Velata

Are you wondering what in the world Velata is?!  I did too when I first heard of it.  In August A friend from high school contacted me.  She works for Scentsy and they have a sister company they started two years ago called Velata.  Velata reminded me a little of Pampered Chef except they have all these cool warmers and bowls they use for fondue.  They also have this amazing grill called the Raclette.  Anyway, my friend was in charge of their upcoming convention and wanted to hire me to develop some new recipes that feature their new chocolate "meltables".  It sounded fun!!  I went in for a meeting at their Meridian headquarters and they told me what they were looking for.  They also wanted me to do a live demonstration on stage for the 300 consultants attending the convention.  It was a tall order.  I asked them for a week or so to come up with ideas and then we'd meet again and see what they thought.

Have you ever tried to come up with recipes that are "new and fresh" but "easy enough for the average person" to do?  They also need to be "cute and fun" and "kid friendly" and "outside the box" and not "overly sweet."  I also needed to incorporate the two new flavors of meltables: pumpkin pie and dark mint.

I felt scared and completely overwhelmed!!!  I brainstormed like crazy.  I walked down isles of every grocery store looking for ideas of things I could make with these meltables.  After I came up with ideas I would look on Pinterest and see if the idea had been done before.  It was insane!!!!!!  We (Kirk and I) finally came up with what I thought would work and made lots of samples for the team to try at the next meeting.  I was so nervous.  I had so much self doubt.  I pretty much convinced myself that they were going to hate everything.

I was so wrong!!!  They LOVED all my ideas and ate all my samples.  I don't know why I had so much self doubt, but this was a HUGE confidence booster for me.  Here's what I came up with:

Pumpkin Patch Cake Balls 

(this was the hardest recipe, but it really isn't that hard!)  They used this one for their recipe of the month for October, view the video here!!!!

Cake Bites  

(dipped pound cake in chocolate and decorated)

Build a Beetle  

(this one is for kids!  You dip the cookies and let them decorate it-a HUGE hit with the consultants!)

Mint Meltaways

(Using Ritz crackers dipped in mint chocolate and making a "topper" with white chocolate)

Popcorn Confetti

(super easy and yummy!  The three kinds here are pumpkin pie with candy corn, white with red hots and mint with marshmallows.)

They had all of my recipes printed up and every consultant was able to take them home!  

Organizing myself for the live demonstration was an absolute pain.  I finally decided to have a tray for each recipe and on that tray would have all the supplies I needed for that treat.  I had a tray on the demonstration table as well that held items I would need for several things.  They also had 4 or 5 warmers going on stage with 2 assistants who handed me chocolate when I needed it and warmed up things in the microwave for me. (we shorted a fuse when we first began, but thankfully they fixed it quickly!!)  I had one assistant on the side of the stage taking trays and handing me trays and one assistant on stage with me explaining how to incorporate the ideas into parties and the business (since I had never even heard of Velata until now!!)  She was so funny too!!!  We just had fun talking back and forth and making jokes.  Here's a picture of the back room we used to get everything ready and my cart of trays for each recipe!

Oh, I almost forgot the other "fun" parts I got to do!  See all the popcorn on the table?  I somehow volunteered to make 300 bags of the confetti popcorn to give out as samples.  That was a bad idea.  My microwave broke while I was warming up the popcorn, so we had to pop it at the church.  I also had a huge PTA meeting so Kirk and Logan filled all those bags with popcorn for me...it took them 3 hours!!!  It was such a nightmare!!!!  I also put together a dessert table which meant I had to make all the treats AGAIN and make them look beautiful.  The table was for display only (thank goodness) so I didn't have to make as many treats.  It was still a pain getting all the treats and dishes over to Meridian.  I don't even think I have a picture of the display table!  It was cute, I put the letter "V" on all the cookies.

Here I am, ready to go give my presentation!!!!  I was so excited and nervous (but mostly excited.)

No pictures of the presentation either.  They said they'd send me some, still waiting.....

We were given 30 minutes for the demonstration, but we were right before lunch so they told us not to worry about time.  It was so fun, natural and interactive.  I ended up taking a whole hour!!!  It didn't feel like it though, and afterwards I was swarmed with consultants who wanted me on their team, they couldn't believe I wasn't a consultant!!!  I also received hugs and praise from the President and VP of Scentsy.  Everyone loved the entire presentation!!!!!  It was such a rush!

They gave me this awesome gift basket with over $400.00 of products and tons of chocolate and meltables!!!  That Raclette grill is by far my favorite!  We use it every day for breakfast and I've used it many times for dinner too.  It's a really fun product and it really does bring the family together!

It was a great experience and I'm glad I did it.  I gained so much confidence in my baking skills, teaching skills and putting a greater value on my services.  They actually paid me 10 times what I asked them for!!!!!!  They told me I needed to seriously think about the value I put on myself.  It felt good to be appreciated.  I think I've been shorting myself all these years!  I told them to call me anytime....and they did...two days later!!!!  To be continued.....