Want to win $10 worth of free Canfield Crafts products?

We thought it would be fun to host a simple guessing game to celebrate the end of Summer and the start of Autumn! Here's what you'll be guessing:

How many Minis (Lip Balm and Aromatherapy) did we ship from June 1- August 31, 2013?

Only one guess per person, please! Guess as high or as low as you like! We will only give you one small hint: Remember we're still a small business... if you guess in the thousands you'll be too high! 
 
Leave a comment here, send us an Etsy Conversation or a tweet, leave a message for us on Facebook, or send an e-mail with your guess. On October 1 we will look at all the guesses and find the closest one- if more than one person has the closest guess, we will take both names (or all three, etc) and choose randomly between them.

The winner will get to choose $10 of products from our Etsy shop!

** Update: Thank you to everyone who guessed on Etsy, Facebook, etc! A HUGE Congratulations to SW on Etsy for her winning guess! **

Etsyversary!

It's our shop's Etsy Anniversary! Save 10% on all orders for the next week (through 9.18.13) with this code: ETSYVERSARY - http://etsy.me/1eKQhCg

Better news than yesterday!

No fragrance oil tragedies today! ;-)

Wanted to mention that in the past few weeks we passed our 200th individual Etsy sale and our 150th person to favorite our Etsy shop- and today we reached the 50th "Like" on Facebook and the 8,000th blog visit. It's been an incredible year so far, full of challenges and rewarding experiences, and we hope the rest of the year will be just as good! (For all of you, as well!)

Oh, before I forget- be sure to stop by our facebook page in the first days of September to try your hand at our guessing game for a chance to win a few dollars worth of goodies from our Etsy shop!

See our products on OpenSky!

Help us open a shop by following us on OpenSky:
www.opensky.com/canfieldcrafts

Hope to see you there!

Quick update

Our Facebook is still down due to some security issues, but we contacted FB and hope they are resolved soon. We'll keep you posted on twitter about shop updates until then. :-)

The Lip Balm That Will Not Go The Way We Want It To is slowly coming together! We'll be very glad when it does and we have a viable, easy-to-duplicate formula!

(Randomly, I also wanted to say hello, or "hei" to all the Finnish-speaking visitors we've been getting on Etsy thanks to the ravelry.com forum post mentioning our Lavender & Ylang Ylang Aromatherapy Sticks! Shout-outs are always welcome!)

New item... Chocolate Peppermint Lip Balm! And a stock update

I'm happy to say that Chocolate Peppermint Lip Balm has finally arrived in the shop! In addition to our usual mix of shea butter and apricot kernel oil, this lip balm also has cocoa butter and REAL Ghirardelli chocolate, as well as a healthy dose of Peppermint Oil. We hope you'll try some!

The "Earl Grey with a Slice" Lip Balm samplers are also back in stock... but who knows for how long? Half of them were snapped up by the end of the first day they were back! (Not that we're complaining! *grin*)

We also have two soaps to add to the shop- Almond, and Red Clover Tea. As soon as we get some good photos (cloudy day) they'll be added as well.

Take care, everybody! :-)

New items coming soon...

I spent the day perfecting Mint Chocolate lip balm (with real Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate!) and it's awesome, with the perfect minty kick. Mom says it smells just like Junior Mints. :-) They'll be in the shop soon, and I'll be sure to make plenty of samplers when I get the mini tubes next week.

I also worked on a solid perfume stick with light and vitamin-rich oils- the prototype is fragranced with Gardenia and it smells SO good. The fragrance seems to stick around a lot longer than spray perfume, and it just takes a small swipe to apply. Very convenient! The next fragrance will probably be Red Clover Tea- we've got some family members and friends who just can't get enough of it, but it's such a light fragrance that it can get lost on the skin. We're hoping that in a perfumed oil form it will have more staying power. I also shouldn't forget the solid colognes we'll be making for the gentlemen! We'll update when they're out of the experimentation stage and in the shop. :-)

twitter

I almost forgot to mention- you can now follow us on twitter: @CanfieldCrafts

Don't forget that we have a Facebook page as well- pictures of new items have already been posted there, so feel free to check it out.

Shop update

There have been a bunch of new items added at the shop, and I wanted to give you the rundown here. Just a quick note- if you do decide to add our shop to your favorites, or to "like" us on Facebook, we'd like to send you a "thank you" in the form of 10% off your first order! Send us a note and we'll send you the coupon code!

Tea. Earl Grey. Hot. "Earl Grey with a Slice" lip balm!

Now for the new additions:
Aromatherapy Balms: Basil (also comes in a sampler size), Lavender & Ylang Ylang (also comes in a sampler size), and Bergamot Lemongrass (also comes in a sampler size, but they flew out of stock very quickly!)
Lip Balms: Cucumber Melon (in Oval, Black, Clear and Sampler tubes), Earl Grey with a Slice (in Oval, Black, Clear and Sampler tubes), and Pure Vanilla (in Oval, Black, Clear and Sampler tubes).

Finally fixed the background...

...thanks to Cute and Cool! (found it at the old site, http://itkupilli-cutencool.blogspot.com/)

It was just one simple line of code after the address of my bg image:

...png"); background-position: center;

That easy! But it took me this long to find it! In any case, now the blog will be viewable on widescreen and squarish monitors without scrunching the background. :-)

Etsy reshuffle!

Spent today rearranging our Etsy page to sort our soaps not only by shape, but also by fragrance. Check it out! :-) Lip balms are coming soon, as I am now the proud owner of 300 tubes... I recently had the chance to compare two different types of labels, and will let you know what I thought of both, probably tomorrow.

The reshuffle got me thinking- has anyone out there noticed what works best for them as far as how they organize their Etsy listings or webpage? I'd love any ideas!

Facebook

We finally joined Facebook, so if that's your social network site of choice please stop by! :-)

Scents For Cents listing updated

Just finished updating our Esty Scent Sample listing with all the new fragrances we've added:

- Cedar and Saffron - Cedar combined with smoky scents of patchouli, sandalwood and vetiver, with Eastern spices to give it a kick.
- Earth - Smells like clean, rich, fresh-tilled soil straight from the garden center. (Can you have clean dirt?) It has also been said that this smells like the earth after a good rain. 
- Eucalyptus Spearmint - Very fresh and energizing! Very true to the real Eucalyptus and Spearmint essential oils, with nothing added.
- Fresh Cut Grass - Smells like fresh cut and watered grass in spring. (It makes us think of spring because it has a hint more sweetness than some Grass fragrances.)
- Kentish Rain - A rainy, salty, "green" fragrance with added notes of muguet lily, rose and jasmine, and a touch of violet. This fragrance definitely makes you think of rain by the ocean! 
- Lettuce - Crisp, clean, and very green, like a well-tended bed of romaine or iceberg lettuce. No, you won't smell like a salad- this is a very refreshing unisex fragrance.
- Mocha - A deep rich combination of coffee and chocolate. Not as sweet as some mocha blends.
- Spiced Mahogany - A deep, rich, "woody" scent featuring Patchouli, Cedarwood, and Oakmoss. Spicy notes of Cardamom, Vanilla Bourbon and allspice round out this fragrance.
- Sweet Pea - Very floral and sweet. Just like the real thing!
- Tangerine Tulip - This fragrance is popular in shampoos and conditioners because it is a fruity floral with more depth than sweetness. The tangerine notes are tart, just like the real thing, and the Tulip notes are rich. A very well-balanced fragrance.
- Wasabi - Sweet when you first smell it, this scent then takes on a clean and spicy fragrance. It’s completely unique, with notes of eucalyptus, ginger, peppermint, and thyme. Everyone who has smelled this so far has said “Wait, let me smell that again!” or “What a fun fragrance! It has a definite kick to it!” 
- Woodberry - Woodberry has notes of fresh air, spicy blondewood, moss and mixed berries. A winter forest scent *without* any pine or evergreen notes.

I also got smart and put spaces in between the sections of fragrances in alphabetical order. I hope that makes it easier to navigate around the listing and see what you've already tried. :-)

COMING SOON: A new listing with all of our essential oils available to sample on test strips!

Centering your webpage when you've got a full size background

I just finished fixing our website so that when your browser isn't fullscreen, it will still look nice, and not all smooshed to the left side of the screen. My eyes are so crossed right now...

Here's a link to the page that I found the most helpful in my quest to center my poor webpage:
http://simplebits.com/notebook/2004/09/08/centering/

It looks perfect on our resolution of 1024x768, but I don't dare check it out on any other resolution... that might mean more coding! *gasp!* I got out of the web design business 10+ years ago, so I am completely out of date with my HTML skills. (I'm glad I chose soap as a business instead. It's stayed relatively the same for how many thousands of years? *lol*)

Note to self: when you're done uploading your changes, hit F5 before you freak out because they don't seem to have taken effect. No, just hitting 'refresh' won't always do it... I didn't think the last bit of coding I tried worked so I was ready to start all over again with another piece of coding, but then I heard my I.T. brother's voice in my head: "Diiiiid you hiiiiit F-fiiiiiiive?" (You know when Luke is stranded on Hoth and he sees Obi-Wan and Obi-Wan says "Uuuuuuuse the foooorce, Luke..."? Like that.) I've learned the whole "have you tried turning it off and then on again?" thing, now I just need to get that drilled into my brain. ;-)

Finally on Etsy!

Well, I JUST finished opening our Etsy store and listing our first item. Aaaaand, I wasn't wearing my glasses, so now everything is blurry. *l* This evening I have a lotion order to complete, but tomorrow I'll work on listing the rest of the soap and lotion that we have for sale. :-) And I'll wear my glasses this time.

Site update

I've spent yesterday and today completely revamping our website, and tomorrow and for the weekend I'm going to be working on updating the products page to include our new soaps and a page for lotion and lip balm, which we make to order. I'm also updating the FAQ, since it was previously geared to soap and now we're making other products (and people have had a lot of questions!). After that it will hopefully be maintenance- keeping the scents and sizes in order, that sort of thing. :-)

Soap roundup

Today I've been working on taking stock of the soap we've made over the past few weeks, and thought I'd share a photo of a couple of the ones people have been loving so far. One lady mentioned that she hung on to her Spiced Apple-Pear butterfly for a few days because at first she thought it was just too cute to use!

Okay, I know you can't smell them, but these recent soaps are scented with Jasmine, and two lovely "soapy" scents- Crystal Blue (an herbal/oceany scent that I have been saving for a while) and Fresh Air (an ozone/fresh scent). All very "mmmmm!" inducing. ;-)

My main goal was to make soap today, but I found that I was just about half an ounce short of the amount of yogurt I needed! I thought I'd have to be patient until tomorrow, but my brothers are rescuing me by stopping to grab some yogurt this afternoon. Two tubs of it- "one for eating, and one for soap", as my older brother said. Thank you, guys!

I also wanted to let everyone know that sometime within the next week I'll be updating our site to include all the recent stock we've made, and adding a full page dedicated to the "made to order" products that we provide- lotion, lip balm, etc. Second, in the near future, we will me making a more detailed Yogurt Soap tutorial and posting it here. We noticed that a lot of people are browsing our last entry about our experiences with yogurt soapmaking, and wanted to give them a bit more info in case they wanted to try it themselves. :-)

Site update

I double-checked everything on the site today, including the shipping weights for the soaps. Check it out, and remember- for the time being, all orders over $25 receive free shipping! (Just remember to choose the "Free shipping" option when you pay using PayPal. :D )

Site update

Finished with the main website, now all I have to do is add products and descriptions!

I also double checked to see if the links work. Have fun browsing!

Product update - unscented Cocoa Butter soap

100% Natural Cocoa Butter soap finished month-long cure- read description and place order here!