Easter Candy has Sweet History

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I love Easter candy! It seems I’m not alone. Our Easter candy has been flying off the shelves this year!  Of course with more than 800 types of candy on our shelves, there are plenty of sweet treats to fill your baskets. As we decorated the shoppe for Easter a few weeks ago, I couldn’t help but wonder about the origins of Easter candy. (Hey, these are the things sweet tooth’s like me think of!) Anyway, I looked it up and found these sweet deets from the History Channel website. 

  • Easter is the second best-selling candy holiday in America, after Halloween.
  • Among the most popular sweet treats associated with this day are chocolate eggs, which date back to early 19th century Europe. Eggs have long been associated with Easter as a symbol of new life.
  • The jelly bean became associated with Easter in the 1930s (although the jelly bean’s origins reportedly date all the way back to a Biblical-era concoction called a Turkish Delight).
  • Over 16 billion jelly beans are made in the U.S. each year for Easter, enough to fill a giant egg measuring 89 feet high and 60 feet wide, according to the National Confectioners Association.
  • The marshmallow Peeps, a sugary, pastel-colored confection has been the top-selling non-chocolate Easter candy for the past decade.
  • The first Peeps were “hatched” by Russian immigrant Sam Born in 1923, but his company Just Born didn’t start selling the amusing marshmallow confection until the 1950s.
  • The original Peeps were handmade, marshmallow-flavored yellow chicks, but other shapes and flavors were later introduced, including chocolate mousse bunnies.

So now we both know why we hunt for eggs and candy every spring. Stop by Lola’s Sugar Rush and pick-up your favorite Easter sweeties while they last. Be sure to check out all of our mouthwatering chocolates and fun retro candy too!

P.S. Come celebrate our 3-year birthday on April 14th ~ Lots of food, fun and games! Oh! And I hope you’re all ready to dance in the streets of downtown Littleton on the 14th! Stay tuned for more sweet deets at the end of the week!

Lola’s Sugar Rush: A Sweet Look Back at our Last 3-years!

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Hey friends! As we gear up to celebrate the 3-year anniversary of Lola’s Sugar Rush, we wanted to thank all of you for your loyalty, friendship and the sweet smiles you have brought us. This video offers a glimpse of all the fabulous memories you’ve helped us create. Take a look!

Women in Business Help each other Succeed.

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As Lola’s Sugar Rush enters its third year in business, (Yep! 3-years!)  I can’t help but reflect on all the fabulous female entrepreneurs, bloggers, print journalists, and magazine editors who have helped launch and propel this sweet business of mine to heights I had only dreamed of as a young girl.

I’ve always cherished all of the girlfriends in my life, starting with my mom and my daughter who have always encouraged and bolstered me along my life’s path, as well as my darling niece and soon-to-be daughter-in-law who pitch in to help at a moment’s notice.  To this day, I still get together with many of my girlfriends I grew up with from grade school. Then there are the fabulous friends I’ve known for nearly two decades, who have helped me realize my childhood dream of opening this nostalgic candy shop and without whom, I could not possibly run this business.

I never take my dear friends for granted and our devotion to each other has always been part of the fabric of my life.  What I did not expect were the networks of women who seemingly came from nowhere to support me in this endeavor.

It all started with a former Rocky Mountain News Fashion Editor, Leslie Kennedy who decided to start her own blogging business after the Rocky folded. Leslie reached out to me only months after opening Lola’s Sugar Rush and asked to do a profile on us for her very first edition of Denver á la Mode, which today has grown into an excellent blog everyone should have bookmarked as one of their favorites.

Through the inexplicable power of Twitter and Facebook, I’ve made connections with even more brilliant female entrepreneurs from around the country such as:

  • Lynn Steinberg of GoodiesForGifts.com. If you love to send friends and family gourmet specialty gifts of any kind, GoodiesForGifts.com is definitely a delicious site to bookmark.
  • Michelle Riles, creator of TheSweetestTemptations.com is another Twitter friend.  Her site offers fun confections, recipes for cocktails, desserts and all things yummy around.
  • I’d be remise not to mention the women of SugarLoco.com who highlights decadent desserts from around the country, as well as Denver’s own, Betsy Martin who blogs in her DenverReign.com about the fabulous female “Reign Makers” from around Denver.
  • Last but not least, is Elana Jefferson of the Denver Post whose feature article on Lola’s Sugar Rush perfectly captured the essence of this sweet shop!

I’m sure I’ve missed many others who always have my back. But I wanted to give a big shout out to the sweetest “Sisters” a girl can have. Know that you make life sweet and successful on so many levels and for all of you, I am grateful!

Sweetly Yours,
Lola

Valentine’s Day Gifts for kids – Time together creating magical memories

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Valentine’s Day always brings back sweet memories for me. Love, friendship, candy, crafts, the innocence of youth.  Did I mention candy?

When I was a kid, one of my favorite annual homework assignments was to create a Valentine mail box. I still smile remembering my mom and I spending hours decorating my box. We didn’t have much money, but you’d never know that with the cache of craft materials my mom squirreled away for me. She’d bring out a rainbow of construction paper colors, glitter, sparkles, beads and old Valentine’s to cut up and re-use. Oh, the beautiful creations we made from old shoeboxes and lunch bags!

Picking out the perfect card for each of my classmates from the box of twenty, I would thoughtfully write some message of friendship and love and stuff the envelope with a piece of candy.

The card exchange and party at school where we got to show off our decorated mailboxes, swap cards, eat cupcakes and candy and just be silly were the best!  But unlike most of my friends, I didn’t open my cards or candy while I was at school. Instead I hurried home at the end of the day to open and share everything with my mom by my side.

I kept this sweet tradition with my two kids and did the same with my elementary students. It was important for to me to make it fun, as well as a learning experience. My students took turns sharing ideas, following directions on how to cut hearts, and of course we laughed and had great time.

This holiday isn’t just about love; it’s also about friendships, and of course candy!  I encourage any of you with children in your lives to take time out to be together and create something special for this sweet holiday.  Lola’s Sugar Rush has oodles of fun Valentine gifts and lots of colorful candy to stuff in your friend’s envelopes.

Bring in your finished Valentine mailboxes and we’ll give you a sweet treat to put in it to show you how much we love you and value your friendship!

Be Mine,

Lola