I have a treat for you today: a quick interview with mother-daughter craft team, Pam and Tara from Persnickety Pelican. I bought one of their felted soaps and was blown away by the detail. I’m so glad they agreed to participate in a quick-fire Soap Queen interview. Thanks Gals!
Soap Queen: Tell me about the chemistry of the mother-daughter craft team.
Tara and Pam: We both have whimsical ideas and work off of each other. What one doesn’t think of the other does.
SQ: What’s your favorite product to make?
T&P: We each love to make our different favorite soaps. Tara likes to do owl scenes and Pam likes to do the dachshunds. We input on each other’s soaps too.
This is the soap that’s sitting on my desk right now. It’s too cute!
SQ: Where do you get your whimsical inspiration?
T&P: Our whimsical inspiration just seems to be there at all times. We have 2 mini doxes and they are so sweet and energetic that we try to capture them in our designs. We don’t sketch anything out, just sit in front of a soap we have needle felted with wool roving, and looking at all the marvelous colors of wool, come up with our designs. The more whimsical the better. We create what we like to see in our shop, and hope that our customers love it as much as we do.
SQ: I was so impressed with the detail in the felted soap that I purchased. How long does it take you to felt your persnickety soaps?
T&P:Our felted soaps can take anywhere from an hour to two hours to completely felt. We can’t keep too many in stock on our shop, but try to get new ones on when we can. We also do custom orders and love to come up with new ideas. We use the dry needle felting process. The needle is a special one with barbs on the end, (very sharp) and when poked through the wool roving onto the soap meshes together to create the design. This allows the design to remain on the soap and just shrinks up as the soap is used. A felted soap will last a lot longer than a naked one.
SQ: What’s the best business advice you can give our readers who want to start their own business?
T&P: The best advice we can give someone who wants to start their own business is to do something you love. Be prepared to work really hard, and put in long hours. You’ve got to come up with fresh ideas to keep the public interested.
SQ: Final thoughts to share with the Soap Queen readers?
T&P: We take pride in making quality products; ones that we would want to buy for ourselves, hence our name Persnickety Pelican.
Be sure to take a whimsical break in your day and check out the Persnickety Pelican Etsy shop. You won’t regret it!
those are the best – how adorable!
Wow, Persnickety Pelican’s felted soaps are amazing – such detail, and so cute! Thanks for the great interview, Anne-Marie 🙂
Talk about talented!! How fun to be in business with your mom! (I think!) 🙂
Your wish is my demand, sweetness: http://persnicketypelican.blog… This soap is worth more than $15 in labor alone!
I agree – seeing family members working together successfully and really enjoying it … that’s definitely a joy.
PS – I found this: http://persnicketypelican.blog…
That’s a good question; hopefully Persnickety will have an answer for us!
Agree! And they do the felting with needles which is so labor (and love!) intensive.
I had never seen felted soap that looked like this before either; definitely tops in its category.
The dachshund is adorable – I love its sweet little face.
You and me both – love how playful they are.
These soaps are cute. They look like little rolled up wash cloths. I’m so curious about how they are made. Thanks for the family business inspiration too! I love seeing family members combine their talents and gifts to have fun and build the family’s legacy.
Wow! I am impressed. Great looking soap. Where can I learn to do needle felting?
Those aren’t just felted soaps: they’re works of art!
Those are so cute. I have seen those before but never so adorable! Best wishes to you!
I have seen their stores before… being a dachshund mom and my itty bitty shop owner. I love seeing dachshunds on products or packaging. 🙂
So cute! I love the whimsical colors.
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