What I've been up to & Projects for next week

I spent yesterday and the day before making and pouring 265 mini lip balms (including a flavor that will be familiar to friends, but hasn't been in the shop yet) and aromatherapy balms!

I have a bulk batch of lotion to make and THREE batches of soap to cut this week. They all turned out so well, but I still get nervous when it comes to cutting them. We're working on a cutting rig that will do the whole block at one time. When we get them cut I'll post pics. :-)

I ordered a bottle of Crisp Apple Rose from Bramble Berry to use in... everything. It's crisp, clean, sweet, light, fresh, fruity, and floral all in one. I'm such a fragrance oil junkie- (maybe I shouldn't say that, it makes me sound like I drink the stuff!) I keep telling myself I have enough, but... then I tell myself that's an awful lie and that you can never have enough fragrance oil. My next fragrance oil purchase will include MMS's Dream (type) Fragrance and Rustic Escentuals' Green Irish Tweed. Both of them are awesome "Well Dressed Man" fragrances! Can't wait to soap with them!

Lip balms coming up next week will involve more Ghirardelli chocolate... I won't say any more about them until the experimenting is done..

Two new releases!

Things have been so busy! I am really excited because we have four new mini lip balm releases, two of which I will show you today:

Raspberry Earl Grey
Have you ever had a cup of Raspberry Earl Grey tea? The peppery, citrusy bergamot somehow doesn't overwhelm the sweetness of the raspberry. It's not a blend you hear of too often, but it works together so perfectly! Think raspberry lemonade, only all grown up. ;-)

Chocolate Raspberry
This lip balm's first ingredient is real Ghirardelli Bittersweet Chocolate! We added Cocoa Butter for extra chocolate flavor, and this lip balm also includes an amazing organic Raspberry flavor oil- together the Chocolate and Raspberry taste like the perfect rich and creamy chocolate raspberry truffle!

There are two more flavors coming during the week! Check back soon!

Drumroll, please!

I am happy to share our two newest additions to the Lip Balm lineup: Pomegranate Peach and Orange Coconut! They were created by Natalia of Across The Verge Marketing Specialists from Marrickville, NSW, Australia. Both have already been a huge hit with friends, family, and customers- I had to save some aside especially for the Etsy shop!

Both are available in Clear, Black, and Oval tubes, as well as the awesome Mini sample size.

Visit the shop to try one!

Fingerless gloves

Well, I was going to post that we finally have a listing for knitted fingerless gloves at our Etsy shop... but someone bought them! When I relist them, I'll update. Keep in mind that a listing for fingerless gloves with a scalloped edge will also be coming soon! :-)

Soaping101's Champagne Bubbles Column Pour technique

I thought I'd share Soaping101's video on the Champagne Bubbles column pour- I thought it looked really easy and I already have an idea to use it for our next project! I hope any soapers out there who see this will try it too!

Enjoy!

Happy 12/12/12!

www.timeanddate.com

See you in 89 years for 1/1/1! ;-)

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.

More Sample sizes coming soon!

The "Earl Grey with a Slice" lip balm samplers have all but vanished, and there are a few more kinds that are completely gone; but don't worry! By next week we will have more tubes in stock and we're going to be working on getting larger numbers of samples in stock, including "Sampler Boxes" of lotion, soap, and fragrance samples. We'll let you know when we have more news! :-)

Items out of stock...

Just a quick note to let you know that the Bergamot Lemongrass Samplers are out of stock (they found homes in Georgia and Singapore) and the Pure Vanilla and Cucumber Melon Lip Balms are out of stock (they found a home in Brazil).

I'll update as soon as they're in stock again! :-)

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).

Waterproof Paper Comparison - Part 2 - OnlineLabels.com

Part 2 - OnlineLabels.com's Matte Weatherproof paper

The biggest "pro" for me was that the colors were dead-on exactly as they looked in Photoshop. Green, Red, Tan. Like I said, I can do color tests all day, but to have them come out right the first try is really nice too! :-) The price for buying these in bulk would also be cheaper than BB's paper- not by much, but it's a consideration when you're starting out.

Now, unfortunately, several "cons"... As you can see, compared to the crispness of the text from BrambleBerry.com's paper, this text looks cool but rather blob-like. It made the small text almost impossible to read (even though I knew what all of it said).

On top of that- see the little nicks and scratches on the label? Those are not intentional... the ink on the paper doesn't soak in, but sits on top. It doesn't take much of a bump to take off the layer of ink and leaves behind a bright shiny white layer beneath. These two sticks in the picture above look pretty abused, but really they've just been sitting in a baggie with other sticks... objects that have no pointy bits shouldn't scratch each other up that bad! Can you imagine how horrible they'd look after a day's jostling in a pocket or purse? Ouch! And worst of all... when you want to take a label up to reposition it a bit- which will happen with pretty much every label- the ink just clumps where it was bent backward and falls off. When this happened I actually yelled "Noooooooo!" like when Vader told Luke he was his father...

I went back and checked to see if I had gotten the right paper for our printer, and indeed I had. It's disappointing that it can look SO good but perform rather badly. It kind of made me wonder if I had gotten paper for the wrong purpose- maybe these labels were supposed to be for something more temporary or stationary (like a bottle that would stay in the shower or cupboard for the most part)?

Well, that's a review of the two kinds of paper I've tried so far! I hope if someone out there finds a brand of label paper they like that they'll share! :-)

Waterproof Paper Comparison - Part 1 - Bramble Berry

I wanted to show you a comparison between two waterproof labels- one from BrambleBerry.com, and one from OnlineLabels.com. They each had pros and cons, so if you're thinking of making the change from plain paper labels to waterproof hopefully this will be helpful. :-)

The labels side by side. On the left, BrambleBerry.com, on the right, OnlineLabels.com

Part One - BrambleBerry.com's Waterproof Label paper

The thing that I really like about Brambleberry's waterproof paper is that the print stays crisp and clear- that was more important to me than anything because I want people to be able to see if there's anything in the product that they may be allergic to or don't want to use. Even the tiny print on the Mini-tubes is clear and readable (even if you've got to grab the magnifying glass.)

The cons are small but worth mentioning- First, the colors aren't true from what they looked like in Photoshop. The two different label styles above are exactly the same colors, believe it or not! It may have to do with the paper itself (maybe how it makes the ink waterproof) or the way the colors translate from the way they look on my monitor to the paper itself ("PEBKAC", they call it. Always something to consider when doing graphic design!).

Does it make the labels look bad? No- when someone buys your product they won't know the color you were aiming for, so that's okay. You'll look at your labels with your critical graphic designer/printer eye, but everyone else will just think they're beautiful. :-)

Would it prevent me from buying these labels? No- I can color test all day if need be to get the colors the way I want them... (and I do that anyway!) and adding a few minutes for print testing is no problem. I learned that it's important to do print tests on the paper you're actually going to use for the labels- these labels were color true to what I wanted when I printed them on regular printer paper, back in the day when I had one sample label sheet and wanted to save it. (Tip: I always have strips of paper left over from sheets of labels- if you stick them well to a plain sheet of paper they can be used for color tests, or printed on to make nice looking "tamper evident" strips for lotions and scrubs, etc. Just make sure you orient them from top-to-bottom rather than side to side... I don't want to be responsible for a major paper jam!)

Second, (which is actually... mostly a "pro") the paper is very thick- not card-stock thick, but noticeably thicker than plain paper, so if your label ends on the curve of a product it'll take a bit of clear packing tape or a dot of glue to make it stick down. If you don't want to deal with sticking the ends down, just make them large enough so the ends overlap slightly. 5 minute fix. :-) Another "pro" worth mentioning is that if your labels' ends slightly overlap, like on a tube of Lip Balm, that paper will be stuck FOREVER. Trust me. After noticing a broken-brain typo on a mini lip balm label I had to remove a couple and they did not go without a fight.

Stay tuned for part two... OnlineLabels.com's Weatherproof paper!

Cucumber [Canteloupe? Honeydew? Watermelon?]

Just finished pouring 18 tubes of Cucumber Melon lip balm (plus samplers) and our kitchen smells delicious! I was wondering though- what kind of melon in Cucumber Melon is it supposed to be? I've tasted ones that were distinctly Honeydewish- this one tastes slightly Watermelonish. It's good. (I wonder if it depends on the supplier you buy from...)

Now I've just got to make labels, photograph them, and get them on the site...