Cottage On Cross

Today I'm talking with Karen at Cottage On Cross.

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00:00 You're listening to A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters, and topics adjacent. I'm your host, Mary Lewis.  A Tiny Homestead podcast is sponsored by Homegrown Collective, a free to use farm to table platform, emphasizing local connections with ability to sell online, buy, sell, trade in local garden groups, and help us grow a new food system.  You can find them at homegrowncollective.org. Today I'm talking with Karen at Cottage On Cross

00:28 Good morning, Karen. How are you? Good morning. Thank you for having me. You're in Pennsylvania, right?  I am, yes. Okay. I'm in Minnesota. It's beautiful here for the first time in four days.  We've had clouds and rain  since, I think, mid-afternoon on Monday. So it's been really nice to get up this morning and see the sun shining. So how are things in Pennsylvania?  Well, we probably got your weather. Oh,  We're in the midst of that rain, but it's spring and it's needed, so I'm not complaining.

00:58 Yeah, the weather people here were saying on Monday, they were giving us the heads up that this drenching was coming and they were all like, we need the rain. And I'm like, we don't need 17 inches guys. Oh gosh, no. Yeah. I think we've all, I think we've all ended up with five inches total. Well, that's better. Yes. You don't want your garden to flood.  No, that happened last year. I don't want it to happen this year. So,  all right. So you  tell me why it's called Cottage on Cross.

01:28 That's a fun story.  It's purposeful,  but it's also out of desperation. This is not my first online business. And I learned accidentally with my  last one that  your name matters  in Google searches.  If people don't even know what they're looking for, but type in a keyword,  you'll come up.  know, cottage  core,  was super trendy when I started it.

01:56 And that's a lot of what I make. So I wanted that name somewhere.  And the first  maybe 28 names I chose  weren't available either on Etsy or on Instagram.  And  I needed the availability on both of those.  So  I ended up with Cottage on Cross because we live on Crossroad.  okay.  Okay. So for people who don't know what Cottage Core is, can you explain that?

02:24 Um, well right now, grandma core is trending, which is pretty much the same, just another term for it. It's just kind of a, uh, a back to basics,  um, aesthetic  where, uh, if your grandma had it, you're gonna like it, but, but that's the grandma core. Cottage core is,  uh, well, kind of the same thing. It's like little house on the prairie, um, vibe going on.  Um, it's, it's a more, uh, old fashioned vibe maybe.

02:54 Uh huh. Okay.  Um, what I find interesting about Cottage Core is that I grew up with Cottage Core because we spent time with my grandmas, obviously,  and,  my mom was very influenced by her mother, who was my grandma.  And so we always had old fashioned things in our house. And to this day, I really, really hate s