Market Season Begins

Spring has arrived in California with gusto, and I like to kick of my market season with something a little different. This year, I vended at the Vacaville Fantasy Festival, and it was a blast!

Vacaville is a bit of a drive from Blushie HQ, so we were up at 5am loading the car but arrived a bit earlier than expected. I'm generally okay with this, as the first day of any festival it's always difficult to judge just how much time you'll need to get things straightened out.

We tried out the new giant "SOAP" sign that Joey so carefully painted, and it was a hit. You could see people a block away point it out and then come wandering on over.

Surprisingly, it ended up being very hot both days (moreso on Saturday than Sunday) so we had to be very careful with the placement of Whipped Sheas and Bath Melts.

As the day got warmer, more people started dropping by in search of one of our lip balms. Best selling was the Unflavored balm, followed shortly by French Vanilla. The festival fire-eater even purchased and approved the Unflavored Lip Balm!


Best selling soaps at this festival were:
Blackberry Sage
Seaberry
Appletini
Sandalwood
White Peach

This season is off to a great start! Come visit us May 2nd and 3rd at the Livermore Wine Festival!

ArtFire Shop Up and Running

Of the numerous sites out there for handmade crafters and artisans to sell their creations, ArtFire is relatively new. However, having just sold of the last of their first 5,000 available verified shops on March 29th they are shooting up in popularity. ArtFire shops, called sudios, have a very user-friendly layout and probably one of the best ideas in a handmade selling site yet: account-free checkout! See below an example of their rapid cart system:

blushie

Buy Handmade

I believe ArtFire is really growing into a wonderfully creative, and innovative community and am proud to have opened a Blushie shop as one of their charter members.

About those florals

Fresh off the curing rack: Wild Violet Soap. I'm normally not a great lover of floral scents, but I think that's mostly because the florals I grew up with were heady and powdery. Lately I've been soaping some truly wonderful, full and fresh floral scents and this violet is definitely one of my favorites. It's much more woman-of-the-woods than woman-of-the-talc-powder.

On a personal note, my boyfriend's little sister is dropping by later tonight so that we can take her to the Da Vinci exhibit at The Tech in San Jose tomorrow morning. Art History classes, don't fail me now!

Labels ahoy

I love making soap, designing labels, finding just the right adhesive vinyl to print them on, getting the colors just right, and seeing my shiny soaps all lined up in their pretty packages with their swish colors and freshly printed labels.

I. Do. Not. Like. Cutting Labels.

Especially when my paper cutter has suddenly decided it has had quite enough of my abuse, thank you very much, and spit the blade out with a vengeance that no super glue can mend. Even when the cutter is working well, things can be a hassle. These are adhesive labels after all, and after about the millionth sheet the little blade has a tendency to get gunked up. Trying to wipe off a super sharp piece of metal with a tiny little nib of plastic to grip is no fun, I assure you.

Alas, I like the look of my labels too much to change to a standard size that would make them a peel-and-stick affair, so I'm sitting down with some powder-coated scissors tonight to snip out a couple of sheets. I'm a glutton for punishment it seems.