Why I closed my Etsy Shop ~ AKA the March Newsletter
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Posts Tagged ‘etsy’
Salve and Balm Packaging
Its been a while since I posted anything business related so here is a sneak peek at all of the new salve packaging. Some of you may have already received packages with the new labels but if you haven’t look at how amazing they look! They were designed by the AMAZING Meredith from Jack & Molly. Its been a few months and I STILL get really excited every time I print up a sheet!
The lovely Ant-y Thing. This salve with a funny name has a funny name for a reason. You see it was created when my too curious little boy wanted to see what would happen when he messed with some fire ants. Well anyone who has ever been bit by a fire ant before knows they bite and they HURT! Well he got bit 35 times on his arm that we could count it resulted in a visit to the emergency room and prescriptions for more creams and ointments than I care to have to use with my busy life and well not a one of them was natural and many had chemicals that we avoid. I put my herbalist hat on and thought back to some wisdom from Rosemary Gladstar and created this good for just about anything salve and gave it a funny name to make my boy smile and it stuck.
Arnica Muscle Rub. A specific external treatment for physical trauma, sprains, bruising and other injuries. Use immediately after strenuous exertion or injury to prevent, relieve and reduce swelling, bruises and pain.
Blissful Baby Balm. I know for my babies I only want to use the most gentle ingredients on them so that is what happened when this balm got reformulated. Simple, gentle goodness.
Buggy Be Gone! Balm. As you find with my other products this one also came out of necessity, I was on the hunt for an all natural bug repellent that work and this is what I came up with.
Healing Ink Balm. When I was getting ready to get a tattoo I thought back to the Tattoo Goo I used on my first one. I didn’t want to purchase something when I could make my own so I looked around and thought about what you need when you get a tattoo and that is all about skin health with out damaging the inks. I also wanted it to smell nice because that makes me happy. Did you know that helichrysm essential oil is being used in trials for both hepatitis and HIV? I didn’t either but I love how it smells and thought that was an amazing coincidence so in it went.
Serie Breathe Easy Rub. I don’t know about you but here with the windows closed and the chill in the air and sometimes having the heat on we are getting some stuffy noses. Especially at night, and most noticeable in our two year old. I wanted something I could grab in the dark half asleep in the middle of the night and something that was NOT petroleum based. Why not use the same blend as in our wonderful serie soap and aromatherapy products. A blend of Rosemary, Eucalyptus and Lemon essential oils as sure to get the job done!
Lexi’s Hunger Games Inspired Birthday Party
It was a busy week around here baking, baking and more baking for Lexi’s Hunger Games inspired party. I have never seen my girlie this excited about anything. I really loved being able to surprise her with this. I think one of the biggest surprises for her was our dear friend Diana also dressed up as Effie Trinket as Lexi dressed like Katniss on reaping day. Don’t they look wonderful?
If you have read the books you know that foods especially breads are discussed so much and play such an important part of the story so that is what I tried to recreate. With the help of pinterest and Fictional Food I found so much food inspiration.
Peeta’s Burnt Fruit & Nut Bread (left) and of course District 11′s crescent rolls.
Goat Cheese and Apple Tarts. Which were probably my personal favorite food.
I also made (and forgot to take a picture of) the Lamb and Dried Plum Stew. I did just use beed but it was pretty awesome.
The first gifts Lexi opened were wonderfully planned because we can’t eat those wonderful Capitol foods and it still be reaping day.
A dress for the transformation into the girl on fire.
A dress for the transformation into the girl on fire purchased on Etsy.
Some makeup to complete the transformation.
The coal inspired necklace were from the ever lovely Lauren. you may notice there is no makeup on in this picture, well thats because I didn’t get a single standing picture of this dress during the party so I made asked her put it on the following day for this post of course.
We served food after this and with five kids I put down the camera which means there are no pictured of the orange juice with their cute paper straws and bottles or of the stew.
Then she opened the rest of her gifts.
Diana even brilliantly disguised her gift as as a tribute gift.
A Katniss inspired charm bracelet.
With extra charms inspired by her favorite characters & events also found on Etsy. You also get a glimpse of her new girl on fire inspired glitter ring also from Lauren of Jersey Girl Design.
I attempted to make Cupcakes on Fire from THIS tutorial. As you can see the fact that my kitchen was 84,000 degrees the odds were not ever in my favor for this one. They were still super yummy though and Lexi loved the idea.
She blew out the candles and made her wish. I hope it comes true for her.
At the end of the day we wished our friends well with some little treats to munch on the train their way home.
She is growing up
I can hardly believe as I sit here and type this that my little girl is now a teenager. It seems like it was just yesterday that she was scurrying off in the store to hid under clothing racks, or climbing into my bed during the night. For a few weeks I’ve been planning a Hunger Games inspired surprise party for her, no easy task to do when she is my helper and home 24/7 but it was slowly happening. Unfortunately some plans fell through and she wasn’t going to have a sleepover where I could transform everything so I had to rethink my plan. That is when I had a brilliant idea. So this morning when my late sleeper girlie was awake before I was I sat her down at the table and gave her some very simply wrapped gifts. If you are a fan of the movies at all the twine used on the package was a mix of black, red & orange.
The first of the three gifts to be opened was the invitation that was sent to everyone else already. I had seen a few invitations on both pinterest and etsy however I only needed 1 to be printed and I was on a budget for this party so I designed my own.
Now my girl is in love with all things Hunger Games. I have never seen her this excited about something before she reads and rereads the books has seen the movie twice so far and references people and things in the book as much as she can work them into conversation. Add to that her love of vintage clothing and light blue being her signature color as she told me proudly when she was three and I knew I had to find her a “reaping day” dress. I lucked out on etsy of course.
Last but not least was the gift I’ve been teasing her about. She has been asking for weeks about her birthday and her gifts asking what she was getting if she was getting a mocking jay. I’ve been smiling and saying yes and that it was a real live mocking jay and hidden in my desk drawer.
Happy Thirteenth Birthday Girlie! May all your wishes come true!
Lexi being the amazing kid she is said I should use her birthday and have a sale. So use code CATNIP for 13% off and every order places until her birthday will receive FREE either a Pretty in Pink lip balm (originally created as party favors for her 10th birthday) or a small bag of Pretty in Pink Tea (made with my girl in the same year). Please let me know which you would prefer or it will be Lexi’s choice!
It’s Party Time!!!
That’s right its that time of the year again where I celebrate MY birthday with SAVINGS for you! And its a big birthday so we are talking HUGE savings!!!
Yes I know its the same cupcake from last year what can I say I REALLY like red velvet!
Oh right you want to know about the sale, use code HAPPYBDAY2ME for 36% OFF thats right I’m old HUGE savings until the 20th (5/20) (lets face it on the 19th I’m taking the day off) to CELEBRATE! Available in ALL shops! Now you go shop away I’m going to pack some orders that need packing. Yes I will accept cupcake mail for my birthday!
Geography
WOW so I was looking though all my old sales today while having a coughing fit and drinking a cup of tea curious to see how many states & countries I’ve shipped products to over the past few years and I was pleasantly surprised! 45 of 50 states have been covered and lets try to make it 50 by the end of the year I’m looking at you Idaho, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North & South Dakota! I’ve also shipped to all but 3 Canadian provinces and 21 other countries! This really excited me! Thank you so very much for your support.
I know shipping the past few months has been a little slower than any of us like and I apologize we have had a lot to get accustomed to here at home and with my husband gone 95% of the time if I get sick or my 5yo breaks his arm and we have to spend one day in the ER and then 3 other days at various drs appointments for it there is no one to help me pick up the slack and I still have to do all the other “mom” stuff and my kids whine a lot if I don’t feed them and they don’t have clean clothes to wear.
As a little thank you for putting up with my insanity over the past few months I’m extending my FREE SHIPPING coupon code FREESHIPPING10 in my etsy shop through well how about 11-11-11 you know because that makes sense right?
Packaging Revamp…Soap Bars
Well last we spoke I had a few ideas I was pondering. I bit the bullet and headed over to Etsy to hire someone to do the job after I realized it was beyond my skill to get it the way I wanted. After a couple hours of looking and getting sidetracked the way I often do when looking at Etsy I decided upon Meredith of Jack & Molly. I couldn’t be happier. She dealt with my non technical thing-a-ma-bob speech and walked me through how I needed to explain what I was trying to explain. I’m pretty sure she face palmed a few times at my sketches and wacky ideas. In the end though I’m so excited to unveil my new soap packaging!!! I’ve even taken her advice and started putting a clear coat on ALL my labels to help protect them.
So they have a piece of fabric, some decorative tissue tape (which may be changed later for a ribbon or eliminated when print fabric is used) and the new fancy label with a decorative swirl that will be changed depending on the bar of soap being wrapped!
While I was out there taking the pictures of the new labels this cuteness occurred that I thought I would also share with you as a special treat!
Finn posing after yelling “take picture me” .
Rory riding his bike not to be outdone on the cuteness factor.
So what do you think of the new packaging?
Heartsy
Well barely down from the whirlwind of the first heartsy deal back in April, the move, Artscape and here I am full circle jumping back in to the Heartsy ring. You might ask why. The simple reason is I over made for Artscape. I didn’t know ahead of time there were going to be 7 yes seven soap vendors at Artscape and went a little nuts making! So to clear out the studio and make room for new fall goodies I’ll offer another hands down awesome deal!
Its supposed to be available to the vip’s today and go live tomorrow. Have fun!
Packaging Revamp … 1st stage
It’s a double edges sword for me. While I LOVE , I mean really love cute packaging I also know that my soap packaging probably ends up in the trash, and thus I have trouble designing it. In a perfect world cost wouldn’t matter. I would have some fancy schmancy packaging that didn’t matter how much it cost but until that day I’d prefer to pass on to you a larger bar of soap with minimal and as eco responsible packaging as possible.
Here is the current packaging minus the simple upgrade to the label at the bottom to include the website & new location.
The front of brainstorm number one. I was using cheap printer paper while brainstorming instead of the heavy weight card stock so you have to IMAGINE the white is really a nice ivory. The bar of soap is wrapped in corrugated cardboard then has a layer of card stock (printer paper for my brainstorming session) around it, on top of that a decorative tissue tape piece and a label with just my brand, the scent & the website.
The back has in a much larger font than currently used the ingredients of the bar and other important information.
Brainstorm number two used the corrugated cardboard, the rice paper that is part of our current packaging around it, the tissue tape from the previous brainstorm and the label currently being use on the bars of soap.
Brainstorm number three. Unbleached muslin wrapping the bar, bar flipped the other direction, tissue tape to add a decorative flair, card stock label with name & fragrance on the front. I’m not entirely happy with how the Lana Bella & the Almost Naked are spaced this is where my lacking graphic design skills irritate me.
Brainstorm number three continued, now you can see the front and the back. Still not entirely happy with the wording and spacing. Throwing my hands in the air and thinking about it for a few more days.
Its now been a week until this post I’ve been mostly ignoring it but need to really start thinking more about what I want those labels to be otherwise I think I like brainstorm 3′s basic packaging the best I could swap out different fabrics for different bars or make them fun.
What do you think? What project have you been working on that you may be struggling with?
Free Shipping Discount
Yes I know it’s crazy because soap get heavy, but I always feel so bad when I move away from a local following and want to keep them clean and happy! So until Thursday 8/4 use code lazysummer for FREE SHIPPING! As always you can shop either here at Lana Bella Soap or in my Etsy shop.
What are you waiting for share this with your friends!
Getting back in the groove.
Things have been quiet here I know! With the prep getting ready for Artscape then the EARLY flight home and inevitable “artscape hangover” I’ve been quiet. That however doesn’t mean my little wheel of ideas hasn’t been waking me up in the middle of the night like today for instance I’ve been up since 4:30 am because I had a brilliant idea, and yet since about 10:30 all I’ve wanted was a nap! I met some WONDERFUL people at Artscape thanks for sharing your stories with me.
Get yourself ready for a big sale in the next couple weeks as I inventory everything and start getting ready for the fall! Ok who am I kidding you can place orders here and on Etsy with code lazysummer to get free shipping until July 31!
Quilting Adventures… Lexi’s quilt
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!
Happy Birthday… to me!
As a birthday present from me to you and to lighten our load on our move to Miami next week you can until tomorrow at 6pm use code BDAY35 for 35% off your purchase in my etsy shop!
My favorite shops – Simple Shapes
It is no secret by now that we are moving to Miami in a few short weeks. Recently I had about 300 prints made at costco because I had purchased a couple cameras and accessories so I had coupons for free prints, so print I did or at least had done. We can not afford a zillion frames so I was thinking how to display them I have a few other ideas but then I stumbled across this cute little etsy shop called Simple Shapes. PERFECT!
Here are a few of the items on my must buy when I get to Miami (in eek just 4 weeks from now) because I don’t want them to get mixed up during the move and ship to the wrong place or ruined by movers.
Ok ok I know its not a picture frame but I think I need this chalkboard calendar in my new office space!
Fancy right! With some removable glue dots I’ll be good to go!
These are the ones I think I want in our new learning area. I want to see too if they can make them bigger can’t you just imagine them with kids artwork in them? I can.
Ok again not a picture frame but our learning area is a combo room with the formal dining room (or in our case every day dining because there are so many of us) which happens to have a wall of mirrors along one wall. I have little kids can you see the finger prints and smudges to help me not go crazy I’m thinking a few of these along the wall in COLOR to break it up some!
So there you have it some things I have not yet purchased but honestly can hardly wait to!
Changes afoot.
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!
Wowza!
I had great intentions yesterday of getting out a quick eblast but honestly when the heartsy stuff started to hit it slammed into me with the force of a mack truck. This is pretty much the constant view I’ll have over the next few days but after that I have plans BIG BIG plans!
Orders being prepped for shipment.
Btw that table is 44 inches wide by 88 in long (we have a big family and have both leaves in due to our very narrow home we only sit on the ends and put all four kids down one side on a bench).
What I’m working on- A Quilt
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!
Uncertainty
In our family I’m the worrier. The one with the notebooks of lists. Lists on the wall, in email, on post-its, idevices, everywhere.
My wonderful husband he is the one who never worries about what MAY happen, the what ifs, the maybes. He has been watching me for what seems like forever trying to figure out just how we will “get by” if there is a government shut down resulting in him not getting paid. My wonderful coastie, my spouse, my hero, my best friend, my soldier. He would still be required to work just not get paid. With this move to Miami (more soon on that) looming, our oldest daughter graduating high school this year, four other full time children I am Homeschooling, this my growing little business, and now this it’s too much. Too many financial what ifs and maybes for me to handle.
My stress is your gain! Until a federal budget is passed you can save 20% the code is already active on Etsy and will go live here ASAP I’m really hoping to finish getting the products loaded over the weekend. Right the code BUDGETORBUST fitting right to add to the fun ALL orders over $25 (after discount) will also get a FREE GIFT with your purchase!
Thank you so much for your support of our family!
Even more sneak peeks!
I know things have seemed even more quiet than usual however have no fear I’ve been really hard at work. There will be some more changes coming in the very near future and I hope to let you in on all those secrets soon. For now you can see all the new things I’ve been crafting away for your pleasure!
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- Stop & Smell the Roses
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- Earth Day (Orange, lavender, patchouli & vanilla)
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- Orion (Sage, juniperberry & cypress with french green clay for color)
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- Fisherman’s Soap (anise)
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- Vetyver just got a new pic
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- Lavender Vanilla’s new picture
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- Orange Spice’s Updated look
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- Karma’s updated look
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- Gardener’s Soap (Cornmeal, vetiver, sage, rosemary & geranium)
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- Vanilla Mint W oats (smells the same as the lip balm, spearmint, vanilla wintergreen)
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- Artemis new picture
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- Artemis showing new mini soaps
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- Calliope new picture
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- Black amber lavender
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- Lavender Rosemary
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- Ant-y Thing Salve showing all FOUR sizes.
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- Tingly Treat Shampoo ( Eucalyptus Rosemary Tea Tree Oil Peppermint)
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- Lavender Rosemary Shampoo
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- Orange Vanilla Shampoo
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- Karma Shampoo
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- Hibiscus Rose & Clover Shampoo (with grapefruit)
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- Lemongrass & Yarrow Shampoo (formerly Oily scalp)
