snow day soap

I got an unexpected snow day afternoon back in February and came home and made three batches of floral soaps..wisteria, lilac and gardenia. We were excruciatingly slow that week and the next so I had a lot of time to think. I've been in my job for nearly 5 years and am feeling a bit stagnant. From time to time I look and apply for other jobs but nothing sounds ideal. I would love for my part time job to be full time but since it is with a non-profit that is unlikely to happen. I believe a part of me realizes I'm probably never going to 100% enjoy working for other people or working inside at a desk.

So I thought to myself, why not get a little more serious about this craftin' thing you've always been into? It has probably been assisted somewhat with my experience as a SU! demonstrator. They have so many videos and resources to try to help your business it had me thinking I suppose a lot about business. People often ask me if I sell my soap and so I thought maybe I should stick my toe in. I'm not going to quit my day job or borrow 10k for supplies. Nope, I'm a bit too practical for that. But I did decide to slowly take steps towards getting that business started. One has been hiring a designer to help me with a logo. That is proving to be one of the most difficult parts. As far as supplies go, I've been buying molds and such for years. I just need to make the time to experiment and create.

I found out I could register one domain name with my comcast business account so homemade-sin.com belongs to me. I set up a UPS mailbox. I have gotten both my city and county business licenses. The next steps are actually getting the logo done, joining the Handcrafted Soap and Cosmetic Guild, building my website, adding people to my facebook page and starting to think about what I want my initial line of soaps and other projects to be. I think at first I'd like to vend at some very tiny local farmers markets or church bazaars or that type thing. We'll see how it goes.

Here's some chai soap I made a while back. I wasn't too happy with the scent because it wasn't as spicy as I think chai usually smells but I liked the color that using actual tea made the end product. I also will probably use a different mold next time. This was a silicone one that I wanted to test out. I think it may be better for either a slow-moving cold process or melt n pour.