December, how did that Happen?

Well, it's already December and I have been so very busy. I had a stall at the Green Gallery@ Home Christmas Fair, such a lovely fair to do, the stalls were all super and Becky and her team were so warm and welcoming. I was really fortunate that my new boxes for the candles arrived in the middle of the fair, so I was privileged to receive advice from customers and stallholders alike on the presentation of the boxes. My stall was next to Lisa of Primrose Hill Interiors so I was able to get some particularily nice luggage labels from her stall to put on my big boxes, which made the presentation so much better. All the work I have done for the candles over the last couple of months has really payed off, and I pretty much sold out of candles, and I have already taken orders as a result of the candles being seen at the Fair.

Meanwhile, my daughter had taken some of my stock off to the Killearn PTA Christmas Fair, and did a roaring trade in "Taster Boxes" a selection of 4 soaps in a Kraft Box, she rang me late morning to say that she had sold out. She also managed to sell a good amount of "Wee Treat Boxes" which contain a small candle, a bath bomb and a small heart soap - her line was "It's a bath in a box, all you need to add is water." Such a clever girl!

Yesterday was Bridge of Allan's farmers market and family fun day, the weather was appalling, I have to say I rather enjoyed it - I love power cuts, and storms, anything that brings out the seige mentality. In between the very heavy showers the customers ran round the stalls and bought from us, and it was lovely to see people that I first met at Gill's Christmas Fair in Bridge of Allan.

So, between the three fairs LuckyCats has had it's most successful week, EVER, but there is no time to rest on my laurels, this Saturday is Balfron PTA's Christmas Fair on saturday, and Tir-nA-Nogs winter fayre on Sunday and I have much to do. And then there is next year to plan for, I spent this afternoon with Jane of Snapdragon she is commissioning some new products from me (I love the bespoke work I do, especially for Jane,), they will go with her to the Scottish Country Living Fair in March.

Busy Days

Well I have had an interesting week. It is the Christmas Fair at Ashfield on sunday. Ashfield is a conservation village outside of Dunblane, it is very small and very lovely, the fair is focussing on everything being local and handmade - it's going to be a good one! Since I started making soap 3 years ago I have been well supported by the people there, and I always look forward to any 'gigs' I attend there. So, I have been as busy as I can be, making up and packaging: soap, bath bombs etc and of course, candles - which has become easier now that the testing is out of the way. I do think I should test from time to time - as it is so nice to have an excuse to live in the house by candlelight. I do feel that the naked flame gives the sensation of heat, which in this cold weather is always welcome.
The house smells of beeswax today, on top of the other scrummy smells, because I have been making candles for Jane at Snapdragon (www.snapdragongarden.blogspot.com).

Bramble, our 18 month old labrador, had found a new home because after my breathing difficulties it was discovered that I am allergic to her. She has been gone a couple of weeks and the people who were trying her out were certain that they wanted her, they had been training her for shoots and she was getting on really well with them, their cats, their other dogs and the children. But I got a phone call today, she is on heat, their boy labrador would very much like to be her boyfriend, and she has been most receptive. They have had flooding, one of the children is not well and three dogs when life is hard is one too many. So Bramble has come home, I got some lovely straw for her to have in her kennel, the children have made a fuss of her, but she is sad to be outside away from everyone. So the dilemma is, do I try again to find her a new home, or do I find another dog, suitable for outside living and kennel them together? It is nice to have her back, and sad she isn't a proper part of the family at the moment. I imagine this will be a bit of a saga,

Worse things than Packaging

Well tonight I have discovered that there are worse things than packaging. I have had my first major soap disaster!! Obviously along my 3 year journey in soap making there have been things that don't work, but this evening I took my eye off the stove, and I managed to overheat my oils. Not just a little bit, but massively so the house has been full of smoky fumes and all thoughts of sharing the sheep that we have had in our garden for 2 days have disappeared in a cloud of smoke. There has been no time to make last minute bath bombs, or perfect my scent stories for the soap and the candles. So I am off to bed and will post after the fair at Port of Menteith tomorrow.

Packaging Heaven or Hell

Oh it is that time of year, when everything sells better if it is packaged. Packaging is my own personal nightmare - Never has one woman hated wrapping things up as much as I do. On top of not enjoying the process of packaging, I have an ethic of not wasting resources.
It has taken me a long time to be comfortable with the concept of packaging: at the very first fair I did, over 3 yrs ago now I didn't even have bags to put my soap in. I accepted that people needed bags and found recycled paper bags which work fine for soap off the block. Last year my packaging involved popping the soap into recycled peanut sack bags, it suited my ethics, but was not what my customers were really looking for. So, this year, I have bitten the bullet, we have my lovely soap wrapped in handmade paper, liquid soaps and shampoos in glass bottles (I take £1 off the next purchase if I get the bottle back - re-using them suits me), lovely card boxes with taster sets of 4 soaps on a bed of tissue paper, bath salts in jute bags, lip balms, body butters and much more.
I have also found the perfect solution to the jobs I don't like! Get my friends (thank you Maureen) round for lunch and while they are here I can get them to wrap 3 or 4kgs of soap ready for the taster boxes! Then, in return for having a wonderful mum like me, I can rope in one of my teenagers (Edward in this case) to separate little bits of shredded tissue paper into soft tissue paper mountains. This leaves me free to do the creating part of the excercise, unfortunately this means creating the 'stories' to go with my smells - my writer's block hasn't improved. Ghost writing job available, any takers? Come late evening I can sit in front of the wood-burning stove with a glass of wine, put "Breakfast at Tiffany's" or something similar into the dvd player carefully label everything, slip into boxes, AND take the glory at the next fair.

Stories and Presentation

I have found my self tired and perplexed after a busy weekend. On friday I was at a fair and my candles came with me, for the first time. I wasn't prepared enough for the candles they need a 'story' about them, so that people understand what they are buying, and why they are different to ordinary candles. I had written the story but the presentation of it wasn't quite right yet.

Saturday and sunday I was at a Christmas Craft and Gift Fair in New Lanark. It has been a long time since I have had such a duff event. There were 2 other stalls selling chemically coloured artificially fragranced soap. They had a roaring trade compared to me, so a lesson in knowing my market. It is good to step out of my bubble sometimes and relearn that most of the general public still don't get the organic, natural, chemical free products that I lovingly make.
I had got up at 5.30am on the saturday to make a batch of vegan lip balms to take with me, and I did sell a couple of them, not because of the natural ingredients in them, but because the hall was jolly hot and other stallholders lips were in need of nourishment!
I had a good look at my stall and how I present my products, and I think that what worked before my soya candles would be more effective presented in a different way. I have traditionally put like with like ie bath salts together, soap together etc. So, for next weekend's outings I will concentrate on writing stories for the fragrances, and properties of the essential oils used, and I will group my products on a smell with smell basis.

I do hope that blogger will allow me to publish this post, as it hasn't for the last 2 days!

Car Parks and Dog Bowls

Today has been an incredibly busy day one of my suppliers delivers to me through a courier that sub-contracts, but I wanted the stuff today so I gave Amtrak a call as soon as they opened. They were so helpful!! They are based in Kirkcaldy and, of course, I could just pop along and pick up my package instead of them taking it to Dundee to their sub-contractor. I explained that I lived too far away for that to be convenient. Amtrak do deliver to Stirling though, so I spoke with Bob the driver and he and I arranged a rendezvous in Aldi's car park. We swapped the package from his van to the back of my old car and the job was done. In the heat of my excitement I forgot to take a photograph!!
So todays photo is of some of the soaps I have pulled out to package ready for the christmar fair at The Witches Hat, tomorrow, they don't call me 'last minute Laura' for nothing. As it was all on the table my teenagers admired the rectangle soaps that I have made for my 'taster boxes,' and I see why - but I am very attached to my round soaps. The round ones are made in dog bowls. Unfortunately after 3 years of use they are starting to crack on me, so if anyone sees dog bowls like the photo please let me know and I will buy up a new stock.

Lazy Days and Tea Lights

I don't think television is a great thing, however after being ill a couple of weeks ago we have borrowed one for a little while, to make my life easier. Today the little people and I have spent the majority of the day lazing around, watching the larger candles burn down and the borrowed television. We got a minimum of 12hours from the smaller candles, a minimum of 36 hours from the middle size and the larger one is still going strong. The house is smelling wonderful, but not overpowering and because I use sustainably sourced soya wax to make my candles there are no petro-chemical emissions in our home from them.
Anyway back to our lazy day, we were watching an old western on the television, when along came the "delivery van." We love the delivery vans and today we had the added bonus of the driver being our all time favourite 'father christmases helper,' and our package contained little glass tea light holders. My friend Jane (http://www.snapdragongarden.blogspot.com/) had suggested I tried to find glass tea light holders, and everything has clicked into place easily. So the lazy day ends and I am off to make dinky little soya candles in delicious flavours, of course the testing will have to start all over again, the house will need to be full of flickering candles, what a hard life I have!

I have finally done it

Well here I am, finally. I have signed up for and created my blogspot, I guess it's going to take a bit of discipline to keep posting, discipline is not one of my strong points.

I have spent the last couple of days concentrating on my soya candles, and I now have a nice huddle of scented candles waiting to be sold over the weekend, I have only burnt small ones, which have a burn time of over 10 hours and, intitially, the scent throw wasn't great. I have fiddled around with the scent and I have a better throw now. I now have to set light to one of each size, so that I can feedback the burn time and scent throw. I have done it once to check the wick is the right size, but that was with unscented wax, now I absolutely must do it again now that they are scented so that I can feedback properly, it feels like decadence but someone has to do it.

Did you know that candles have a memory? When burning a candle for the first time, I would suggest that you burn it one hour for each inch in diameter. This will allow the pool of wax to extend to the outside edge and will prevent your candle from making a big hole in the middle. Burning a candle this way will 'programme' it's memory, so each time you burn the candle it will "remember" to burn to it's edge.

The next issue is how much to charge but I think that subject is for another day.