Monday, April 27, 2009

Starting Out - Our Story

Just like many other cottage industry business owners, we dove into cottage industry out of a need which blossomed into a working partnership creating beautiful, natural and aromatic products. Sharing them with those we love (our immediate family) encouraged us to branch out & include other scents and products into our line of bath and body items.

Marie has been making soap for years and has said that once she tried handcrafted soap she was instantly hooked - not only on the product itself but on the creative ability to develop a product that works just for her.

Carol wanted to find a specific item that was given to her while on a girlfriend-only spa-weekend in the California Wine Country. She was searching for a unique scent blend lotion bar and moisturizer. Not finding it anywhere, she decided to approach her creative, nature-minded sister-in-law with the idea of making it herself. "OF COURSE it could be done!" was Marie's reply. Realizing we had to purchase most of the ingredients necessary to make these items in bulk, we decided we'd make some as Mother's Day gifts for the wonderful women in our family. We chose packaging and set off!

As we placed our first orders we decided to include a few additional scents and scent blends (as well as using some from Marie's home-based storehouse) so that we could create a variety of lovely scented items.

Marie has thriving Etsy and Ebay businesses (along with others in her family) and we both thought that creating an Etsy store may be a great way to fund our passion for creativity as well as enable us to enjoy wonderfully scented and highly moisturizing body care products. As we set off on this journey and began creating and packaging our products we knew that we had to share them with others!

The first craft fair we attended was at our local fire company where Marie's husband, John is a volunteer firefighter. We thoroughly enjoyed our day and celebrated our first sales! Setting up our display was a proud moment as we oohhed & aaahhhed over how lovely the table looked.

The product packaging is stunning. They have old world charm, are elegant and make great gifts for that person who has everything! Our hand-wrapped lotion bar is Carol's favorite. We'll be posting photos soon so keep checking back! Better yet, subscribe to our blog to follow our journey - so much more is to come!

No comments:

Post a Comment