Archive For the ‘101 in 1001’ Category

Taking a short break. Shop closing Aug 1- Aug 27

Posted on July 27th, 2012 in 101 in 1001, blog, family, Lana Bella by jenni

25% off* Now through 11:59 pm July 31st My customer service is lacking and I need to take some time to recharge. This past year has been more difficult than I care to ever admit. To be able to get back on track I’m closing for the 1st time ever. All orders placed Now through Tuesday will get 25% off using the code. When I come back in August I will have new items in the shop and be ready to go again. Thank you for understanding. Discounts will be valid in all shops, Lana Bella, Artfire, andEtsy. *25% off with CodeRECHARGE*

Slowing Down and Smallering for a New ME!

Posted on July 7th, 2012 in 101 in 1001, blog, family, homeschool, Lana Bella by jenni

I have to honestly say the past 3 years business wise, personal wise & family wise have been such a whirlwind. From in 2010 my business grew to SIX TIMES what it had been in 2009 and 2009 had already DOUBLED 2008. I was in awe. I was and have been struggling to keep up ever since. I have felt constantly behind always wanting to do more, make more, be more, create more new products trying to fill everyone’s needs. The person’s needs I was ignoring most of the time were my own. In the past 3 years I have gained an additional 50 lbs on my already overweight 5′ 1″ body . I can’t even begin to tell you how many times in the past few years at shows someone would come to my booth and tell me they had been following my blog or heard from a friend about my products but just didn’t expect me to be so fat. I’ve mostly laughed it off saying things like “yeah 3 term pregnancies in 5 years will do that to you” or “I have no me time with 3 kids I’m homeschooling and an infant/toddler” when what I really wanted was to cry. Every single time I thought about a missed sale or connection because I was fat. It was time for a change. In the 20+ shows I did from 2009-2011 this is the ONLY picture I have of me with my booth, and the only reason is I was being photographed with the winners of the scavenger hunt for my herbal tea.

Image from http://fentonstreetmarket.com from 2010

What does this mean for Lana Bella? Well I recently started project me aka Jenni loses 100+ lbs by my birthday next year. To accomplish this for my self-esteem, for my health (please lets not discuss how there are plenty of bigger people in better health than some skinny people because I know for ME being 100+ lbs overweight is not healthy for my mind. body or spirit), for my spirit, for my family, I’ll be pulling back a little. I’ll be saying No a little more. I’ll let things run out of stock once in a while. It’s honestly a lot of work keeping 50+ soaps in stock never mind the other products. I’ll be keeping more accurate inventory. So when you order a 3, 4, or 6 pack of soap and you want x of something please don’t be angry if you get an email back and I say I’m sorry I only have b left would you like a substitution? I’ll be setting aside only two days a month for making what I get done will have to be enough. I will add a third day in and get prepped better for holiday. I will warn you though there will only be 45 bars total of the holiday soaps I won’t be making more that gives you from Nov 1 (I’ll have them ready a little earlier this year) until they sell out to get them. If you know now that you want 12 of something for teachers gift or stockings please contact me soon so I can get in into my schedule.  Also know that because of the multiple shops and the single inventory I am human so there may be time when an order comes in that I haven’t adjusted inventory elsewhere I’m sorry in advance, and hey you might luck out and get an upgrade in size because of it .

I find it a bit ironic that when I started my business back in 2004 I had found an article on another diaper makers website about smallering. It made so much sense then and I tried to follow the ideals. Then in 2010 doing shows was a total new whirlwind for me. I am ever grateful for all those shows financially they really helped us to do so much with our family, that never would have happened otherwise. For now to move forward though I need to slow down. Somehow I have a 3.5 year old and nearly two teenagers, life is moving too fast and I don’t want to miss any more of their childhoods.

You might find me blogging more though there will be a lot of transformations happening. I’ve also started a second blog. I was on the fence about this for a very long time. I only wanted the responsibilities of maintaining one blog, however I wasn’t sure how much I was ready to share about my weight loss journey. In the past week its funny it has 9 days I’ve decided I’m pretty comfortable with sharing it all but I’ll spare you that journey and instead refer you to the other blog so you can follow my weightless transformation over there. If you have been struggling with it yourself please contact me I’d love to discuss with no obligations what I am doing and how excited I am. I’ve hated clothes shopping for a really long time however I’m really excited about buying exercise clothing go figure! I’m really excited about the changes and I hope we can all still work together.

This also means I am more than ever open to wholesale. I’d honestly rather spend those 2 making days a month making a really big order and put it to bed and have that much less responsibility.

Thank you for all of your support over the years and I hope in the future! Lets bring it!

I made another Quilt.

Posted on March 24th, 2012 in 101 in 1001, blog, family, homeschool, Lana Bella by jenni

I’ll admit it I caught the big. The quilting bug. Honestly though I made a quilt for Lexi what kind of a mom would I be if I didn’t make quilts for the rest of the kids too. I started back in January cutting out pieces for the boys quilts. Then because his birthday was coming I decided to complete Rory’s quilt first. Now remember back to Christmas Stockings in the December Recap, you see there was some reason to my madness of the different stocking styles.

I was lucky on this one because I had a couple pieces still left over from to get started. I used THIS Moda Bake Shop  tutorial from Amanda Jean over at crazy mom quilts for the Cartwheel Quilt. Of course I forgot to take any more middle pictures of the construction (because I don’t think like a quilt blogger…yet), so you will have to just take a little jump with me to the layout pictures when I was pinning his mini quilt.

Look its Ginger approved.

I was so proud of myself for attempting to quilt the mini all on my own! My first big project and I attempt to freehand stipple. Ignore the bad lighting it was night time.

I was so excited when the package arrived from the wonderful Tarabu with the finished twin size quilt. I ran right outside grabbing my camera along the way and tossed that baby over my lawn furniture and got snapping!

I LOVE how the quilting really brings it alive! Unfortunately someone noticed me snapping pictures and got a sneak peek.

Don’t you worry I still put it away for his birthday. I love that he was just as excited to open it as he was getting that first glimpse!

Later that night he talked me into putting it in the playroom and letting him sleep there for the night. Its so big and fluffy it nearly fits a full size bed!

Quilting Adventures… Lexi’s quilt

Posted on July 6th, 2011 in 101 in 1001, Baltimore Craft, blog, family, homeschool, Lana Bella by jenni

Ok so last I updated you on the progress I showed you all the darling little dresses all embroidered up. Well most of the dresses anyway. So the next step in the adventure was to piece together the other blocks that would be surrounding the quilt. But to do that and figure it out I needed a plan. I had been looking at finished quilts on etsy and found a few I liked now to make it work with my dress squares. So I got out some graphing paper and designed a quilt.

Right I know exactly what you are thinking is she insane. and in hindsight I think I was a little. To go from making a quilt to designing a quilt on the fly was a lot, when it got really tricky was when I lost the plan midway through piecing the quilt together and forgot I had taken this very picture which would have saved me SOOOO much time!

So I decided I didn’t want just charm square in most of the blocks I needed to cut them in half and piece 4 of them together.

There you can see pairs of them pieced together. The more I played with them the more I fell in love with the Bliss palate.

Then I sewed the pairs together.

And then I had to sew boarders onto the long sides.

Next I laid everything out according to the drawing which somehow also went missing around this time. I don’t have any pictures of this step somehow.

The last step I had to do was to piece all the blocks & rows together. There was an audible sigh of relief at my house when this was finished. Then off the quilt top went to the lovely Tarabu (her etsy shop)  to be finished up. Hey I know my limitations.

We continued on packing moving unpacking and then one day a package arrived for miss Lexi.

So I ran up to her room with it and made her bed then I stood in the corner to get her picture when she saw it! Notice the excitement on the smidge of Rory you see on the edge.

Then she started petting the squares reminiscing about all the dresses.

There it is on her bed isn’t it AMAZING! Many many thanks to Ann Miller, Gigi, Mom, Tracy & Laura for helping to embroider the dresses,  Tasha for designing the lovely dresses to begin with, Tarabu for the most AMAZING job on finishing the quilt, and most of all Lexi for inspiring the quilt to begin with. I love you and the person you are!

Quilting Adventure The Dresses

Posted on April 17th, 2011 in 101 in 1001, blog, family, homeschool, Lana Bella by jenni

This has been such  an adventure but the most asked question to my last post via email was what do the dresses look like? Well there are still a few yet to arrive from the lovely Gigi , however I have received the ones from my dear friends Ann & Laura, as well as my mom and little sister. There are also the ones Lexi and I have worked on. When all counted up we have enough for TWO quilts and at least some pillow shams. With out further ado here are the hand embroidered dresses.

And because I know you too will think these little dresses are just so darling you need to make some for your projects too you can have a little sweetness in your life too!

Changes afoot.

Posted on April 16th, 2011 in 101 in 1001, blog, family, Lana Bella by jenni

This is something I’ve been thinking about for a long time, contemplating, pondering, procrastinating. Each time we move I alter our lives just a little bit further becoming more and more natural. Eliminating plastic, parabens, SLS, changing our house hold cleaning products, food, buying choices. I really should blog more about the changes my family has made to have a softer footprint over the last 8 years.

I will be in the future discontinuing all of the products with fragrance oils. Yes there I said it. I know some of you will be disappointed (including my darling husband) but its been something thats been weighing more and more heavily with each spurt of soap making I go through. To be honest they are affecting my health. I have to strategically plan my soap making days now so I can make these soaps all back to back all in the same day and at the end of making everything else because once I do I have a migraine and some loss of word retrieval. With our move my husband will not be living with us on a regular basis because he will be again attached to a boat and deployed often and I just can’t take those 2 days of downtime away from my children to continue on a regular basis any longer.

This will be gradual. I will exhaust my current inventory of the fragrance oils and I will let you know when the final batches will be coming. On request you MAY be able to talk me into making you an entire batch (15 bars) it will take a minimum of 6 weeks to get it to you so plan accordingly because I will have to special order the fragrance for your batch.

Scents being discontinued and the approximate batch # before they are gone:

Moroccan fig 3-4

Ginger Fish 1-2

Southern Sweet Tea 1-2

Black amber Lavender 2-3

Dragon’s Blood 1-2 (I may have an alternative for this)

Beau Brummel 2-3

Vetyver 2-3

Tomato Leaf 2-3

Pumice Mint Nag Champa 2-3

Graceful Baby 1-2

Thank you for your understanding. Because of these changes you will also see in probably June where you can buy a FULL batch of soap at an incredible price and it won’t just be these it will be ALL of the scents I offer!

What I’m working on- A Quilt

Posted on April 11th, 2011 in 101 in 1001, blog, family, homeschool, Lana Bella by jenni

What I’m working on now is a little different than you might expect. About a year or so ago Lexi asked if we could make a quilt together. At the time I thought it was a little beyond what we had time for but she really wanted to make something so we made her a cute little wristlet.

I was really impressed with her attention to the project. She has even made a bunch more as gifts and wants to open her own etsy shop as a project for school next year.

Well this year she asked for a bedroom update, you know because at 11.5 she’s not a “kid” anymore. So away went the day bed she has slept in since she started climbing out of her crib at 18 months and in came the bed she picked from ikea in a “grown up” full size. So I started looking at bedding and then thought this was the perfect opportunity to make a quilt. We started with some embroidered squares that I fell in love with when seeing them on etsy one day. Aren’t these dresses delightful?

Lexi embroidering a dress

If you want to score these and the other 3 little designs stop on over to the a little sweetness etsy shop.

I can’t wait to share how the quilt progresses with you!

101 in 1001 UPDATE

Posted on January 19th, 2011 in 101 in 1001, blog, family, homeschool, Lana Bella by jenni

Ok this is yet another thing that had great plans and got pushed aside in the craziness of what 2010 was! Lets see where I’m at I actually completed a few more things than I expected but probably need to rethink a few as well!

1. Ask for advice and take it
2. Have a Yes! day. 0/6
3. Gratitude blog weekly 10 times 0/10
4. Identify 100 things that make me happy 0/100
5. Identify 25 things I like about myself 0/25
6. Go to a coffee shop & enjoy time ALONE! 0/6
7. Blog 15 times per month 0/32
8. Blog a kid or photo post 50 times 0/50

Get Green

Last garden harvest

• 1. Lexi 2/32
  2. Jack 2/32
  3. Rory 2/32
  4. Finn 2/32

1. Trundle bed for Lexi’s room (she wants a full size bed instead)
   B. She also asked for a new dresser like ours

• 1. Bed
  2. Dressers 2/2

Confessions

Posted on August 9th, 2010 in 101 in 1001, blog, family, homeschool, Lana Bella by jenni

I have to admit it I’m probably the worst blogger you will encounter. I have these grand ideas of the types of content I want to post, the way I want the site/blog to look, the comments I’ll enjoy reading and then that feeling sets in. You know the one where you panic that what you write won’t be interesting, grammatically correct, will most likely have at least one totally embarrassing typo that spellcheck didn’t pick up because it is spelled correctly just not the word I was attempting, and that people will judge that you are some ill-literate poser who has no idea what she is actually doing. And you know what I think I’m mostly ok with that now.

I’m human. I am a busy and sometimes lazy neurotic mother with FOUR small children at home three of who I will be homeschooling this year. I make soap. I am passionate about my beliefs even if they may seem wrong or over the top. I’m exhausted. I believe things that many won’t agree with but they are my beliefs and I’m done with trying to keep things in their little boxes. So you will see more and more of my personal side coming through here and maybe you will like it, maybe you will agree or disagree, and maybe just maybe you will learn something or be enlightened.

Things have been crazy hectic here since mid July when Lexi went north for the summer I apologize for slow shipping and delayed emails and general forgetfulness. We have had summer colds & stomach bugs and well I’m an anxiety ridden mess most days. I’m working on getting my house/family back on track so that it will also help get the business back on track with some new stuff coming this fall.

Thanks for all your support.

Photo of the Day

Posted on February 15th, 2010 in 101 in 1001, family, homeschool by jenni

101 things in 1001 days

Posted on February 12th, 2010 in 101 in 1001, family, Lana Bella by jenni

So I stumbled across someone who posted about making a list of 101 things to do in 1001 days. Then with a little google I see all these wonderful lists out there they are inspiring and overwhelming all at the same time! Can I do it? Will I fail miserably? How many could I accomplish? How could my list grow? However when you think about it its like 1 thing a weekish even me in my worst procrastination could manage to get something done each week couldn’t I? So who is with me? Oh I guess I need to make my list can that be the first thing?