Tennessee Soap & Candle Social 2010

Last Saturday I ventured over to Tennessee to go to my first, ever, soap & candle social. It took me a while to actually get there. I had to drive 2 1/2 hours to my parents house in North Georgia the night before, and then get up at 3:30 am to drive 4 1/2 hours to Franklin, Tennessee. It was really exciting to get to talk to other people who shared the same passions that I do. People who appreciate essential oils, lather and hardness of a bar of soap. I know it sounds silly, but it's true. I also got to learn a little about candle, lotion making & felting which was very interesting.

These were two of the awesome ladies that I met at the show, Lance & Rita. We all had lunch together and shared some laughs. They are sweet women.

This was just part of the group, there were around 30 of us all together.

This was one of the coordinators, Birdie, and her daughter. Here they are giving away door prizes which were great. Thanks to the generous sponsors, we all took at least two gifts home- nice ones, too!

Overall it was a great time! I enjoyed meeting Birdie, who is such a sweetheart, and hearing wisdom from others who know far more and have been crafting soap far longer than I have. The ladies did a great job coordinating the social. Our goodie bags were awesome! I hope I get to go back next year and bring some of my candlemaker friends. Thanks for the great time, Tennessee!

Some of my Inspiration...

I wanted to post a few pictures of the beauty of the North Georgia Mountains where I spent half of my childhood. This is a huge part of my inspiration to make natural products using what God gave us! These are my Mom's gardens, by the way...

My Dad found these baby birds when he was trimming the bushes. He was so worried that the Mama Bird wouldn't come back to her babies, but she did.

This rose bush is huge, the picture doesn't do it justice.

This is the view from my parents front door. I never get tired of it and try not to take it for granted!

Lots of great things have been going on lately, in fact I probably don't even have time to fit them all in, but I will try. First of all, I had a great Mother's Day. I got to hang out with my family downtown at Artisphere. The weather was absolutely beautiful, a perfect day to be in the park. We sat & watched my favorite artist Brian Olsen paint live. It's called Art in Action and it so cool. He put on a contest to win one of his paintings for the fan who got the most votes, and guess what- I won! It was really amazing to see so many people voting. I will write more about that later.

I have also been working with Hellion Brewing for the last few months to come up with a couple different varieties of soap using brewers yeast. It was very interesting and my first private label project. We did a plain eucalyptus, a plain rosemary and then a combination eucalyptus rosemary. The soap turned out really smooth, I was happy with the overall outcome. It's amazing how many different things you can do with soap!

The market has had a great start. Last Saturday I had another record breaking day to match the first. I hope that it doesn't slow down, I love seeing the streets crowded.

For the past month I have been working with a major retail chain to carry my soap. The process has been very long & involved, but I know it will be worth it when I see my soap on their shelves. I don't want to divulge who it is, yet. But, trust me, I will keep you posted.

In the past two days I have made 9 batches of soap. The month of May will be crazy busy for me so I'm trying to plan ahead and get a good stock up. Business is continuing to grow and I couldn't be happier...and more thankful!

Swirls Galore...

Just been practicing with swirls & color...

Carolina First Market Comes in Like a Lion!

Main St. in downtown Greenville was buzzing this past Saturday morning! I have never seen such a crowd in my three years of being down there. Downtown has the coolest vibe and when it is full of people supporting their local farmers & artisans, it's just amazing. Peace, Love & Soap had its best sales day ever! By twelve o'clock, we were almost out of soap. We had many of our faithful customers re-up their soap stock, and tons of new faces as well. I picked up some green garlic, handmade spinach gnocchi & saffron pasta. We had it for dinner tonight and it was so yummy. The Greenville Times snapped a shot of Cameron & I headed back to our booth with our garlic. I'm pretty sure Cameron was begging me to buy him boiled peanuts (which I finally did).

I have also been working on my swirling techniques so I will post some of those pics. Mike made me new molds which are so much more efficient. I love them!

Things have been going great for us and I'm really excited about things to come. This weekend is Artisphere and I get to watch my favorite artist Brian Olsen do his thing called Art In Action. Check him out on youtube, it's amazing!!