New Items in the Etsy Shop

We have some new items in the Etsy shop - three new washcloths and a washcloth set.

Beachy Keen Set of 4 Crocheted Cotton Washcloths

Bright Blue Crocheted Cotton Washcloth

Bright Lime Crocheted Cotton Washcloth

Sunshine Crocheted Cotton Washcloth

These washcloths are super soft, 100% cotton, and measure a generous 9.5" square. They sell for $3/1 washcloth (the bright blue, bright lime, or sunshine) and $12/set of 4.

The Beachy Keen set includes Tropical Sea (ombre), Bright Blue, Bright Lime, and Sunshine. We hope to have more washcloth sets available shortly. We have a few combination ideas, we just need to get the yarn and put them into action.

There are more individual washcloths that have not yet been photographed or posted to the shop, we hope to have those photographed, edited and posted to the shop by the end of the weekend.

Don't forget you can get 15% off your order if you order by Sunday using coupon code: MOTHERSDAY12

Happy Mother's Day everyone!

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! :)

New Items!!!

These are not yet in the Etsy shop as I need to ensure that I am not raising the Etsy bill so high that I can't afford to pay it, but these new items have been added to the Made It Myself shop! :)

Last night LaShawn and I went into the kitchen and started playing with our shea butter! :) We haven't played with it yet because we weren't sure exactly what we wanted to do. I knew I wanted to make a whipped body butter using it, but I didn't know exactly how I wanted to do it. I put some coconut oil and some shea butter in a bowl, microwaved it for a few seconds so the mixer would actually do its job, and after about 8 minutes, we had an awesome whipped body butter!

Our whipped shea body butter in the package.

Buttercream Cupcake scented body butter

Lavender scented body butter

Lemon scented body butter

Lemon Sugar Cookie scented body butter

Peppermint scented body butter (great for the holidays!)

Sugar Cookie scented body butter (great for the holidays!)

I have to admit, my favorite so far is the  Buttercream Cupcake. It smells so good, I want to eat it! I keep having to remind myself that I can't! :)

Check out our shop on Made It Myself to purchase it - $5.00 per jar + $8.00 shipping and handling (combined shipping discount available)!

More Treasury Love

We told you about a few treasuries a couple of weeks ago in which we had our products featured. Well tonight we got double treasury love. We were featured twice in the same treasury! :)

Hostess gifts from local artisans features our Sweet Pea-Cucumber Melon bath salts & our Wild Berry-Vanilla sugar scrub.

Speaking of sugar scrubs, I'm planning on making some more tonight - most likely in Lemon and Sugar Cookie scents. I am also considering trying to make a whipped shea body butter, but I haven't decided if I'm up for that task tonight or not. ;)

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 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! :)