Something in the air?

Maybe it's because each day is getting a bit warmer and a bit brighter, but my motivation was sparked this week and I FINALLY updated my Etsy shop.  This was wayyy overdue - I have all of these soaps and lip balms nicely arranged on shelves, but it's obviously not being sold to anyone if I don't get it listed....  In any case, I'm also running a sale on bar soaps for the next week: Buy three, get one free!  Head over and check it out, if you're interested.  

Sarah's Soak Shoppe also has a Facebook page, which you can check out here.

New Products!

I've made the decision to focus my soaping efforts strictly on bar soap, liquid soap, felted soaps, body butters, and lip balms.  These have become my best sellers, and are my favorite things to make.  So much of starting a business is trying out what things work and what things don't.  It's been such a lesson in patience and stress management to learn to brush off the things that aren't as successful as I had hoped.  Deciding to make only these items felt like such a relief - I am one step closer to being fully established, and I'll be able to have huge fragrance variety within those product lines!

So, in honor of my new focus, I've ordered a bunch of fun new stuff!

New lip balm flavors:
Honey
Grape
Coconut
Chocolate Cream
Strawberry
Coffee
Root Beer
Cinnamon
Spearmint

I think I'm going to try combining root beer with vanilla and go for a Root Beer Float kinda feel.  Do I see a Cinnamint on the horizon?  Just like baking, minus the calories!

New soap fragrances:
Jasmine (just for you Charlene!)
Lilac
Cherry Blossom
Hibiscus Passion (okay those two aren't new, but were huge sellers!  Expect more Cherry Blossom bar soap, and Hibiscus Passion in everything!)

Don't ask me about my logic in ordering all of this stuff when I'm desperately trying to pack things up!  My wonderful friend Linda will be handling the East Coast distribution of Sarah's Soak Shoppe and will need me to have things ready for her.  (Don't you just love how you can come up with a title and all of a sudden it sounds important?)  In any case, let me know what you think of those new lip balm flavors.  I'm pretty excited myself!

Spring Sale!

In honor of the arrival of spring (and the horrible rainy weather in Pittsburgh), I'm offering 20% off in my Etsy shoppe!  Enter coupon code SpringSale2011 anytime in May to get your discount!

I also felted 7 soaps tonight, so you can look forward to seeing a few more listed in the coming week!

Check out my giveaway!

The wonderful Corrie, of In Metal Jewelry, is featuring a few of my products in a giveaway over on her blog.  Hop on over and check out and maybe you will win some super cool stuff!

While you're at it, check out her Etsy Shoppe, too.  She makes some pretty awesome stuff out of upcycled glass - I'm thinking I might harass her into making me a pretty suncatcher for a window in my cabin.  Start looking for pretty blues for me, Corrie!

Thank you so much Corrie, for such a wonderful feature and for doing all the hard work!

Ooooo, pretty!

I cut my Hibiscus Passion bar soap, and it looks awesome!

You just never know what you're going to get when you make a swirled soap.  It is absolutely devastating to cut a log of soap and realize that the colored part is less like a swirl and more like a blob.  Totally worth it though when you get some really great details!  This fragrance also has a lot more depth than I realized initially - maybe a hint of cinnamon in with the floral?  It has also been quite a hit with the gentlemen folk, which really surprised me.

This is also the first bar soap to get the new labels - looking good!  Love Photoshop.  Give it a few weeks to cure, and 8 bars will be available for sale on Etsy!  The other half will be going to my good ol' dad.

I've also been going through all of my craft supplies so I can figure out what is coming with me and what needs to get used/sold/given away in the next two months.  If anyone has any empty jars and wants me to pour candles, bring 'em over!  I have about 20 pounds of wax and it is SO not going to Alaska.  I'm hoping to take almost everything, but I need to find a good way to get it organized so it is easy to locate while I'm living out of boxes, and easy to store once we're in our cabin.

I also learned that the board has approved my application for social work licensure in Alaska, pending ASWB ever sending proof of my exam date.  I paid them to transfer the score over a month ago, so hopefully they get on the ball pretty soon.  It would be nice to know that I have the option to apply for a professional job!

Oopsies!

Well, I kind of made a rather large boo-boo.  I was planning on transferring to the Michaels in Wasilla when we moved, so I'd have some guaranteed income right off the bat.  Great idea, Sarah - too bad the Michaels you're thinking of is in ANCHORAGE.  That threw me for a major loop today.  I'm sure I'll be able to find something relatively easily, but I was so hopeful that something would be go smoothly!

In other news, I made a special batch of soap for my Dad tonight.  I had taken my entire collection of fragrances over to my Dad and let him pick which one he would like me to make.  He actually made my brother smell them all and narrow it down to a select few to choose from.  I figured they would pick the cotton fragrance, maybe baby powder, or perhaps peppermint.  Nope, they went for hibiscus passion.  Seriously, probably the strongest floral I have.  Go figure... I'll probably snag a few from his batch and put them up on Etsy for everyone else.  I've been doing some serious listing the last couple days and I've added probably 16 items.  I still have a bunch more to go before I'll have my entire line available for online purchase!

Craft Show Review

I've done two craft shows this month, and I haven't mentioned how either have turned out!  The first one, at the South Hills Country Club, was an epic failure.  It was an absolutely GORGEOUS day, so hardly anyone came to the show.  The people that did come were obviously there to window shop only.  At least I wasn't the only one that didn't make any money!  As it was, I barely made my table fee back for 5 hours worth of work...  Kind of the risk that you take going to a craft show, I suppose.

The second one was this past weekend.  Actually, as it was the Mt. Lebanon Earth Day Fair, it wasn't really a craft show.  MUCH more successful!  It was a lot of fun too - I got a free sample of a compostable garbage bag!  I will definitely have to pick some of these up when I re-establish my composting in Alaska. A stinky smelly compost bucket sucks.  Imagine grabbing the whole thing, bag and all, and tossing it in the pile!

I must say, I am absolutely shocked at my success in selling my wares over the last several months.  After hoping and wishing for such a long time that I would somehow be able to support myself through my own creativity, I decided to take the plunge.  My upfront costs weren't that outrageous, and I figured if it failed miserably I could at least say I tried.  Honestly, I think I expected that I would try it for awhile, nobody would buy anything, and I'd get it out of my system.  Instead, I'm becoming increasingly excited and confident that this could actually work!  Not that I'm exactly rolling in cash, but I'm getting closer to recovering every penny put in! Also, a wonderful friend of mine wants to act as a distributor for Sarah's Soak Shoppe in PA once I'm in Alaska - I'll be a coast to coast business!

I really encourage anyone that has dreams of doing something like this to just suck it up and try.  Especially if you can do it without breaking the bank up front.  You just might surprise yourself!

Pretty in Pink

Karl and I went to the Tanger Outlets today, hoping to score some good deals.  The Columbia store totally pulled through, and I snagged some hot pink snow pants for $20 (originally $120).  No way was I going to get a better deal anywhere else, and I had already donated mine as they were from like 8th grade or something ridiculous like that.  I figure the color is appropriate too, so when I'm stuck in a snowbank I can be easily seen and therefore rescued.  Just a thought..

And also, take a look at my pretty new brochures, a la Photoshop:

Way cooler than a Word document!

Halfway There

We (Karl) managed to get the wiring done for the trailer yesterday!  It involved a lot of mumbo jumbo lingo that I didn't understand, but basically you take the wire that connects your two taillights, add some thingamajig that runs to the trailer and your battery, and you're good to go.  My contribution was handing Karl tools, and zip tying things under the hood that Karl's big fat man fingers couldn't reach.

We hoped to attach the hitch today, but the impending doom of thunderstorms eliminated that option.  It also looks like it's going to rain the rest of the week, too, so I looked up some stats:

Average yearly rainfall in Pittsburgh: 37.85 inches
Average yearly rainfall in Anchorage: 16.08 inches

Score one for Alaska!

Of course the average yearly snowfall is a bit different as well:
Pittsburgh: 43 inches
Anchorage: 70.6 inches

So I've been spending most of my time getting ready for the craft shows next weekend and at the end of the month and redesigning my labels and brochure since I finally broke down and bought Photoshop Elements (my old version was from 2001).  Totally worth it, by the way.

Check it out:
Whitehall Public Libary Arts & Crafts Show
Earth Day in Mt. Lebanon

Craft Show Prep

So I spent my Friday night getting ready for my craft show coming up April 10th.  Truth be told, that's my favorite way to spend a night off!  I got my four fragrances of cuticle salve ready to go and even got them listed on Etsy!

In the process of doing my listings on Etsy tonight (which I've put off for a week, because it takes forever), I saw this handy little button called "copy."  If only I had seen this precious button weeks ago.  Basically, it completely copies a listing so you can just edit the parts you need to (like the fragrance).  What a concept!  Now I may actually be able to get everything listed in the foreseeable future!

I also got my bags ready to go, in 3 different sizes.  I have a few really big bags too, for anyone that buys a gift basket.

Once I got the chance to sit down and do my inventory, I realized that I'm in better shape than I realized. Of course I'll feel better once everything is done, which will likely be as I'm walking out the door to go to the show!  I'm really excited, and I hope this show is a success!

In moving news, my hitch came in the mail yesterday.  It weighs about a thousand pounds, and I'm very glad Karl is the one that has to deal with putting it on!  What a huge step and really reminds me that this is for real!

Busy Busy Busy!

So I’ve apparently been pretty quiet the last few days.  Getting stuff sorted and packed up to sell on Craigslist takes a lot of time!  Luckily, we’ve already sold a few things so we’re well on my way to my goal of getting our gas money.  I’ve been pretty open to selling almost everything, figuring we’ll just take whatever stuff is left at the end.  Unfortunately, we can’t go with a smaller trailer even if we have less stuff because the 5’ x 8’ is the smallest that will hold our mattress and box spring.  It would be really nice though to have less stuff in the car and more in the trailer, because we (and Willow!) would have more space to move around and easier access to our travel supplies.

Our move date is probably going to be moved back a day or two, because Karl’s dad will be at a family reunion on June 25^th in Seattle.  He’ll fly over to Pittsburgh afterward, then we’ll hit the road!

Sometimes I feel like I’m planning too early, and other times I feel like there will never be enough time.  I sure hope that all of this work Karl and I are putting in now will result in less work later.  I really want to be able to have our cross country drive be a huge adventure with as little stress as possible.

In other news, my first craft show is just 2 weeks away!  It always seemed so far away and now I don’t feel prepared at all – the moving plans may have to be put on hold for a bit while I crank out some product.

In other other news, I had my very first sale on Etsy to someone I don’t know!  How exciting!  I also better get some more stuff listed…  Hopefully, since I’m writing this blog up while I’m in a terribly boring training at work, I will be able to list things when I get home tonight. 

Have a great day!

Abracadabra!

Look what I learned how to do! This is only half shameless self promotion. The other half is me being totally proud that I learned how to pull my shop into my blog!