Tutorials on soapmaking, bath fizzies, lotions and more
This site gives the cutest explanation of how lye works in the soapmaking process that I’ve ever seen. It’s all about bunnies, wolves and sheep and somehow, they make science really enjoyable. I hope you like the explanation as much as I do. At the very least, you’ll learn something new.
Satisfaction Font at myfonts.com and Linotype Zapfino are amazing. The fonts are affordable and an easy way to differentiate yourself from everyone else out there using the 64 free fonts that come pre-loaded with MS Publisher.
Perhaps it’s my European (Norsk) heritage, but I am so loving these little bowls right now. How cute is the peek at the innocent couple kissing?
This has really nothing to do with anything but my friend Christine over at Big Pink Cookie (she actually designed our very first Bramble Berry web site 9 years ago!), just posted the most adorable first wedding dances. The 2nd one puts any first dance to shame. Check that one out for sure. I bet you’ll be laughing by the end.
I posted a few weeks ago about the quantifiable effects of multi-tasking (short answer: they’re not good) and bemoaned my non-ability to do one task at a time. I made a little progress on doing one thing at a time (for about a week) but quickly slid right back into doing ten trillion things at once.
However, I am getting inspired to try the one-project-at-a-time idea… again (hopefully with more success this time!). I just read one of my favorite blogs this morning (Success Rocks! by Lea Woodward, a business coach specializing in heath & fitness companies) and she did the math. She figured out that doing 4 projects at once is way less efficient (from a $$$ standpoint) than finishing up 1 or 2 and then moving onto the next two. Whoops. Guess I should probably structure the way I’m running our multiple-company pursuits right now. My desk is currently so messy, piled with to-do piles, that when my supportive spouse brought me flowers yesterday, um… I totally missed them. Apparently, they’re on my desk at Bramble Berry right now complete with a card. He was a little puzzled why I hadn’t acknowledged them yesterday. And I’m just more than a little embarrassed that my desk has come to such a huge chaotic mess that I could miss an entire flower arrangement on it.
To read Lea’s article, click here.
As for me, starting tomorrow, I’m going to try to do one task for an hour and stay with it. Baby steps. Must start small. I’ll keep you posted on the daily struggle to stay on task, one task that is.
I’m like my friend Andy who writes in his blog and wonders if anyone’s actually reading it. Well, it turns out that one person at least read my blog this week and wrote me! Thanks Jenny! So, I’m excited enough about the note to post it and share it with you all (presumably more than one person – though, given my opening sentence, the “all” is up for consideration).
Dear Brambleberry,
Congratulations on being honored by NW Business News Monthly Business of the Year. You should not be shocked, nor stunned for you are a great company.
Your website is the best, your customer service unbeatable and all your products top of the line. You are responsible to your clients, you motivate your clients and extremely helpful to your clients. I know for I am proud to be one of your clients and very happy for you to have received such a distinguish honor.En hora buena,
Jenny
Someone described this photo as cake soap porn. I’m not so sure I’d go that far, but these are amazing bars of soap. The detail works in incredible and I can only imagine that the molds are the heavy duty silicone moles that allow for better 3-D effects and help ease unmolding. To see more of Halina’s soaps, check out her site. She makes some very creative bars.
So. I really wanted to spend this morning blogging about The Cake Girls, this cool little IL bakery that specializes in doing what they love and elevates cake decorating to a fine (expensive) art form. If you read me on a regular basis, you know that I love people that make the mundane amazing and imbue daily common things with beauty. I like entrepreneurs that figure out a niche and figure out how to differentiate themselves enough to charge premium prices.
The Cake Girls of IL seem to have done just that.
And, I would love to show you their work – perhaps post a picture of their amazing cakes. But, I can’t. Because their site is Flash. I can’t just click to link to any of their photos. And when I go to their Contact Us page, there’s no email for me to email and ask for some great photos to put up. Irritating to say the least. And, it makes this post just text and I really wish I could post some fun pictures to brighten the blog up but that’s just not to be.
So, if you feel like doing some extra clicks, go check out their site. Their cakes are inspiring, amazing and I’m thrilled that two sisters from Detroit make a living, doing what they love, and elevating cake decorating to an art.
I came across an incredibly derogatory posting today about me. In the spirit of the Wired’s article on transparency, here is my response to a less-than-positive posting about me. Thanks for Diana from SPU for mentioning it to me.
You’ve got to be kidding me… Quite a business woman, eh? She copied people and their business’, used others (me for one) to get her fragrance suppliers, and of all the fragrance oils out there, hers are by far the cheapest and worst for using in CP soap. Then she brags about owning “at least 10 Coach handbags”. Ew… All I can say is… KARMA, Anne Marie. Yikes!
I was a little surprised to read it since I try really hard to not make enemies. I do my best to lead a personal and business life of integrity. I’m human so I make mistakes but I do the best I can. And, other than one random competitor that we caught in the Bramble Berry warehouse writing down suppliers and another would-be business partner from 10 plus years ago, I can’t really think of anyone that would wish me negative.
The anonymous poster claimed, among other things that I stole their trade secrets, that my products were inferior and derided my love of purses.
The purses thing was kind of a low blow. I mean, what woman doesn’t love purses? But, okay, guilty as charged. I have entirely too many purses (and as long as I’m admitting weaknesses, shoes. I own too many shoes too.)
The rest of the post was just downright strange. The entire thing was a bit eyebrow raising. It’s the first I’ve heard of any concerns that I somehow have stolen suppliers. If my supplies really are inferior, do you think that I’d still be in business 9 years and counting? Plus, if I really stole all the trade secrets from the anonymous poster, how could the supplies be inferior?
Really odd post. It has left me a wee bit befuddled and confused. If someone really feels like I did them wrong, I would think that they would contact me directly to air their concerns with me, not some random anonymous post on a soapmaking board.
So, Sour Grapes, if you’re reading this. Give me a call – I would love to chat – 360.734.8278 about your allegations. I think they’re false. I think you know they’re false which is why I’ve never heard from you, but I’m always open to hearing from people who think I can improve my business or how I interact with people.
In my job, making sales calls is one of the more difficult things that any small business needs to face. Irritatingly, most business problems can pretty much be solved with more sales (more sales = more cash = lots of cash hiding lots of poor business practices).
I see this a lot with the small business customers I have the privilege of chatting with and mentoring through my work at Bramble Berry and Otion. They have a great product line, wonderful formulations, nice marketing collateral and the support of enthusiastic family and friends. Yet … they have no customers.
Why don’t they have customers? Because they don’t ask for customers. These same cottage businesses who have diligently planned their line, spent weeks obsessing over whether to use pricey olive oil versus rice bran oil (for future reference, they soap incredibly similar with RBO being about 60% of the price of OO as of late) and many headache-inducing hours doing their Publisher brochures, are afraid to call their local stores to land accounts.
I get it. I understand why. Sales calls involve rejection and outright fear. After all, soap is a very close and personal creation. It’s an outright extension of personality. That simple bar of soap holds all that a soapmaker believes and hold dear about skin care and business – organic versus non organic, fragrance oils versus essential oils, font choices, packaging choices fragrance choices, additive choices – it’s a lot of personal choice in there and many chances for feelings of rejection. You reject my soap? You reject *me*. I get that.
But, as a small business owner, I can’t ignore the need for actual customers to buy my product. I need to make sales calls in order to stay in business. So, for sales calls, I practice the FTF philosophy my friend Bob Thordarson embraces. FTF stands for Feared Things First. That means, when you get up in the morning, you call your top sales prospect. And you keep calling until you convince them to let you in front of them.
I’m right in the middle of a glorious cycle of rejection for one of my new business ventures. I’ve been turned down by a huge, massive national retailer by virtue of simple ignoring me three times in the last two months. And my own local co-op here in Bellingham? They won’t even take my calls or emails. And I’ve been chipping away at them for two months. I don’t like rejection. I feel insecure when my own local co-op business won’t even call me back. After all, I tell myself, aren’t I a valued business person in this community? After all, I’ve been nominated for best Small Business for 2006 in Whatcom County, won Business Person of the Year for Washington State and was one of the top 40 Bosses in America. And they won’t call me back? Hurt and insecure feelings abound.
But, I’ll call them again this week. You know why? Because I like their market demographics and the tantalizingprospect of that sales success is enough to keep me pounding through walls, despite my absolute terror of rejection. Because remember, sales = cash. And cash? Well, cash is a good thing for all small businesses.
We’re excited to be the main sponsor for the RE Sources Environmental Hero’s event! It’s part of our values at Bramble Berry to “Be socially responsible.”
We used Fresca as a base for dying our Easter Eggs instead of water & vinegar. We believe the Fresca must be somewhat acidic as it very much allowed the color to stay on the eggs, without vinegar.
The thin layer of yellow you see in the above picture is Olive Oil. We dropped the egg into the Fresca-Labcolor mixture, making it first pass through the Olive Oil so that portions of the egg were coated in oil. The coated portions of the eggs did not take on any color, leaving a marbled or speckled effect.
The Fresca carbonation (with or without olive oil) made a really interesting effect as they bubbled up. They ended up making a fizzy bubbling pattern up the sides of the eggs. The eggs more near the end of the process had less of the fizzy bubbling pattern than the eggs from the freshly poured Fresca.
Other than the drawback of oily eggs, the experiment was a huge success! We loved the different and unique patterns each egg took on. We will definitely have this in our Easter Egg dying repertoire next year! Plus, as an added enticement for more Fresca Eggs, my daily of intake of protein (egg whites) is way cuter now that the eggs are brightly colored nuggets of fun.
My soapy friend (the amazingly talented Debby from Soapy Love) has managed to do what, well, quite frankly I don’t have the patience to do. She has mastered the art of cut outs for melt and pour soaps. And, she has done so in an amazingly artful, unique and creative manner. Bravo to Debby!
These works of art can be purchased at her Etsy store.
I just got this question and wanted to share the joy with you.
I just read that the inside of a Duracell battery contains very concentrated Potassium Hydroxide.
Could I open a battery, dilute the contents and use it to make soap?
For future reference, batteries do not need to be purified to the same standards as skin safe products and you should not use battery components in your soap or toiletry making projects.