Stamping away

I really resisted stamping my soap for a while, it's a lot of extra work, but it is a great way for customers to remember where their fabulous soap came from!

 There is a bit of a learning curve as far as knowing when to stamp the soap; if you do it too soon you wont get a clean impression, the soap will want to adhere to the stamp, if you wait too long, you'll need muscles and may still not get a good clean impression. So, if you're thinking of doing that, remember it will take a minute to figure it out! 

There are a lot of places that will do the stamps, I have always been happy with Dave at Lasercutz on Etsy. He's in the UK, but I always get my stamp pretty fast and he's great at communication. If you're looking to get a stamp made I highly recommend them!  

Studio pix as promised

So here it is, a little messy, but it is a working studio. I would never believe a space this small could function as efficiently  as it does, but it works. The key is, use your vertical space, and everything has to have a purpose!
The one new habit I have developed is to put things away immediately,  so I can use the space, not a bad thing I guess!
The one picture with all the rolling bakery racks,  you can see it but there's a bank of wooden shelves that contain all my bins of pre-measured oils.
I hope you are able to find inspiration here, I do!

Downsizing

So in August the house we were living in went on the Market. It was a lil stressful because a lot of folks were in the same boat as us and there weren't many places available to rent,  let alone places that welcomed one large dog and two cats.

We finally found a cottage in our beloved Downtown. Feeling very blessed to have found a place, the question was, could we go from a 3/2 to a cottage, and could my studio go from a large 2 car garage to a small one car garage.

The answer is yes! It's not easy at times, but I'm here to tell you it CAN be done. The picture is all of my stuff filling up the small garage before I started the transformation onto a studio.

Next post will be some pictures of what I did!

Ginger Lime Loofa Bars

Here's a picture of the very first batch of Ginger Lime Loofa Bars, now you have 5 scent choices! Will be listed on thr Etsy shop later today. :-)

Ginger Lime

We have loved this scent forever so we have our Honey Beer Bars as well as our Loofa Bars in this scent.
I love it when you guys love a scent as much as I do!

Down-sizing

So the move is done, I would never have believed I could make a tiny studio like this work but it does! I think down sizing is good, we went from a 3 bedroom house to a 1 bedroom cottage. We donated a lot of things that we really didn't need, it's amazing the amount of things you collect!

For a long time we've wanted to be back in Downtown Antioch, but I didn't think we could make a small studio work, I've been spoiled and have had a large studio for a long time. The picture is of when we were moving, it was wall to wall stuff!

I have always been a big believer in using vertical space, I really got to put it to the test! Happy to say everything works out and the coolest thing with a small studio is less walking! :-)

ch-ch-changes

So one of the most cool things about being a small business, as my folks would say, is you can "turn on a dime". That means I can change packaging, design, products or anything else pretty easily.( See a new product pictured)  Being small I get instant feed-back from my customers too, and they WILL let me know what they think! That's a good thing, I am making these for my customers to enjoy so I want to get it right.

The thing I am tweaking a bit at the moment is my business model. I have focused so much these last few years on online sales, and I will continue to do that, additionally, I am going to work on obtaining more wholesale accounts, as I have in the past. I feel like I can reach folks that maybe might not find me any other way.

Another thing that's cool about being small, is I can do this from anywhere, which is a good thing as we will be relocating soon!

Small is a good thing!