In over my head?

What was I thinking taking all this stuff on so close to my wedding?  I am running around like a chicken with its head cut off.  I want so badly to focus on my shop and preparing it for the impending holiday rush (please, oh please, recession, let there be one!)  but I also have to prepare for the craft fair in November and all the little wedding details that still need to come together and did I mention that there seems to be something on our calendar every weekend leading up to our wedding!  My new soap molds arrived today which means now there are no more excuses for putting that off (darn!).  I'll let you all know how the liner free molds work, I am excited to use them!  

Holiday Rush

What are you all doing to prepare for the holiday rush?  I feel like I am already behind.  I need to order more supplies.  I am still waiting for my molds to arrive and then I can really get moving.  I'm just so overwhelmed between wedding planning, job hunting, and craft fairs and holiday prep my head is spinning!  I really want to integrate some new projects/ideas into the shop too before the holiday rush but I might be piling too much on my plate. Not to mention, I am already starting to think about Christmas gifts, I am going to be making a lot of gifts this year since the purse strings are, well lets just face it, they are glued shut right now!  Note to self: Hop in time machine, go back in time, pick a wedding date that isn't in November, right in the middle of the holiday season!

Get to soaping!

As if I needed one more thing to add to my to-do list, I just found out that I was accepted to participate in a local holiday craft fair! I'm so excited but also super stressed about the idea of having to make all those soaps. I need to get started now so I can get it all done before the wedding. I ordered some new molds which should help tremendously in the process. They are no-liner molds and they come with a cutting mold which I'm psyched about because my soaps always end up being slightly different in size from batch to batch because I can't cut them uniformly! Once the molds arrive I should be able to jump in and start making soap, I want to make about 200 bars of soap. It's a 2 day show and any overflow inventory should be able to carry me through the holiday season.

Photo: Flickr

In the works...

I hope to be adding some new soaps to the shop soon. We had friends in town a few weeks ago and they completely wiped out my inventory! They bought almost everything I had so I am now in the process of re-stocking. I also signed up to do Atlantic Antic with Beacon Bookmarks in October. It sounds like it will be a good turnout.

After doing the Brooklyn Flea in June I decided to hold off on doing shows until the summer was over. It takes a lot to prepare for a show; I generally only keep enough stock for my Etsy shop and I can only make 1 batch of soap a day so it becomes cumbersome to start preparing stock for a show in addition to keeping up with inventory in my shop. Not to mention the fact that the soap takes 4 weeks to cure!

I wanted to do a Christmas show but last year was stressful enough trying to keep up with orders so I think an October show is the perfect balance. I can begin preparing in September when we come back from our trip and once the show in October is over I can start getting ready for the Christmas rush. I can't even believe I am already thinking about the Christmas rush...where does the time go?!

Packaging and stuff

I have been wanting to re-design my packaging for a while now. I love the current packaging but wanted something that was more functional and still looked really nice. I came up with a couple of different looks but ultimately wasn't happy with the end result. I have finally come up with something that I am really excited about and in order to create it I had to order a Craft Robo, which is a small cutting plotter. I will hopefully be able to play with the machine this weekend and make my new labels. I have been so busy preparing for the Brooklyn Flea, which I will be selling at on May 11th, and I am dying to get the new package design completed before then. I will keep you posted on the results and hopefully will be able to reveal the new packaging on Monday. Stay Tuned!

Success....I think!

I haven't cut into the bars yet but I think I may have successfully made a batch of soap last night! It's not the Lavender Cream which had been giving me so many problems but I was using a fragrance oil I have never worked with before and since I have been having such bad luck with batches lately I was really scared of what might happen to this one. After I poured it into the mold I kept glancing at it every few minutes, half expecting it to grow legs and walk out of the apartment (this is not a far stretch if you had seen what my last two batches did!) I'm still too scared to make the Lavender Cream, I might try to tackle it this weekend after I get my confidence back with a few simple batches. I am preparing for Brooklyn Flea next month so I am building up my inventory with a lot of fun new scents, which means I will be making soap every night for the next few weeks! I am also excited about some new products I will be adding to the shop next month, including some things not bath and body related which I am really excited about! Stay tuned for updates!

I'm off to grab lunch, I've been told it is absolutely beautiful outside today, something like 60 degrees...spring is here, finally!