsy”. We wanted to offer a collection that would be useful in the everyday home. Something that was functional and practical at the same time being useful. We stared with a few lines like napkin holders, welcome signs, and hooks. We had a few designs in each style using our surroundings as inspiration: moose, deer, birds, and our pets. We now have 150 different items in 60 different styles. Think of the combinations! We found our niche.

What are our best sellers? Well, we have a few. I would have to say anything with moose or stars. Our leash holders are very popular as well. We have styles for both cats and dogs. New on the designing table for 2008 will be a hook design with “OUR LEASH” that has both a cat and dog. Look for that to come out early in 2008.

Go to our Website and view our current specials.