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 :)

This Week's Etsy Features!

I was lucky enough to have been featured in two treasuries this week, both were created by my fellow wonderful EtsyVeg members in order to promote our Earthly Riches Giveaway!

The first was created by Lisa of PandaWithCookie, featuring spring favorites!

The second was created by Julie of Julie Webb Photography + Design, it was a Hidden Treasure Treasury :)

The Earthly Riches giveaway is, sadly, now over. But now we get to the fun part of picking prizes - the grand prize winner will be notified tomorrow! I can't wait for them to find out!

Happy Birthday to Zazu!

My Zazu kitty turned 8 yesterday! He had a great day, first off because he's at his Grandma and Grandpa's where he's always spoiled rotten! Secondly because he did have a few special birthday treats. I had to run errands yesterday and go to the post office so went to the pet store to find him a special toy/treat. And, once again, I realized how difficult it is to buy something for a cat that needs nothing! I did find the cute magenta chicken and got that for him, he thought it was quite fun! So did Shenzi. And like all of their other catnip toys, it will eventually go in the basket and be ignored :) He also had just a bit of cake to celebrate his day. And of course LOTS of snuggles with mama!


Zazu also wanted to remind you that it is the last day to enter the EtsyVeg Earthly Riches Giveaway! The contest ends at 11:59 PM tonight. If you don't have time today to search for all the hidden earth images you can also enter via the extra entries - a $25 purchase from a participating shop (mine included!) earns FIVE extra entries to the grand prize, and a $10 purchase earns FIVE extra entries into the first prize drawing.