Springing Forth to Spring Gardens

We have been so busy lately! There's always a period of time between Christmas to about March that things really slow down. I think that's the case for most all retail. One might think that would be the perfect time to make, create, and increase stock.

But not us.

See, when everything else slows down, so do I. It doesn't matter that I had months to prepare for the upcoming craft season, I procrastinated and am now rushing around trying to get everything ready for tomorrow.

Tomorrow marks the "first of the season" show for us, and we'll be doing a local home and garden show hosted by our local radio station, KVRH, et. al. For those of you that are in the area, we'll be at Brady's West in Salida, just behind Burger King.

I'm pretty sure there will be lots of booths there and I know most everyone is giving away prizes so there's a good chance you might even win something free! It runs all day, from 9 am. to 5 pm. and despite feeling completely unprepared, I'm excited for it. There might be some scattered rain showers in the afternoon, but we're indoors! We'll be in one of their empty greenhouses so even if it's raining, come out!

We'll also be debuting some new products. We'll have hard lotion bars, several new soaps (including Grass, Acai Berry, and Lilac) and a super cute gift "basket" for you or your favorite gardener. It's actually a flower pot packed full of gardener's goodies. Grass-scented soap with cornmeal to really scrub away grit and grime, hard lotion bar to sooth dry, cracked, working hands, and some other special stuff every garden-lover should have on hand.

I'll take pictures soon, but I've been too busy "catching up" lately! Hope to see lots of people tomorrow!

Soap Good Enough to Steal

Yesterday was our Holiday Bazaar Craft Fair and it was excellent. So many great people came out to do some Christmas shopping (and shopping for themselves!) and made our day great.

Whenever we do any kind of craft show, we always try to put a bar of soap in the bathroom. For one, we really hate using any other kind of soap and the liquid soap in bathrooms is so drying. So we put it there for us, but also as a sample for everyone else that happens to wash their hands that day. We always get positive comments and frequently people buy our soap that never would have given it a second glance because they got to try it out first.

Yesterday's show was no different. We chose our Cinnamon Spice soap for the bathroom and we've nearly sold out of it in large part because so many people wanted to buy "That one from the bathroom." But a few hours before the end of the show, one of the other vendors approached us and remarked that our soap was gone. Someone had stolen it!

I guess they just really needed some soap and couldn't or wouldn't buy it. We took it as a compliment though. Now we know that our soap is good enough to steal. Not that you need to, really. It's quite affordable and a person would probably feel a lot better every time they used it if it didn't conjure feelings of guilt, but oh well.

And lest you think our town is full of soap thieves and criminals, let me assure you that this is one of the last places I would have expected this from! But here, I'll let "The New York Times" do the talking. They did an article about Salida today.

I Need Eight Arms Right Now Too

So our first corporate event holiday fair thing went alright. It was a long drive in the dark, but it basically cost us nothing. The costs we did incur (gas, food) we made back. And we got some Christmas shopping done. It definitely wasn't a wasted trip, but I wish the turnout had been better. The people that came bought, but we just needed more people.

I came home to some surprises though. A few orders, a few special orders, and a blog write up! Anna of Northernista.etsy.com wrote a glowing report of several items that she had ordered from us. Go read it!

Also, check out her ADORABLE octopus plushies and cool stuff in her etsy shop.

Now I'm off to pack and mail a ton of orders. Wish me luck!

Holiday Fair I - Successful Completion!

Today was our Holiday Bazaar hosted by our local school Booster Club. We really didn't know what to expect. It was our first time doing this one, and it's only the second year of the fair. We did go shopping there last year and it didn't seem like there were many people there. But it was $25 for a table and we didn't have any reason not to go.

So glad we went!

I'm not sure how the other vendors did, but we did very well. We sold TONS of soap. We even ran out of a few kinds. There wasn't very many people, as we expected, but those that were there were there to buy. At least they did from us.

If there was any clear best-seller today, it was Stress-Be-Gone Soap. We sold every bar we took and probably would have sold more if we would have had more. It has an essential oil blend of sweet orange, peppermint, spearmint, eucalyptus, rosemary, and lavender. I think people always need stress relief products, but especially during the holidays. To make this bar extra awesome we also added lavender buds and calendula flower petals. It is GOOD STUFF and today's sales reflected that.

We also lined up a large wholesale/consignment with a new day spa. They'll be using our massage oils, scrubs, lotions, and pretty much everything else they possibly can. When we unveil our shampoo after the new year (shhh! that's still a secret!) then they'll be using that as well. Plus, they'll have our full line available for sale too.

Today = Successful

I'd rather be sleeping

Today is going to be a crazy day. I'm tired because I stayed up too late last night doing labels and then reading to "unwind." I think if I would have gone to bed just an hour earlier, I would have been fine. So I'll take some B-Vitamins and hope they can help kick start me.

I have a few packages to mail first. Then it's time to wrap up the to-do list. Lotions, labeling (lotions, footsie bars, SOAP), and gift baskets. It's completely doable, but lotions take twice as long to make if Dayna is up and running around. For one thing, she likes to "help," and when she can't, she finds it a convenient time to get into stuff she's not supposed to. For instance, it has so far taken me about 15 minutes just to type these few words.

Did I mention it's going to be a crazy, long day?

For anyone local, tomorrow we'll be at the Salida Middle School for their annual Christmas Craft Bazaar. It goes from 9 am to 4 pm.