Blog

As many of you know, we price our products with very little overhead.  This allows us to stay competitive with larger corporations and provide all of our customers with our best pricing all year round.  However, it means that we aren't able to offer many discounts or sales if we want to stay in business. 

We know that this business model isn't typical in today's highly competitive retail market where everyone expects to get a deal, but we feel it best reflects our values of honesty and equality.  However, we still want to say thank you to our customers for choosing to support us with your holiday shopping.

To show our appreciation, every order placed on our website on Black Friday (Nov. 25) or Small Business Saturday (Nov. 26) will receive a free Natural Heartwood Mushroom Nutcracker  ($10 retail value).

I often struggle with how to tell our company's story properly. Which is why I was so honored when Holly at makesauerkraut.com included a description of who we are and the type of business we run with her review of one of our crocks.

If you are like me, reading a first hand review of a product is incredibly helpful in making an educated decision.  Holly's review gives lots of important information about our  popular Olive Green 5L Fermenting Crock. 

Make Sauerkraut is a wonderful resource for the fermenting community.  If you have any questions about fermenting, there is tons of information on the blog!

Check out her detailed and thorough blog post, and stay tuned for a giveaway we will be sponsoring with her soon!

www.makesauerkraut.com/fermenting-crock-stone-creek-trading

I'm sure all of our customers are just as anxious as I am to know when we will be back in stock!  The good news is that our container is on it's way to us right now.  You can see below the photos from Poland of the container being packed on October 20. 

After it was packed it traveled to Germany, where it was loaded onto a cargo ship. That cargo ship is currently somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on it's way to Norfolk, Virginia where our container will be unloaded. 

It will then need to clear customs before it can be loaded onto a train to make it's way to the Chicago Railyard.  After that, it will be picked up by a semi truck to deliver it to our facility in Frankfort, IL! 

Right now we are being told it will arrive in mid November, but with many opportunities for delays along the way, it could be later.  Everyone keep their fingers crossed for smooth sailing (literally)!

In the meantime, we've got lots of new products for you to check out.  And if you are anxiously awaiting for a specific product to restock, be sure to head to that product's page to sign up to be notified when it is back in stock.  Those emails go out before we share anywhere else!

Just in time for the Holiday entertaining season, our wood butter molds are now available on the website! I had so much fun testing these out to perfect my technique, and can't wait to use them for Thanksgiving.  If you follow us on Instagram, you've already seen some sneak peaks of these beautiful wood butter molds as I did some trail and error to make sure we know how to use them ourselves before we start selling them!

Butter molds are a popular tradition in Poland that is still in practice today.  Our Polish wood butter molds are made the same way the always have been - handcarved in the mountain town of Zakopane.

We have three styles available of the wood butter molds, and each one is gorgeous! 

The flower butter mold has two options - the Circle and Oblong.  Each shape has a traditional handcarved flower design which is popular in Polish Folk Art.

If you are from the Chicago area, you will recognize our sheep butter mold's shape!  Every year at Easter, the grocery stores here offer molded butter shaped like sheep.  It's a fun traditional as a large portion of the population in the Chicago area has Polish ancestry.  But why limit the cute lamb butter to just one holiday?  With our butter molds you can make a butter sheep anytime you want!

But I think my favorite design might be the Folk Art Butter Molds.  This 3 part mold makes a beautiful cube shaped butter design.  Each side features a hand carved traditional Polish folk art design.  I love how this simple product is so complex with the way it folds apart to reveal your butter creation!

So which design do you think you will make?

One of our most popular items is getting even better!  Our Wood Mushroom Nutcracker is now available in a total of three color ways!  The traditional dark brown cap was featured in a November 2014 issue of the New York Times.  The red toadstool cap is a fun, whimsical option for any woodland themed event! 

And we are proud to introduce the latest edition - the Natural Heartwood cap.  This cap is made from the heartwood of the beech tree, resulting in a unique natural marbling design which varies with each nutcracker!  These Wood Mushroom Nutcrackers are always a popular item in the fall and winter, so be sure to order one soon!

It has been a very busy summer here at Stone Creek Trading.  Thank you to all of our customers for making the last few months our best ever!  We felt like we had finally gotten a good handle on anticipating demand, but this summer has far surpassed our predictions.

Because of the wonderful increase in orders, we are quickly selling out of some of our most popular products.  When our last shipment arrived at the end of July, we originally thought we would be stocked through the holidays.  But our recent growth has left us scrambling to get a new shipment here as soon as possible. 


Because of the way we do business, restocking is not a fast process.  Our suppliers make most products on demand, which means they need time to manufacture and we need time to ship them from Poland.  It's typically a 3 month process, but we have been pushing and hope to have a new shipment in by November.  So if you've noticed a few things out of stock, we're sorry!  Hopefully we will be back in stock before the Holiday rush!

As always, if you have any questions about specific products, send me an email - emily@stonecreektrading.com!