We've A Lot Going On

It's been a while since we've posted, and we apologize for that. Things have been...interesting to say the least.

First, our internet connection became so unreliable that we had to start going to McDonald's or local restaurants that offered free wi-fi in order to do anything business related or work on our school work. As if that wasn't enough of a pain, we finally got a new internet connection set up and something else happened.

We came home one evening to find all the lights out at our house. Knowing we'd left the front room light on, we realized that the circuit breaker was off. We turned it back on, only to lose power again. The main breaker switch had gone out - but we didn't know that then. We thought it was a power outage (our neighbors' lights were off too), so we called the power company - who then disconnected our power completely!

It took us several days to find an electrician who could come out and check the fuse box - apparently they were all busy - and one of them called the city inspector because we had been out of the house for almost a week with no power - and this guy thought we were living in the house without power. *roll eyes* Then after it was fixed, we were told we couldn't move back in because the house was too messy. Not dirty - but too cluttered. Apparently they figured we were hoarders or at least someone in the house was, and told us we couldn't live there until it was cleared out, and the entire house re-inspected - water lines, power lines, everything.

We got most of the clutter cleaned up, but then decided maybe it wasn't worth it. The house was old - over 50 years old, and in a lot of dis-repair. So we found someone who buys old houses and sold it - and moved to our new place - a single-wide mobile home. It's a newer model (2006) and it's very nice. We like it.

Throw into this mix two (yes TWO) craft shows (Art in the Park & one here at the mobile home park), our school work, and one of us getting a "9-5 job." We've had a lot going on around here.

But - we've also got new items - new washcloths, bath poufs, 3 oz bars of soap, new bath salts. Plus, we'll be introducing some "gift tin" options shortly. Just check out our Etsy shop for more details.

4 oz Bath Salt Giveaway Winner

Congratulations to:

Mara S.

She won a 4 oz jar of Candlelight Boutique bath salts in her scent of choice! :) 

Check back in June for another giveaway!

Giveaway: 4 oz Jar of Bath Salts

To generate some interest in Candlelight Boutique, we are going to be giving away a 4 oz jar of bath salts! The scent will be of the winner's choosing - you can choose any of the scents available in our Etsy shop or from the list on this page.

You may even mix scents or customize the colors if you prefer - or you can have no color in your salts at all - your choice. :) Just use the Rafflecopter widget below to enter! :)

Giveaway will run from Midnight EST 5/15/12 to 11:59PM EST 5/21/12 and is open to US residents only!

Good luck! :)


  a Rafflecopter giveaway

More eBay Items

We have quite a few items for sale on eBay - please be advised that if you order the individual Bright Lime, Bright Blue, Sunshine Yellow, or Tropical Sea wash cloths there may be a small delay while they are made if the entire set was also ordered.

White Sakura 8 oz Bath Salts
Cotton Candy 8 oz Bath Salts
Yuletide Vanilla Cookie 8 oz Bath Salts
Grasshopper 8 oz Bath Salts
Lavender 8 oz Bath Salts
Set of 4 Washcloths - Beachy Keen
Bright Blue Washcloth
Bright Lime Washcloth
Sunshine Yellow Washcloth
Tropical Sea Washcloth
Daisy Washcloth
Westport Washcloth

The Mother's Day sale has ended. We got a couple of orders during the Mother's Day sale yet no one used the coupon code even though it was right there in the shop announcement. We're wondering now if we should list the coupon codes in the item descriptions because the individual items do not show the shop announcement and most of our business has come because of search results on Etsy.

Of course, this does entail actually editing over 40 items, so we are also thinking about getting an Etsy On Sale account to use for sales like this which will automatically discount the items so the customers get the sale price.

Do you have any preference? Would you prefer to use a coupon code or have the prices automatically be lowered for sales?

New Items Posted to eBay & News

If you're looking for a few deals on our bath salts, check out our eBay auctions! You can snag some of our 8 oz bath salts for as little as $2 plus shipping & handling if you're lucky enough to win the bid! :)

8 oz Cotton Candy Bath Salts
8 oz Strawberry Daiquiri Bath Salts
8 oz White Sakura Bath Salts

Those are our current auctions on eBay.

Also, due to the rising costs of materials, shipping of materials to us, and shipping of products to our customers, we are being forced to raise our prices as of June 1st. We really didn't want to do this, because we believe in providing our products to you for the best possible price, but it has unfortunately come to the point where we either raise our prices or we close our doors. We don't want to close our doors, so a price hike is inevitable.

Our bath salt prices will be as follows - maybe you'll see a pattern here:

4 oz - $4
8 oz - $8
16 oz - $16
32 oz - $32

We will also soon be offering a "bulk" option where you can pick three 2 lb bags of bath salts for a discounted price. These salts will not come in the glass jars but will be shipped in quart Ziploc bags with labels affixed. If you've already purchased salts from us, these can be used as refill bags for your current jars, or if you have jars you'd like to use, you can use this option to get 6 lbs of salt for less than you would if they were in the jar!

Our shower gels (although we only have one right now LOL):

8 oz bottles for $8

Our  liquid body lotions:

8 oz bottles for $8

Our body butters and sugar scrubs will remain the same. So just a heads up - if you want to grab some before the prices go up, do it in May!

Don't forget through May 13 you can get 15% off your order using coupon code MOTHERSDAY12

Been So Busy!

Let's see, since I last blogged (about our new Body Butter line) we've been a bit busy. We've had a few sales, both through eBay and Etsy - bringing our total up to seven items sold on Etsy and five items sold on eBay - plus one sold offline. :)

The following scents have been sold:
Peppermint (x2)
Sweet Pea Cucumber Melon (x2)
Sugar Cookie (x2)
Buttercream Cupcake
Wild Berry Vanilla
Cucumber Melon
Vanilla
Pomegranate Vanilla
Lemon Lavender
Lavender

All scents have been sold in the form of bath salts. Which is great, because we love making the bath salts. And we are getting ready to expand our product line! :)

We are working on offering not only bath salts & body butter but body lotion, shower gel, glycerin soap bars, and bath salt bars. As soon as these items are ready, we'll let you know here on the blog! :)

Additionally, we have some new scents, so I will be updating the available scents page! A teaser: Yuletide Vanilla, Jack Frost, Grapefruit Blush, Honey Almond, Coconut, and more! :)

Another Sold Post

We have sold another item - this time we got our first Etsy sale! Woo Hoo! :) A great lady from Iowa (our home state no less) bought our Sugar Cookie bath salts. That makes our grand total of sold bath salts up to five. :)

The breakdown on our sales so far is:

• 2 Sugar Cookie bath salts
• 1 Buttercream Cupcake bath salts
• 1 Sweet Pea Cucumber Melon bath salts
• 1 Wild Berry Vanilla bath salts.

It would seem so far that our most popular bath salts are Sugar Cookie. :) We're working on a sugar scrub that is sugar cookie scented as well, so be on the lookout for that to show up in the shop soon!

Don't forget today is Black Friday and you can use BLACKFRIDAY11 to get 15% off in the shop! :)

SOLD!

We had our first official online sale today! Our first total sale came a couple of weeks ago when a friend from church purchased a Lavender bath salts from us. But tonight on eBay a lovely lady from California purchased four of our bath salts! She also received, although she won't know it until she opens the package, a free jar of the Pumpkin Spice bath salts and a free set of 5 cotton facial scrubbies. :) We love to pamper our customers!

 The scents purchased were Sweet Pea Cucumber Melon, Wild Berry-Vanilla, Sugar Cookie, and Buttercream Cupcake. I noticed that the Sugar Cookie and Buttercream Cupcake scents had a lot of views on eBay - the next in line was Apple Pie alá Mode. I think people tend to like food-related scents. :)

 We have six more auctions that are running - for Apple Pie alá Mode, Pearberry Mint, Vanilla, Red Rose & Thyme, Cucumber Melon, and Peppermint. Of course, all of the aforementioned scents plus Lemon Lavender, Baby Powder, Pomegranate Vanilla, and Pumpkin Spice are available for purchase in our Etsy shop! :)

New Sizes Coming Soon and Treasuries

Recently a potential customer contacted us to ask if we offered larger sizes of our bath salts. I answered that yes we did offer them in larger sizes - this particular person wanted to know if we could do 16 or 32 oz sizes. I said sure.

We procured a box of 12 canning jars in 32 oz (quart) size, as well as a box of 12 canning jars in 16 oz (pint) size. We plan to make a few batches of our current scents in these sizes - although I have to say that one bucket of salt will only make 7 of the 12 pint jars or 3.5 of the 12 quart jars before we need to buy more salt. :P Those jars a bit more expensive as you can imagine because we use a lot more salt than we would if we were just doing 4 or 8 oz jars. :)

Plus we've been featured in several treasuries over the weekend - at least three that we are aware of.

Easy Like Sunday Morning features our Sugar Cookie Bath Salts
Berry Fusion features our Wild Berry-Vanilla Sugar Scrub
Sneaky Treasury Challenge 11/12/11 features our Buttercream Cupcake Bath Salts

We've also had several of our items added to people's favorites, as well as a couple of "shop favorites" so far. I think the search ads may finally be working as far as getting views to our shops, but I'll have to stop them until we either get some sales or I get some extra revenue coming in somewhere to be able to pay for those ads. Even $5 a week adds up fast! :)

We also have a few possible new items coming soon, so stay tuned for those! :)

Remakes

So we have discovered that the metal tins we are using to store our bath salts are not doing a very good job of keeping them nice. Seriously - the salts have lost their color and scent both - the salts literally smell like the metal tins. 

We have two variables that we think might have had a hand in this - the first variable, of course, was the metal tin, as the salts now smell like the metal tins! The other variable we have thought of was the Grape Seed Oil we used in the salts. We are making the salts without the Grape Seed Oil for the time being and we have started packing the salts into glass Ball jars - adorable/pretty quilted "jelly jars" that look amazing with the salts in them!

We are going to see how the salts keep their color/scent with the glass jars & no Grape Seed Oil. We did make a batch of Lavender salts for a custom order that had the Grape Seed Oil in them, so we will ask the friend who ordered them a couple of weeks if the salts have lost color or scent. If they have, it is the Grape Seed Oil that is the culprit, as her salts were packed in a glass jar. 

A quick search for Grape Seed Oil in bath salts has turned up a number of recipes using Grape Seed Oil, so I have a hard time believing that the discoloration/loss of scent is due to the oil. I am more inclined to believe that it is the metal tins - as all the recipes including Grape Seed Oil have said to put the salts into a glass or PET container. 

Oh well, this is going to be trial and error - all we have to do is remake the salts, put them in the glass containers (the lids are metal, but have a lining on them because they are canning lids), and see how that fairs.

In other news a few new scents to add to the shop soon include:

Baby Powder

Lavender

Lavender Vanilla

Lemon Cupcake

Lemon Sugar Cookie (as soon as the fragrance oil arrives for this one)

Peppermint Sugar Cookie (as soon as the fragrance oil arrives for this one)

Peppermint Vanilla

Pumpkin Spice Cupcake

Sugar Cookie (as soon as the fragrance oil arrives for this one)

The Baby Powder comes in either pink (although it's a bit more red than I wanted LOL) or blue - and can even be made in baggies for Baby Shower favors! :) 

The available scents/colors page has been updated as well, so be sure to check that out! :)

More Advertising

Most people will probably find this interesting, but I have actually done more to advertise Candlelight Boutique than I have for Eternal Stardust Designs. Sure, I used an AdWords credit to make an AdWords account for Eternal Stardust Baby, but I have never used any other means of advertising for ESD. However, I have used an AdWords credit to advertise Candlelight Boutique and I have done two weeks worth of Search Ads on Etsy. I think the problem with Etsy's search ads is more related to my not being willing to try more than $5 per week as a budget than anything. Then again, with my not having a steady day job to help pay for advertising, I'd rather play it safe for the time being. According to Google I still have about $47 of my credit remaining, but it says I can't use it because my campaign is limited by the budget. I am not yet sure if I am going to try and add more money to AdWords or not. It really depends on whether or not I am able to get more freelance work and whether or not the Holiday season brings me some sales. :P In other news, I have completed a custom order for 100 facial scrubbies. I am simply awaiting the customer's approval before I set up the listing for them. :) I also completed a request for 80 samples of bath salts. I chose a new scent - Lemon Cupcake - to send samples of. Now all the samples are bagged and labeled, I just have to get the address and mail them off. :) All in all, between advertising and working, I've been busy!

More Products Available

We now have 18 listings in our Etsy shop! :) I added the following listings today:

Peppermint Bath Salts

Cucumber Melon Bath Salts

Red Rose & Thyme Bath Salts

Vanilla Bath Salts

Pastel Rainbow Facial Scrubbies

Summer Flecks Facial Scrubbies

All in all a rather productive listing day for us. :)  I also started a Google AdWords campaign (gotta love getting free AdWords credits from hosting companies and domain registrars) for Candlelight Boutique as well as Etsy Search Ads. 

The Search Ads I only allowed one week at $5.00 total for the week to see what kind of statistics we got from the ads. I've  heard some bad things about the results for the search ads, mainly that views and favorites went up but sales did not. So far we've only gotten 9 views in 24 hours, no favorites or sales from those views. A friend of ours did a search for bath salts and found that the ads tend to repeat certain shops/products and that she went through the entire search results for bath salts and never once found an ad for our shop. :( She did however find an ad for one of our sugar scrubs? LOL

I realize that the people who keep coming up over and over in the search ads probably paid a higher amount for more impressions.You only get 5,000 impressions for $5.00. If I had paid $10.00 I'd have gotten 10,000 impressions and if I'd paid $25.00 I'd have gotten 25,000 impressions. Basically you pay $1.00 for every 1,000 ad impressions you receive through the system. I'm not really thinking so far that it is anything more than a money waster for Etsy shop owners because I'm just not seeing the love. 1,487 impressions with only 9 views, no favorites, and no sales? I'm pretty glad I set the ads to stop after one week. :P

Products Available!

We have actually opened our shop a little over a week ahead of schedule! We weren't originally going to be open for business until 11/1/2011, but since we created a few products already we decided to go ahead and get them listed.

So far we have four bath salts, four sugar scrubs, 2 different wash cloths (one of them has 3 available), and 2 different sets of facial scrubbies (3 sets of one, 2 of the other).

Here are some photos of the products currently available in our shop:

Apple Pie alá Mode Bath Salts

Apple Pie alá Mode Sugar Scrub

Country Stripes Facial Scrubbies

Patriotic Wash Cloth

Pearberry Mint Bath Salts

Pearberry Mint Sugar Scrub

Sweet Pea Cucumber Melon Bath Salts

Sweet Pea Cucumber Melon Sugar Scrub

Strawberry Wash Cloth

Violet Veil Facial Scrubbies

Wild Berry Vanilla Bath Salts

Wild Berry Vanilla Sugar Scrub

We've also made Vanilla Bath Salts, Peppermint Bath Salts, Cucumber Melon Bath Salts, and Red Rose & Thyme Bath Salts. We're also awaiting the shipment of 2lbs of Shea Butter for making whipped body butter.  We've already had a request for a lemon scented body butter, so lemon scented fragrance oil is our next purchase. :)

If you have any scent ideas, please let us know! :)