SPECIAL OFFER for Broomchick facebook friends only!!

2 SPECIAL PINK AND BLUE KITCHEN BROOMS!! 

Every year, Emily (aka Little Broom Girl) brews up a couple of special batches of colored broom corn that we use to make special brooms to sell EXCLUSIVELY at The Oregon Country Fair.  This year so far she’s made PURPLE, PINK & BLUE!!!

I am offering 2 of these colored brooms to my facebook friends who can’t go to The Oregon Country Fair. 

If you are interested please go to my facebook page HERE and “like” it then comment on THIS POST.  Make sure that comment which broom you would like. 

I will leave this post up till Friday, June 22, then I will draw names to choose who will get them.  These brooms will be offered for the same price as a standard kitchen broom ($39 + $16 Shipping).

These brooms are not going to be available anywhere except for on facebook or at The Oregon Country Fair.  <3 <3 <3

The brooms are just a little bit richer in color then in the photo. 

Doing a Coastal Sweep

After celebrating the Noble Glass Grand Opening with my buddies at the glass shop I decided to run off to the coast because it's craft fair season again!  I've been sweeping up and down the oregon coast over the last couple of weeks with my good friend Travis and my brooms in tow.  Selling some brooms, camping and just having a relaxing good time. 

We started off last weekend in Yachats where we arrived in the middle of the night and awoke to a beautiful sunny day.  It was the first market of the year and it was a slow start in the sleepy little town. 

After the market we traveled up Ten Mile to visit my friends, the Hoods, where Jasmine talked me into making a shower curtain for the solar shower in the garden.  I think we are going to have to make several more to cover the shower stall but this took me about 2 hours, made out of bamboo from their back yard. 

I had a great visit with Searose on Sunday night then Travis and I headed off toward home and along the drive I discovered a new beach that i had never been to because it's been closed many times before when i passed.  It's simply titled "Ocean Beach".  I think I'll have to go back and check it out some more. 

After our brief stop at the beach we headed to Florence and somewhere along the way i let Travis talk me into driving south to Port Orford instead of going home... "it's just a little way down the coast" lol. 

Well, I'm glad i went I soon found many more photogenic spots to gaze upon....

The long ride home via Elkton

A beautiful ending to a lovely weekend.  <3

CANADIANS WELCOME!!

I'm so glad to FINALLY announce that I have updated my ETSY store to include shipping to CANADA!!  Woohoo! 

I have found that shipping by USPS Priority Mail is the best way to go because it's cheaper and you have less problems with customs and taxes and also if you send a package and it gets denied they send it back to you for free (this was what really sold me on it). 

So WELCOME CANADIANS!! and THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR AWESOME MESSAGES!! 

Love,
Broomchick & Brutus Beefcake

A Stand-Up Broom

Yes it's true! Our brooms stand on their own! I love this photo that my friend Dena sent me of her standing broom.  The reason that they do this is all because of the quality of the broomcorn and the amount we use.  You can take any of our brooms and stand them up like this and they will stay! 
Because of the superior quality of our broomcorn, our brooms last for a very long time.  I have brooms that I made over 10 years ago that i sweep with all the time, and they still look great!

Spring Cleaning - Making a clean sweep!

It's almost time to sweep out the old and bring in the new! 
I live in a drafty old historical house in an old neighborhood in Eugene, OR and every winter we let the curtains down to keep the heat in and even put up some extra ones in open doorways to keep heat wrangled into our living areas.  You can imagine it gets kind of dark and cozy in there and when spring comes around we are more than ready to open everything up and let the sun shine in and when we do the light shows us just how much dust we've been collecting.  Yikes!

The nice thing about my place is that I have nice wood floors throughout the entire house which makes it easy to clean and, being a broom maker, I have all the right brooms to do the job! 

Below is a list of our brooms and their functions:

THE KITCHEN BROOM - This broom great for all hard floors and for sweeping the porch and the sidwalk.

THE BESOM - Used for sweeping corners and getting cobwebs off the ceiling. 

THE HEARTH BROOM - For cleaning the fireplace.

THE KID BROOM - Put the kids to work!  This broom is fun for the kid's but it's also useful for small spaces like the bathroom or the pantry.

THE TURKEY WING BROOM - This hand broom is perfect for getting into corners and sweeping under counters.  It also looks very lovely hanging on the wall.

THE WHISK BROOM - This hand broom is great for sweeping up small messes and fits perfectly into any dust pan for sweeping up dirt piles. 

THE COBWEB BROOM - A broom for the cobwebs!  This lightweight broom on long stick is perfect for grabbing cobwebs from the ceiling. 


Each of these brooms is available on my ETSY site:  www.broomchick.etsy.com
You can also find them on EBAY: http://myworld.ebay.com/broomchick/?_trksid=p4340.l2559
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/BROOMCHICK/123580760996450
Twitter: Broomchick: https://twitter.com/#!/Broomchick 

Wedding Brooms and Handfasting Besoms

In recent years the wedding tradition of "broom jumping" has become more and more popular, but it has actually been around for centuries and over the 15+ years I have been making and selling brooms I have come across many different explanations for the act of "jumping the broom", mostly from the Pagan based religious folks and the African American community. According to Wikipedia:

“ Jumping the broom is a phrase and custom relating to wedding ceremonies in different cultural traditions, found in "many diverse cultures, those of Africa − Europe including Scotland, Hungary and Gypsy culture", all of which "include brooms at wedding rituals." [1] It is particularly associated with the Romani gypsy people of the United Kingdom[2], especially those in Wales.[3] There is "evidence showing the wedding custom was practiced by gypsies(sic) in England, Scotland"[4] as well as by African Americans and other groups. ”

The ritual of "broom jumping" is exactly as it sounds. Toward the end of the wedding ritual couples hold hands and jump over the broom, either together or one at a time and although the symbolism may be different, all couples arrive at the other side of the broom being married.

We have several brooms that work great for these ceremonies, it’s totally up to you to choose what broom fits best.  For the Neopagan we offer the traditional ceremonial besom aka the witch’s broom, is about 56 inches long and is sewn in the round “old world” style, it comes in a variety of colors: Natural, Rust, Black or a Mixture of all 3 colors. 

We also offer a smaller version of the witches besom, which we call the cobweb broom or small ceremonial besom at 56 inches it is about 1/3 the thickness of the ceremonial besom.  It is only available in natural. 

If you are not into the “old world” style besom we have the kitchen broom aka the wedding broom, which is a flat broom style, 56 inches long, it comes in a variety of colors: Natural, Rust, Black or a Mixture of all 3 colors.  We also offer this broom with tree spirit carving ( carved kitchen broom ).

Carved Kitchen Broom

A smaller version of the kitchen broom is the kid’s broom, 48 inches long, it comes in a variety of colors: Natural, Rust, Black or a Mixture of all 3 colors. 

Finally, we have the hearth broom, which is 36 inches long and it comes in a variety of colors: Natural, Rust, Black or a Mixture of all 3 colors.  We also offer this broom with tree spirit carving ( carved hearth broom ) and we offer it in the “old world” besom style in both regular and carved ( hearth broom round and carved hearth broom round )

Hearth Broom

Carved Hearth Broom

Round Hearth Broom

Round Carved Hearth Broom

You can find all of these brooms and more at my etsy store:  www.broomchick.etsy.com or check my facebook page http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/BROOMCHICK/123580760996450 for ebay auctions. 


CHECK OUT THIS COOL TREASURY ON ETSY - 
Hopping the Broom: A Spring Wedding Guide
http://www.etsy.com/treasury/Njc0NjUyM3wyMjQxNjY5MjI3/hopping-the-broom-a-spring-wedding-guide

NEW QUIDDITCH BROOMS

I've been working on these new Quidditch brooms for the last month and I finally finished them and got them photographed. I'm so excited to show them off, I call it "The Zipper". Hand painted with specially selected twisty stick and a special winding job that stands up to rough-housing. Perfect for your Harry Potter fan! Available on www.broomchick.etsy.com