New Listings, a treasury, and the big MOVE!

A big newsy update tonight...and then I will take a bit of time off as life will be very busy for the next week or so!

First off, I listed two new bars in the last week or so! I never formally introduced these bars (I promise...once life settles down a bit I will work on it!), but they are available for sale and they are WONDERFUL!

Lavender and Vanilla Soap Bar



Snozberry Soap Bar

My Naked Soap bar was also featured in an absolutely lovely (and rather sexy!) treasury this week:

ALL THIS ENTAILS by mooshoopork

And finally a general update - my Kelle's Kitchen Etsy Shop will be closing by Friday, May 15 at some point, and won't reopen for about a week while we move to Phoenix. I don't want to sacrifice customer service and need to focus on getting life settled again so I can come back full force.

My next update will come from sunny Phoenix :) I can't wait to get there!

Just Listed - Valencia Musk

It's finally here! You can get your very own bar of Valencia Musk in my Etsy shop :)

Kelle's Kitchen on Vacation 5/14/09-5/20/09

Our big move to Phoenix is rapidly approaching and during the busy time of graduation and packing/moving I will be temporarily closing my Etsy shop for a week! I will close it down sometime on 5/14/09 and will reopen once we arrive in Phoenix, likely on 5/20/09 or perhaps the 21st. Until the time I close my shop for vacation I will be shipping orders out the same or next day, so make sure to get those orders in soon for all your soapy needs! :)

Just Listed - Sonoran Sunshine

It's finally here! If YOU need a little citrus in your life, you can now purchase Sonoran Sunshine in my Etsy shop!

Mom's Picks for Mother's Day

Mother's Day is rapidly approaching and it's not too late to purchase her a bar of handmade, cold process, soap from my Etsy shop! I will be able to ship orders the next day this week, so orders placed today and possibly tomorrow should get there in time if you live in the U.S.!

Here are some of MY mom's favorites!


Strawberry Fields (Forever)



The Garden



Spa Clean (currently sold out but don't worry, I'll have more mid-June!)




Oatmeal, Milk, & 'Honey'

This week's Etsy Features!

I have been lucky to have been featured in a few Etsy Treasuries this week, all very beautiful and inspiring!

Purple Passion by vbarton24



A Bit of Spring Color by littlecoastergnome



CHOCOLATE and... by voscoleccion




ROCKIN' BNR BNR BNR BNR by ErinJade

An update on Goals!

I wrote this post on Friday about my goal of reaching 100 sales by the time I put my shop on vacation for our big move...and I am so proud (and AMAZED!) to day that it's happened already! I can't believe it. I must give credit to a fellow EtsyVeg team member who read my blog post and really got the ball rolling for me! She said the had been planning to try some of my soaps and now seemed the perfect time! It's funny how that works, I have been planning to buy an item from her as well..my perfect time is yet to come, though as we need to pinch every penny right now!

I am a lucky gal and so grateful to my first 100 customers!! May their skin be soft and smelling fabulous!!

Sneak Peek - Sweet Birch!

I am SO excited to tell you about this bar as it is my absolute favorite! I am usually tolerant and like almost all scents to some degree which is great because we use each and every one...but this one really speaks to me.


I call this the soap of many colors, I created swirls in the soap with rosemary powder, the result was quite shocking to me, actually, as I anticipated dark green swirls but when the batch had gone through gel it came out with a lovely dark brown swirl on top! When I cut into the bar the inside swirl was green! It reminded me so much of a birch tree when you peel the bark back and the sweet woodsy scent of the bar make it my perfect birch bar - created as an ode to my home!


The bar has cured with a dark brown swirl which I think is so lovely! And, of course, it's a bar that I can't help but sniff when I walk by the curing rack...talk about addicting! It keeps me on my toes as well! I was cutting one of the bars into sample sizes the other day and the color inside was still green. It was so beautiful that I had to take a photo :) With time and proper ventilation the swirl will be a dark brown throughout, but until then I'll always know this bar has a green soul!


Sweet birch will be available in my Etsy shop starting the second week of May :)

A personal goal

I gave myself a challenge last night. A few months back I was thinking about my goals and decided arbitrarily that I would like to make 100 sales by the time we leave for Phoenix. It seemed impossible at the time - I was making a sale a week if that and I believe I was close to 50 sales, but I have been doing my best!

Last night I was at 91 sales with two weeks to go until I put my shop on vacation for graduation/the move. 9 sales in 2 weeks didn't sound impossible but I knew it was going to be a stretch!! I started to think that it may not happen...but then thought, no, I still have to try! This morning I'm up to 92 sales! 8 more to go, with 13 days to do it...

On the EtsyVeg forum we have been discussing methods of advertising and hiring an ad vs. renewing as a strategy. We are blessed with having one of the top sellers in the knit category, Celeste of CricketsCreations, as a very active member of the team and she is a proponent for more active renewing, she said it has about a 90% return for her! I decided that for the next week I will renew more actively as a test to see the expense vs. return (which will be made easier, of course, because I just paid my Etsy Bill for last month!).

So I will combine more frequent renewing with time on the Etsy forums to reach my goal. I certainly think posting my 5 new bars the last week of my challenge will help if I am close by that point - they are terribly delicious! I will NOT put my soaps on sale as a whole...that would be an easy fix but I'm trying to see what promoting alone will do for me! I'll keep you posted :)