Week 10 Accomplishments

Well, after last week and the stuff that didn't get done, I guess I went pretty far in actually accomplishing something.

I got into another unexpected show- Mayfair Festival of the Arts in Allentown. Its May 26-30. I say unexpected because I applied a few years ago and wasn't accepted, then they started a real push toward "fine artists", so I figured I'd never get in. When I got my application this year I decided I'd give it one more try, and if I lost my $25 jury fee- so be it- but I wouldn't apply again. Today I got the acceptance letter!!!!

For those of you who don't know much about the way Art/Craft shows work, many of them are juried. This means you send in pictures or slides and sometimes information on how you make your products, a price list, photos of you making things, etc. Most shows charge a "jury fee"- (I've paid as much as $40) for them to look at your work and decide if you are good enough to get in. This fee is supposed to make their job easier by weeding out people who aren't real solid about participating in the show. Cuz who wants to loose $ by by sending in pictures of bad work, or loose the money if you are accepted but decide not to participate. After you are accepted, then you pay more money (the booth fee) to actually participate in the show, and sometimes a % of your sales on top of that.

This makes the second show that I made a decision to apply to, expecting full well not to get in, and then got accepted to! The other was the Philadelphia Folk Festival- and I was accepted into that one a few weeks ago too. Just one more to go- lets see if I can get a hat trick and get into all three!

Anyway, the other things that got done around here are as follows....

1) I printed flyers and order forms for my upcoming wholesale show. Also got them folded. For once I won't be AT the show folding flyers!

2) Made a ton of Dutch Chocolate soap. I colored it with Cocoa Powder, it came out just beautiful!

3) Made lation bars: 100 lavender, 60 Peppermint, 40 Bug off and 30 Autumn Amber. Got them all labeled and wraped as well. Ran out of containers and ordered more.

4) Ordered a bunch of other supplies, bags, crates, lables, shrink wrap, all that jazz...

5) Got the rough edges off of all the soaps that finished curing this week and are ready to go into storage.

6) Made bath salts and got them labeled and such. Made about 48 before running out of containers. Need to order those now too...

7) Cut up 6 batches of unscented soap. Need to mill it next week.

8) Started talking to two new stores. One is in NY state, the other out near Lancaster, PA. I'll keep you updated on the status of each.