My husband cannot believe I am doing this because these apples are like my babies. But, I have a good reason.
For years, providing Christmas for our family was difficult. Most of our gift-giving was financed by my exceedingly generous parents. As our family grew, I just did not feel comfortable having my parents pay for their own gifts as well as the gifts we gave to our children. So, I was inspired to sell gourmet apples around the holidays.
One day as I was browsing the internet, inspiration struck and I decided to try to decorate the apples to look like characters. I was no longer satisfied with “gourmet” apples. I wanted DESIGNER gourmet apples.
Soon, orders were pouring in and it was not uncommon for me to sell over 80 apples in a season.
Sorry, these instructions are no longer available in this post but you can find more information here:
I signed up for the email but didn’t get a link?
Hi Amy! When you get your first email (should be this afternoon about 3 PM central), look for the picture at the bottom and click to download. Hope this helps. 🙂
These apples are adorable. No wonder you sold so many! It’s really great of you to share this.
Thank you, Kari. I just think every family deserves a stress-free holiday and wanted to do my part to help.
These are great and even though they look slightly simple I don’t think I could make something so nice but I’ll give it a try. Great ideas!!
You can do it, Lej! I promise. The pumpkins are the hardest because the milk chocolate melts and mixes with the orange candy coating. Santa is probably the next hardest because of painting on his hat. Everything else is a snap! 🙂
Can you tell us where you sold these and how you advertised?
Absolutely, Lisa. In recent years, most of my promotion was through Facebook. I created a page for my apples with galleries of pictures and invited my Facebook friends to LIKE the page and share it with their friends. Int he page description, I was very clear that this money helped provide Christmas for our family and I really think my honesty helped. People appreciated that we were not looking for a hand-out but were using creativity to find a solution.
Before Facebook was popular, I would make flyers with pictures of the apples and descriptions as well as my contact information. I would make a batch of apples and take one to a large business or doctor’s office with a stack of flyers. I gave a few to the teachers at local schools with flyers. Anywhere I could think to stir up buzz. I also sent out an email to everyone in my address book and took one to church to show.
This is such a great question, I think I will repost it as an Ask Penny. Thank you. 🙂
i subscribed and even click and confirmed with the email…but I have never received anything that I can print off instructions…I looked in spam and nothing there. So how do I get the instructions?
Hi Cindy. When you receive your first email or delivery to your RSS reader (depending on how you subscribed), look at the bottom of the post and you will see the image (represented in the post above) that states “Click Here to Download Your Free Gift.” The instructions will open in a PDF file that you can save or print. Hope this helps. 🙂
Hi I’m trying to download your designer apples but I don’t find where to find the download link.
Thanks for sharing this great idea for earning Christmas cash. I would love to try this and have also considered selling cake pops. I would just like to ask you how to know what to charge, and if there are restrictions for selling food items. (Will I need a permit or something from the Health Department?) We could really use the extra money this year (and every year so far) and any advice you could give would be so greatly appreciated!