Posts Tagged ‘shopping’

If you haven’t been following along on our Facebook page, you’ll have missed some cool  holiday gift ideas from local shop owners.  We’ve posted suggestions from Just Imagine Toys, Beckah Kates, Raven House, Hills Gallery & Gifts and more.  In fact, we’re added something new today! We’ll be getting more gift ideas right up until Christmas for you last minute shoppers as well.   Remember, this is your run of the mill advertising.  We choose the shops, they do NOT pay to be included, we show up without warning, and simply ask shop owners for their best gift idea, snap some pics, and share it with you.  So if you’re in need of some gift ideas, join us on Facebook!

Since it’s “Cyber Monday” we thought we’d use the opportunity to show you around our new Skillet Creek Online Shop.  Our goal with our online store is to share with you some clothing & accessories that we’d want for ourselves.   In fact while I’ve not spent as much on our products as some of our first shoppers have, I’ve spent enough!  Here’s some of the things we have to offer.  And yes, you can order them now to receive them in time for Christmas!

2011 Devil’s Lake State Park Centennial Calendar

I can’t begin to tell you how well our 2011 Devil’s Lake State Park Centennial Calendar has been received.  This over-sized (17″x11″) calendar features a variety of images from our personal collection. Each image is large enough to almost be imersive and is a great pacifier when you can’t get out to the park in person.  Of course this would be a wonderful wall calendar any year, but as a 2011 Centennial calendar it holds special meaning.

Owning a park centennial item is of course a once in a life time opportunity.  We will not produce these calendars past Dec. 1, of next year.  Right now they are available through our shop at $25.00. We expect the price to go up after the first of the year.  Order Today!

2011 Devil’s Lake State Park Centennial Post Card

We just love antique post cards!  This new design is based on some of the historic designs that folks sent to friends and family over a half-century ago.   This card features one of our Devil’s Doorway images cutout and blended into a watercolor wash of blue sky. A gaudy mix of fonts and colors seals the historic flavor. What you can’t see is the postage stamp text which tells us we only need spend a penny to send a card around the world.. Well, we can’t, but it’s fun to think back to when you could!  The card also includes “100 Years! 1911 -2011″ centennial text.  You can also get this design on coffee mugs & inexpensive magnets. Again, this design will only be available for a limited time.  Order Now!

Signs!

As rabid hikers we love anything that reminds us of our time outdoors!  That’s what led us to put together our “Signs” collection.  Yeah, there’s lots of stuff out there already, but I personally was not happy with what was there.  I wanted images that looked almost exactly like the signs at our local state park.  I also wanted colors to be rich, while still looking like authentic trail signs.  The “Hike!” sign for instance uses a rich chocolate brown with a cream color for the border and symbol. (Tasty!) It looks much more like the signs we see each day.  This images are all completely reworked to be worn proudly.  I know, I wear my Hike! shirt all the time!  You can also get mugs, Sigg bottles, gym bags and more! 
Click Here To Shop!

NO, Bear!  Go Away Bear!

So the set up is this… A scruffy guy in his twenties sitting outside his tent by the fire early one morning.  He’s not had enough caffeine yet.  Up walks a big grizzly… He roars and huffs.  The dude by the fire looks at the bear for a moment, then points to his mug which says, “No, Bear.”.  The grizzly pauses for a moment, then turns and walks away as our camper takes a sip of coffee from his mug.   Well, that’s our story.  We have a wonderfully fun collection of “No, Bear.” gear for the nonchalant and “Go Away Bear!” gear for the more excitable.  Get Your No Bear gear here.

Cards, Prints & More

Of course there’s lots more as well.  We have framed prints of spectacular Devil’s Lake photography.  Note Cards featuring the work of  the artists of Goat Crossing Studio. We’ve got Baraboo T’s, calendars and cups and more.  If you’re local, love Devil’s Lake State Park, or simply love the great out doors, it’s worth checking out our little Skillet Creek Gift Shop.  We won’t go on about what really cool, unique gifts our gear will make.. I mean, well, you know!

Here at Skillet Creek we want to encourage folks to shop locally this holiday season, but to be honest we feel like the old sales fliers and holiday ad routines don’t really help shoppers (us included) find fresh gift ideas. So we came up with a plan.   Every few days between now and Christmas we’re going to head out to a local business and ask them to show us their coolest, most interesting or most unique gift idea.  (Most shop owners and clerks have all sorts of  little ideas that never make the ads.) Then we’ll haul out the phone-cam and share the pics and a bit of background with you on our Facebook. Read the rest of this entry »

Amber Moon is one of the more interesting shops on the square in Downtown Baraboo.  Located  just east of  the Sauk County Courthouse, Amber moon is filled with amazing and unique gift ideas, one-of-a-kind treasures, and interesting antiques.  They also have a nice selection of garden decorations in their shaded deck out back.  In addition they are known as one of the best florists in the area as well.  Now, that said.. even if you never bought a thing, it’s worth a walk though the shop just to enjoy the amazing array of eclectic and wonderful items.  We weren’t able to do that of course and left spending around $40.

The above shot is centered on a wild and wonderful ceiling decoration. I practically had to lie on the floor to take the shot.  Yeah, you really will find something unique in every nook and cranny. For a few more pictures from our visit to Amber Moon click here.

Amber Moon
528 Oak Street
Baraboo, WI 53913-2424
(608) 356-5811

Don’t tell your kids you’re going “Antiquing” unless you want to be met with that look you get when you say it’s time for your booster shots.  In fact some parents probably are feeling their teeth start to hurt at simply the prospect of taking their kids to an Antique Shop.  Well, it can be done.  Even if shop owners occasionally grimace!  The first challenge of course is getting the kids to come along willingly, the second is getting through the day without buying a broken vase.

Well here’s my nickle coming from a few years experience in the parenting game. First off we never advertise adult pastimes with adult phrases like “Antiquing”.  No, we go “Exploring”.  Exploring is an open ended journey to somewhere where you don’t exactly know what you’ll be doing.  Well, we know… We also know kids love adventures and framing our days plans that way helps.  We may “stop” at an antique shop or two.. but that’s not “Antiquing”.  It’s simply one part of a day that involves a variety of activities.  I’ve found that keeping kids guessing is a good plan as long as they also have guaranteed “kid times” to look forward to.  My favorite phrase with our son when he asks what we’re doing is, “Who knows what we might do?”  I leave him hanging but at the same time I promise certain positive points such as play or snack times.

When we do end up doing something that may seem atrociously boring to a child we dole it out in small sips.  “A spoon full of sugar” as Mary Poppins sang.  In between the boring adult stuff we fit in “slide breaks” at the local parks, a quick snack in another location, and most definitely lunch at a local cafe. Kids thrive on diversity.  The more diverse our day, the more they tend to tolerate our grown up moments.  This is not catering to children mind you, simply playing fair for the benefit of everyone.  Sometimes this takes a bit of research.  For instance while we’re online looking up the “shops” we are also mapping the parks.

When it comes to browsing antique shops, farm markets and other seemingly not so kid friendly spots we have two goals;  To move at the child’s attention span and keep it interesting.  The better job we do at keeping it interesting the more time we get to browse at our own pace.  In fact, the more engaged we are with our son, the more we ALL enjoy the experience. It can work with practice.  In our experience it does no good to keep children at arm’s length in a place like an antique shop.  It only increases the children’s boredom, causes conflict, and may result in parents cleaning up a china doll from 1847 as they reach for their credit card.

Last week we visited two antique shops in Pardeeville just about a half hour east of our base camp here in Baraboo, the Pardeeville Antique Mall and “The Big Chicken”.  I’ve posted a gallery here. This is the beginning of building a new section on antiquing in our area where we will only include shops we’ve visited ourselves. Antique and resale shops tend to open and close so quickly it seems the only way to make sure we’re giving you good information.  Call this the kick off.  For more on that just go here.

Feel free to take your kids Antiquing, ah, I mean… Exploring!  And Good Luck!

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Comments? - Parents, how do you manage your kids when trying to enjoy a little adult exploring on vacation?

I’m 44 years old.  I figure I’ll get that out of the way right now, otherwise you’d never understand why I’d have become so attached to Stratego or so disappointed with what Hasbro has done to it.  Imagine all the excitement of taking your child to get a new board game that you knew by heart, only to get a game that was so unplayable that it was left on the counter as a memorial to a wasted ten spot.

For those of you following along at home, Stratego is a board game, introduced to the US in 1961 by Milton Bradley.  In the game you have a set of numbered pieces that move about the board, bombs that lie in wait and a flag.  The object of the game is simple, capture the enemy’s flag.  The rules are simple enough, (Low number takes high number, one type can remove a bomb while all others cannot, etc.,) that children in the 8 years and up range can play.  The simplicity of the rules make it a great addition to “Board Game” night.  Something many families do these days to keep everyone together and away from the television.

I hadn’t thought of Stratego in years,  (Most of the time as a child I had no one to play the game with so I simply used the red and blue pieces as cars and drove them around the board!) but the other day we happened upon a fancy high priced edition at a Barns & Noble in Madison.  I found myself explaining the game to my 8 year old and soon committing to getting a copy.  Ah, only not the expensive, fancy-pants version!

This is when the fun got started.  We decided we’d stop off at the local Wal-Mart on the way hope and see if they had a affordable copy.  I mean, Christmas just ended, how hard could it be?  This gave us a 45 minute drive back to Baraboo to build up expectations of a night of Stratego.  Parents always put in the pepperings of “IFs” as in “IF they have it”, but children of course are deaf to the word, “IF” until well after drinking age.   Needless to say a long chattering walk to the toy department revealed that they didn’t have it!  Oh, NO!

We thought we’d give the local toy store downtown a call.  “They’d have it.” We thought.  They always have the fun, interesting toys that big box stores won’t touch.  But alas, they were closed on Sunday.  We called the Wal-Mart in Wisconsin Dells. Nope.  Then we ran over to the Sears store, that used to be a K-Mart.. (another story, for another day) and walked through their empty hallways only to find…  they didn’t have it.  That was it, for one evening.. No Stratego today!

The following morning was again filled with an 8 year old voice asking about all the intricacies of Stratego.  How would this happen?  What happens when your Spy finds a Bomb?  Are you going to order it from Amazon today? Obviously Stratego was not going away. We’d talk about it again after school… (and work).

About the time we needed to pick our son up from school I did a quick surf over to Amazon and found a multitude of versions.  Still the $99 classic seemed a bit much, and we were not sure we wanted the “Lord of the Rings” magical edition.  In a last effort we ran over to Portage, a town 13 miles to the east of us.  We’ve found that the Portage K-Mart & Wal-mart stores often have things no one else does simply for lack of customers  it seems.  Once again our theory held true. The Portage Wal-Mart had Stragego!  Oh the joy of the heavens upon us! And only $10 to boot!  Soon we were driving home again deep into the mire of the 8 year old thought process; Are we going to play as soon as we get home? Is Dad going to play? How many flags are there? What happens when …” and on and on.

The new Hasbro Stratego is called the “Fire and Ice” edition and like most modern things is cheaply made, forcing parents to spend a half hour putting stickers on the plastic pieces instead of simply embossing them as they once did.  The number of pieces has been cut by 10, and the board shrunk.  The once easy rules have now been so complicated and muddled by the use of fantasy characters with new “special powers” that, by the time we had all the stickers on, we no longer had the patience for the rules.  The thought that I could save the evening by forgoing the dragons and Yetis, for the numbers was a big fail as well.  Even those had been re-arranged as not to function by the standard rules that had worked fine for almost 40 years.  In the end we left it to sit, unplayed.  A $10 donation to the needy Hasbro & Wal-Mart’s  executives.

The game we ended up buying on Ebay.

Now to be fair, change is often a good thing.  Being a techie, I love “new”.  I’ve even read a few reviews of the “fire & Ice” Stratego that call it a “Breath of Life” into an old game.  Maybe.  But if a game can no longer be easily explained or played right out of the box it’s on a road to mediocrity.  Forcing people to put stickers on 60 plastic pieces before they can even play the game is not going to do anything to keep the attention of today’s kids.  Board games are suffering already without the help of poor design and  confused instructions. For the moment there is still a small number of people and families who treasure these wonderful excuses to have a bit of fun, and think through a little friendly competition. Game makers need to recognize their audience.  If they are patient enough to play a board game, they are probably paying  close attention to product as well. It seems to me the cheaply made parts, and a “Velvet Elvis” fantasy theme  are only going to hasten this game’s demise.

In the end we went on Ebay and ordered a vintage 1961 version.  I mean, if we’re going to go through the trouble of ordering the classic, why not go all the way!?

More . . .

• Ed’s Stratego Site
• Fire & Ice Edition on Amazon
• Family Game Night by Amazing Moms
• Just for fun, Pat Benatar sings “Fire & Ice”