Knitting

Well July has come and gone.  I don't know what has happened to this month but in a blink of an eye it has just passed me by!  I've been working on some knitting that I like to do from time to time and got to thinking about making wash clothes to go in my Etsy shop so I picked up some 100% cotton yarn and began knitting some.

 Here was the blue one above midway through (see I end up knitting when I should be working)  That is my desk at home and I will end up knitting and going back and forth with Etsy shop work or book work whichever I feel like doing!  I believe the knitting has been winning lately.  I tend to knit when I just want to stop thinking.  Do you ever get that way?  Need mindless entertainment and these wash clothes are perfect for that!

Not sure when I will introduce them in the shop yet maybe by end of August for sure.

I'm ordering this great mold from Brambleberry to make some great eyeball soaps for Halloween.  I'm going to have to make some vampire eyes with Breaking Dawn coming out woo hoo! Just need to find the right colors to use.  Anyway that is all I have for now.  I need to finish up my order with Brambleberry so I can get it all in time.
 

Hope everyone had a great 4th of July :)

We had a great time 4th of July!  We took our daughter and headed out on the golf cart around our neighborhood to watch the many different firework displays that various neighbors were having.  It was a blast!  Forgive the pun LOL :)

Our daughter had a wonderful time with the other children and between sparklers and the excitement of these large bursts of beautiful color we didn't even realize how long we had been out that night.

It's funny, on a side note, I've been giving a lot of thought on new scents for the upcoming seasons and even thinking about the cool soaps that I can create for Halloween as well.  I have so many ideas that I've had to start a list of scents / soaps I want to offer for autumn!  (If you have any that you particularly like I would love to hear your ideas!)

Check out a new soap that Steve came up with for men called "Hugo". 

 Well I really need to get to the grocery store now.  I've been putting it off long enough lol.  Steve and Anna are in Chicago and Steve will be back tomorrow morning.  Anna is staying with the grandparents for 3 weeks!  I have no idea how I'm going to handle having her gone so long.  Longest she has been away from us but she doesn't get to see them much so it is good for her and she wants to spend some time with them. :)  That said I don't even know what I'm going to eat for supper, it is so hard to cook for one.  

Hope you all have a wonderful night!  Ta Ta til later :)

Heartsy WOW!

All I have to say is WOW!  Our heartsy feature went great :)  We sold a total of 91 vouchers and majority have been used.  We shipped everything out that week by the weekend so I have to give a big pat on the back for my sweet husband who wrapped and packed until he couldn't see straight!

I also have met some great new customers and have had some repeat business already which is so exciting :)  Well I'm working on getting more soaps posted so this will be a short and sweet post for today.

Heartsy

Well I haven't made a post in a while because we have been getting ready for a Heartsy feature.  We are scheduled for 6/13/11 and I can't wait!  To get ready we kind of upped our anti and made additional soaps as well as a few new ones :) Be on the look out for them!  Here are just a few steps that we are doing to prepare ahead of time:

1.  Created a spreadsheet to keep track of each voucher.  Using Google Docs so that I can update from anywhere as it goes.
2.  Creating a filing system so that I know where each order stands.  Pulled, Paid Ready to Ship, Shipped. *May change as we will have to see how this all unfolds :)
3.  We stamp each of our packages with our logo stamp so we are going to do what we can to get ahead of all the extras we do for shipments like stamp a good bit of our shipping boxes/mailers etc.  We also wrap our bar soaps in kraft paper with ribbon as well as wrap our jars of whipped soaps and scrubs with tissue paper and ribbon.  Then we apply our wax seal.  I haven't figured on how to get ahead of that. Any suggestions I'm all ears :)
4.  Have product ready to go.  We stocked up on our best sellers and do have the ability to quickly make more if needed.  (One reason why I love making Melt & Pour)
5.  Prepare all announcements by having them in a Word document so that all I need to do when time is copy and paste into my shop announcement. 
6.  Work out a system to the madness of the rush of orders (I hope to have a rush LOL).

That is about all I can think of to save some time and get organized.  Will let you know how it goes.  Our offer is $8 for $17 and $27 for VIPs.  All I can say is if you are thinking about a Heartsy deal do the math over and over and over again.  Work what if's out and see what it does to the bottom line.  I had a pretty neat spreadsheet that I used to work out my numbers to see how different price points would change my bottom line.  Anyway will be back this weekend I hope to let you know how things are progressing. :)

Memorial Day Weekend Sale

We are having a 30% off sale for Memorial Day Weekend!

Use coupon code MAD30 at checkout.

MAY MADNESS SALE

They laughed at me at the university! They called my theories mad! But I'll show them... I'll show them ALL! AH HA HA HA HA HA!!! We’re so mad here at Springwoodsoaps that we’re going to have a mad massive sale!! Use coupon code MAD30 and receive 30% off the entire shop until midnight Monday 5/31. http://www.springwoodsoaps.etsy.com/

May Goals

Happy May to all!  May has been a great month so far as we head down the home stretch for the end of the month. 

I'm happy to report that I've hit my sales goal for the month at 59!  Big thanks to Regretsy who featured my Vanilla Almond Soap

I have a total of 70 Facebook fans now which isn't too bad.  I really need to work on that as well as my twitter following.

Our shop has been getting great exposure and I have to admit that it's been treasuries.  Some have made the front page and I even had my first treasury to make the front page of Etsy!  So excited about that!

Here is the treasury:

Well I'm off to start dinner.  What's for dinner tonight everyone?  We are having tacos yum!

Goal Update

Well it's April 28th and my Etsy shop has 43 sales!  Not far from 50 woot!  I'm promoting like crazy and it's helping that I'm with a Treasury team now and I'm getting much more exposure.

As far as Facebook I've gotten 62 total likes.

Here is a picture of our latest Savon de Creme we have with is lavender scented.

We are getting geared up for a local festival this Saturday and have everything ready to go for the most part.  Just got to get my supplies organized for the demo which I'm going to do tonight. :)
Have a great rest of the week!

Goals

How many of you actually make goals for yourself or your business?  I have the hardest time making myself set goals for my Etsy shop each month.  I could say it is from not having enough time or fear that I won't meet my goals which is more true probably.  With that I'm here to set at least two short term goals and share them with you.

1st goal:  Reach 50 sales in my shop by May 31st.  As of today I'm at 35.  I think that is obtainable.

2nd goal:  Reach 100 fans on Facebook.  I'm at 57 right now.  I found an interesting post by someone in the forums in Etsy that talked about a Facebook app that you can use to run giveaways, discounts, etc.  I'm thinking I'm going to give this a try and I'll post daily once I start it.  I probably will run it for a week.  Oh if you aren't a fan of Springwood Soaps here's my facebook page:  http://www.facebook.com/springwoodsoaps.

Picture of the day:  Me learning how to use our new shrink wrap system.

That is our new soap on the right "Boyfriend", you know that wonderful feeling when you would wear your boyfriends shirt just so you can have him closer to you! This is a wonderful blend of fresh clean linen and a touch of cologne that gives you that romantic feeling of having your boyfriend close to you :)  Soap on the left is our very popular Oatmeal, Milk & Honey.  If you haven't tried this you should!  It is great and anyone you talk to that has tried this will agree.

Well we will see how these new goals work out for us.  Come back often as I update our progress!

OK cute kitty pic!

End of March

I know I'm getting sick of the amount of rain we have gotten for the week.  I can only take just so much of getting soaked.  Of course now we won't get any after posting this!  The end of the month I can actually reflect on how things have been for March and I think we have had a good overall month.

One thing that I'm going to start doing is setting goals for Springwood so that I know what I need to get done and when to achieve it.  I had no such setting for March and that has to change!  So with that in mind we shall see what happens in April :)

April here I come!

Here is our newest soap "A Forest", which is a blend of fresh cut grass, musk and a slight hint of earth aromas.  Very natural light bar.

Kitty Kitty

We have added a new addition to our house and her name is Frannie. 

Welcome Frannie!  (Don't look at how messy my desk is)

House of Moss on Etsy Featured by Wee Waldolf

Be sure to visit the feature Wee Waldolf did on House of Moss.  House of Moss has the cutest little felted items.  I really like this little felted mushroom in her Etsy Shop.  It is too adorable! 

Wee Waldolf has a very nice blog too by the way.  Maybe they will feature us one day :)  That would be great.  Until then we are going to be plugging away and are in the process of increasing our inventory for our first show coming up 3/19/11,  lots of soap to make. 

Treasury

We were featured in a treasury today!  Our "Billy Barou" Golf soap was a nice addition to the collection :)
Golf Treasury Check it out :)

Starting up!

Hi and welcome to our very first blog!  This is Barbara one of the addicted soap makers!

We have been making quite a bit of soap here as we get ready for a market event (our first one) and so we are busy busy busy :)  It's been fun making all the soap now if I can just get caught up with all the paperwork side of things. I'm an accountant by day soaptress by night and in between try to keep all the record keeping and label up which is getting harder as we are producing quite a bit each night.  Going to use this week end to catch up some labeling.

I've got Savon de creme (whipped soap) waiting to be piped into jars.... here's a sneak peak at our Sunny D!