Holiday Baking!

It's been a busy couple of weeks! Over a month has passed since I found my starting point for my start-up sweetery. I have formally begun work on the website and brand development.I have had a domain hosted for years but never really did anything with it. I am playing around with several content management systems to develop the website, specifically Joomla and Drupal. Both are free and open source but have a learning curve. I *can* program in html if needed but I am hoping for something a little less time consuming. I also found a CMS named Dotnetnuke that has a free edition as well as a dedicated site with skins and modules. The only downside is that most of them cost money and are not very editable. Unless I saw a skin that had the perfect colors and font I wanted, I would have to put a ton of time in to customize it. Might as well start from scratch!

I have been making the rounds of bakery sites on the net, looking at the various styles, noting layouts that I like, and generally just trying to get a concrete picture of what I want the site to look like. I have identified several things that are important to me for the site: A gallery for pictures of the merchandise; a calendar for upcoming special treats related to holidays (US and Japan); a links page to various vegan supply stores, vegan bakeries, personal fun links; and a section for this blog.I am really glad that I am not pressed for time and can leisurely draw out the site map.My full time job closes for Christmas on the 24th and does not reopen till January 3rd so I should have ample time to sit down and FOCUS!

On a fun note, I have been trying out some recipes!

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Espresso Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

Peanut Apple Pretzel Drops

Mexican Chocolate Snickerdoodles