Shoe Leather: Behind the seams of Shoestring Magazine

DIY Prom: Duck Tape Scholarship Contest

Recently, on Twitter, a friend commented that he can't hear "Pretty in Pink" by The Psychedelic Furs without thinking of Molly Ringwald, every single time. (Yup, and I'm sure you're saying, yup.)

While I hate John Hughes for taking a great punk song and making it a mainstream anthem for late 80s teen angst of haves against have-nots, I love him for the indelible message he sent through that movie to girls my age about resourcefulness, independence, and strength despite insecurity — about the timeless possibility of looking pretty by going ready made instead of spending a fortune on ready to wear.

Who didn't want to hack apart an old bridesmaid dress and whip up their own fabulous frock for prom after watching Andie Walsh do the same, then strut into the soiree, Duckie on her arm, and make Blane swoon? I know at least Chloe Dao and I did — we shared a moment at BlogHer 2007, talking about making our prom dresses from our mom's old bridesmaid dresses, inspired by none other than Andie Walsh. For me, it was just a way for a poor kid to keep up appearances among the rich girls in my prestigious Boston suburb, for her it launched a fashion career and a Project Runway win. Sigh. Choices.

Anyway, the scene from Pretty in Pink is as iconic for any Gen X girl as Lloyd Dobler hoisting that boombox to his shoulder to win over Diane Court is for any Gen X guy. Which is why I was psyched when my friend Brooke, via Facebook, introduced me to the Stuck at Prom scholarship contest, hosted by Duck Tape. The true spirit of punk and a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor are alive and well in this DIY scholarship contest, which has apparently been going strong for almost a decade now.

According to Patti Sack from Duck Tape, with whom I had the pleasure of speaking by phone today, "..[the contest] is just a lot of fun," she said. "It came up as a way to connect with the new generation of consumers who are using Duck Tape as a crafting medium. We were getting tons of calls about the innovative ways Duck Tape was being used, so we came up with Stuck at Prom as a way to engage the younger audience and demonstrate the company's commitment to education."

And commit they did. Since the first Stuck at Prom contest in 2001, according to Sack, Duck Tape has given $70,000 in scholarship money to students and $36,000 to their representative schools. First place winners each receive $3K for first place, plus $3K for their school, second place is $2K, and third place is $1K — totalling $18K in cash prizes for each year's contest. Seems to me, for crafty teenage Shoestringers out there, this is the perfect opportunity to offset the cost of college while having fun and baring your punk rock soul.

Make Andie and Duckie proud by going to StuckAtProm.com by June 8th to enter, or check out Stuck at Prom winners from previous years and 2009 Stuck at Prom entries for inspiration. It only took last year's winner Sharon Dranko three months to complete her outfit and one for her date...and 100 rolls of Duck Tape. Get cracking!

~ Melissa

Jellystone Park: Smarter Than Your Average Campground

I don't know about you, but as a kid, I was slightly obsessed with Yogi Bear. Even more so with his adorable and perennial sidekick, Boo Boo. (Children of the 70s and early 80s, I know you feel me here.)

One thing I'm obsessed with now (professionally, but hate personally) is Facebook ads. Professionally, I'm fascinated by their micro-targeting and relevance algorithms, which enable small businesses to fine-tune their advertising campaigns with such precision that formerly million dollar results can now be achieved with just a few hundo. (Soooo Shoestring.) Personally, though, I think they're not only annoying but creepy, in a Big Brother sort of way, since the hyper-relevancy starts to feel a little like stalking, despite the fact a computer, not a human, is behind them. So, where am I going with all this?

Well, after posting a link to our road trips issue of Shoestring on my Facebook profile, I started seeing ads for a campground called Jellystone Park, in upstate New York. Of course, as any card-carrying acolyte of Hanna-Barbera knows, Jellystone is the home of Yogi and Boo Boo Bear, as well as the crime scene for many a stolen picnic basket. There, to my delight, was an actual, real website for an actual, real Jellystone Park.

The campground and family camp and theme park, complete with costumed characters, is just hours away from Boston and New York City in the Catskills. There's a water park (including 21+ jacuzzi for mom and dad), canoeing and paddle boating, badminton and tennis — all the fun things you'd expect from a campground, but you get to hang out with Yogi and Boo Boo. The kid in me is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs with this revelation. (Because, let's face it — they *are* smarter than the average bear.)

Sadly, Ginger and I don't have any kids (and will be in Seattle) for Memorial Day weekend, but if you're looking for wholesome family fun with a serious dose of nostalgia, check out Yogi Bear's Jellystone Park at Birchwood Acres.

Hey, Boo Boo? Just don't forget to send me a postcard, OK?

~ Melissa

Frugal Foodies: Indian Takeaway

Ginger and I are closet foodies. Forget couture and modern decor — we frequently blow our budget on anything and everything epicurean, from street food to Michelin-starred fine dining. (What can I say? I'm a sucker for anything French.)

Not going out to dinner as frequently and curbing the urge to call up and order takeout have been the hardest parts of forgoing a paycheck to live the dream. But limitation is the mother of innovation, and we're discovering new delights with each passing week and grocery trip, some that we'll take with us into the flush days of the future. (You know, when we turn Shoestring into the publishing empire it's destined to become, and Meghan and I are as rich as Martha and Oprah...but I digress.)

The one thing I miss most from my formerly flush, six-figure life is my weekly Indian lunch at Punjab Cafe in Quincy, Mass. with Chris and Lanny, friends from my second-to-last start-up, a social networking site for the arts & entertainment industry called Nextcat. Punjab isn't exactly pricey — our total bill would always be less than $35, and our favorite chicken tikka masala lunch special was just $6.95 per person — but we've all spread out and day jobs (or lack thereof) and gas prices have, over time, removed this simple splurge from our budgets.

Which is why I was psyched that, at a recent dinner at his house, Chris introduced me to Patak's tikka masala curry, quite possibly the closest thing in a jar to Punjab's chicken tikka masala and available at Stop & Shop for just $3.99 (by the half case on Amazon for about $22). Whether you're trying to cut back on takeaway or just don't have any good Indian restaurants near you, Patak's is the closest thing to authentic that I've yet found, and unbelievably affordable. It has just the right mix of tomato, tangy lemon and cilantro, and heat from the turmeric. Just add grilled chicken, rice, and naan and you've got yourself a quick and cheap meal for four. Namaste, Patak family, namaste.

Tell us: What are your favorite grocery store finds? Things that satisfy your inner foodie while staying within your frugal budget? We're always looking for cheap eats, so leave us your recommendations in the comments and we'll pick up your products to test drive in our kitchen.

~ Melissa

Kodak Gallery / Ofoto Ends Free Photo Sharing

It's never been truer than during this recession: there is no such thing as a free lunch (or account).

In late March, KodakGallery.com (formerly Ofoto.com) announced that it was no longer going to offer free storage and photo sharing for its customers. Any Kodak Gallery / Ofoto customer who hasn’t made a purchase so far this year by May 16th (aka this Saturday) will have their account — including any uploaded photos and albums — permanently deleted. (If you're currently storing under 2GB of photos, you need to make at least a $5 purchase, and if you’re storing over 2GB, you need to make a purchase of at least $20.)

In their final warning announcement yesterday, KodakGallery.com sent this message to their customers:

"It's long been our policy that Gallery customers make an annual purchase in exchange for unlimited photo storage and sharing. However, without a minimum defined purchase amount, some customers have ended up spending as little as 15¢. The result: Our loyal customers who regularly shop the Gallery have essentially been subsidizing those who don't. So, to better balance the scales, we've made a simple adjustment to our policy."

Meghan and I have both been longtime Kodak Gallery customers, preferring the quality of their work and products (as well as the interface of their website) to other photo sharing platforms. (So much so that we even chose them as an advertising partner for Shoestring.) Now, however, I'm re-evaluating and weighing the pros and cons: I have 3GB of photos uploaded to their website. Is it worth it to me to pay $20 a year to keep them? Earlier this year, I bought and invested in a 1TB external hard drive and backed up all of my files, including the majority of the photos I have stored in my account on KodakGallery.com. But do I have them all? What if I missed a few, and I want them for something later? (Say, for a slide show or an album for my wedding in October? Or, as embarrassing as those party pics may have been at the time, to prove to my future children that Mom and Dad were, indeed, cool/hot/skinny once?)

Uncertainty and brand loyalty (yes, I'm a sucker like that) will probably sway me to pay the $20 — if only to order my photos on a backup, archived CD. I’m panicking at the thought that I may lose photos forever, since, as anyone who knows me can attest, I’m a sentimental sap. But I know that feeling is just where Kodak wants me. (Hotmail got me that way a few years ago when they put a cap on their "free" accounts and, shuddering at the thought of losing college emails, love letters to Ginger in the early days of our relationship — when he was living in Paris and I in Boston — and all those things I don't even know I need until I need them, forced me to pay then and continue to pay now a whopping $24.95 or so annually…) We have a free flickr account, but it's just not the same. All of my personal stuff isn't stored there — just promotional/journalistic photos for work and more recent photos — not the last ten years of my life on "film." (Especially not the ones prior to Facebook and Twitpic and my magical, high-res-photo-taking iPhone.)

If you're a KodakGallery customer, are you going to pay the $5 to $20 to keep your account? Either way, why did you make the decision to keep (or not keep) it? We want to hear from you!

(And if you do decide to make your purchase before May 16th, please click through the links above or the banner ad below. As a KodakGallery.com partner, a portion of all sales go to support the Shoestring you know and love.)

Holy Crap: Shoestring Presented at Girls in Tech

Last night I presented a case study at the Girls in Tech: Using social media in your organization. I got up, and have a bumbling 15 minute presentation on how Shoestring uses Social Media. Our two main goals are boosting national readership, and generating revenue using social media. The four panelists were fantastic, but the one who really stuck out for me was Cappy Popp, co-founder of Thought Labs. Cappy really took us to task for not updating our facebook page more often.

This morning I spent two hours navigating the inner workings of facebook, to try and update all of our settings. The fact that we only have two full time employees, means that Melissa and I have to streamline our processes as much as possible. As we all know "Content is King" the more often you post, and blog, and tweet, and retweet, and comment, means more exposure, and quite frankly I for one have been slacking.

Step 1. Meghan must post on the blog everyday (see I've accomplished today)

One of the biggest pieces of advice we received was to post in one place, and let our RSS feed do the dirty work. We've had problems syncing our blog posts to our facebook page, but hopefully my frustrating hour using feedburner, and the blog RSS feed app on facebook should take care of that. In a nutshell, if I write this blog post it should update to all of my social media tools. (I admit that this blog post is somewhat of a test run to make sure that everything works.) If you read my last blog post, you learned that I'm a newbie to "public" social media. Or as I call it "social media with an actual purpose." Everything that I post should have the ulterior motive of generating buzz around Shoestring. I don't now if I'm doing an OK job. Lets be frank here: I say things that are not appropriate. Nathaniel has made me a list of appropriate topics and non-appropriate topics to talk about at his company dinners. We joke (sort-of) about laminating note cards that I can stick in my purse to pull out when I'm at a loss for conversation. I've been know to have conversations about politics, a woman's right to choose, and that time I retouched porn, all at a fancy restaurant with Nathaniel's boss. I would like to say it's part of my charm, but I'm sure others might disagree.

I apologize for saying "holy crap, and then "oh shit I shouldn't say crap in front of a room full of people." Yup I said it once, then I made it worse, and then I said it again. In truth I would understand if Nathaniel left me at home when he has dinner with his boss.

I want people to find me interesting enough to read what I have to say, but this is my business, and I don't want to offend anyone. Though for anyone who read Shoestring Saves, it might be a little too late for that ("climbing the ass-crack of Africa" anyone?)

So what do you say. Is my off-color brand of humor offensive, or funny? Do you think it's hurting my social media reputation, or giving me "indie cred."  Lastly if you have any ideas or suggestions for expanding our readership, or generating revenue, give us a shout out.

~Meghan