Love & Marriage

On Monday I had a bride-to-be pick up her 110 Barony soap favours ready for her wedding on Saturday 13th September. A couple of weeks previously Vicki & her mother came out to my workshop to talk over colours, scents and wording of the labels. I think I enjoyed the experience as much as the Bride. I remember for our wedding day we had Dave's sporran made to his specifications by a sporran maker to the stars!!! We visited Marcus Eagleton's workshop and was fascinated by it all. I was really chuffed when I recogised the same buzz from my guests as I showed off my workshop. I think is great to support talented craftsmen and seek out individual items to make you big day extra special.

matching bridesmaids fabric

Lots To Tell

This past week (and a bit) has been very hectic and full of ups and downs. On Monday last week I gave a talk about Barony to Logiealmond WRI. I was asked to be a speaker a few months back and all of a sudden there I was infront of a room full of people (isn't it funny how quickly time passes when you are worried about something). Well, I have to say a huge thank you to eveyone for making me feel at ease. It was a great night and I may have spoken for a bit too long once I got into it. Afterwards we had tea, sandwiches and homemade cakes, lovely. A special thank you to Helen for keeping calm before the talk.

Logiealmond WRI

That weekend, over Friday 5th to Sunday 7th, David and I had a couple of large shows as well as supplying a table for a charity fundraiser in Bridge of Allan.

On Friday 5th I set up shop at the Dundee Flower & Food Festival. It was a bit of a slow day (Fridays usually are at these 3 day shows) but by sheer luck I was placed beside Jo Cound, a photographer friend from Crieff Market. Jo's work is mainly of the natural world. Some of her pictures have appeared on magazine covers and loo roll packaging! Don't tell Dave but I did spend much of the day looking through Jo's stall and chatting away. The picture below is one of my favourites and I've told Dave I'd be very pleased with Santa if I found it under the Christmas tree this year...

Bell Cap by Jo Cound

David tended to the stall in Dundee for the rest of the weekend. I wasn't at Dundee on Sat & Sun, I had a stall at Glamis Game Fair and Countryside Festival at Glamis Castle with 3D/2D. What a great time I had & nearly sold out of all my stock. Now that sounds great but I have a view that if I'm running out of stock then I've not made enough! It's great when I have regular customers come up and say 'I was hoping you'd be at this show'.

To add to this busy weekend we had 'Crafty' friends staying over on the Saturday night. Sean & Gillian are known as Hamilton Taylor and are very talented glass workers. Instead of me telling you all about what they do you can visit their webpage. Sean & Gillian live in Glasgow and it's a bit of a trek for them to drive home and come back to Glamis the next day so we offered them a bed for the night. After a long day at Glamis we all headed off to have dinner out (no way was I able to make a 3 course meal in the middle of a show weekend!) and what a joy it was.

My African Delta trinket box and handmade glass beads by Hamilton Taylor

New Stockist - Jamesfield Organic Farm

Today Jamesfield Organic Farm became our newest stockist. I love Jamesfield Farm Shop, it's got a really cool vibe about it, it's very 'family friendly' which, oddly, gives it a real community centre/local pub buzz about it and it's always busy when I'm there. Then there's the restaurant... it's what I would call relaxed posh! It feels like a treat but not so much that you have to sit up straight and elbows off the table type stuffy. I enjoy watching the adorable little chickens bobbing about out of the restaurant windows. Anyway, here's a photo of the first delivery... soon to be follow by Shower Gels, Liquid Handsoaps, Lip Balms and Bath Bombs.

Loofah Mum & Ladies Who Lunch

Hi all, again I'm going to start a post with... I really should be making soap but...today I had lunch at Gloagburn with Brenda, my lovely Mother-in-law. I have been supplying my soap to Gloagburn for just over a month and already a second order was required. So, to kill two birds with one stone (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it) I delivered my stock and then settled down to a cheese board with oatcakes (Dave's mum had a very tasty bowl of soup). Well, over at the next table was my neighbours-but-one, Isobel & Charles who are great gardeners. Isobel is growing her own loofah plants (we use loofah in all our Foot Scrubbies) and I've been extremely interested in how the little 'uns are doing. When I got home there was a ickle loofah plant on my doorstep! I'm a loofah mum! I will try my hardest to ensure that Mavis (yes, I've named it) is watered, fed and generally made comfortable ('more than what you do for me' says Dave). If all goes well I'll be using Madderty grown loofahs in my soaps. I'll let you know how it goes... fingers crossed.

Mavis the loofah plant

Anyway, I picked up Gloagburn's monthly newsletter on the way out and I was chuffed to bits to see Barony got a little mention in the local produce section. If you click on the photo to see the newsletter larger, we're mentioned in the second last line.

Gloagburn Newsletter Aug '08

New Stockists

I'm really pleased to announce that Barony Soaps can now be purchased at Crieff Hydro Hotel Boutique, Crieff and soon to be at Jamesfield Organic Farm, Abernethy. Vicky, Boutique Manager at Crieff Hydro, sampled some of my soap when I was there two weeks ago. I've Got A Lovely Bar of Coconut is her favourite!

Barony Retail Stands

I was invited to have a stall at the Jamesfield open farm day about a month back and as a result I was asked to fill a display there of approximately 7ft x 7ft (yes, you read correctly). Well, I'm a one man band (with the help of Dave) so at that time I couldn't fulfil this amount as well as continue my monthly markets, bigger shows such as Scone Game Fair and private buyers. A couple of weeks passed and then Julien emailed me to chat about how to get Barony Soap into Jamesfield (again customer and staff were asking for us by name - how great is that?) so after a lovely visit out there this morning we've decided to start with one of the 7ft shelves with 20 different types of our soaps, 6 type of shower gels, bath bombs, lip balms and gift boxes, oh, and our soy wax candles. Phew, that's still a lot of stock. Saturday 30th August is delivery day. From then on we'll be able to slowly add to this range and as Christmas nears... gosh, I have to think start thinking about this years Christmas Range. I'm sure the very popular Three Wise Men gift packs are set to make a comeback.

As Promised...

As Promised... The Workshop

Wrapped & Packed

I told you all on Friday that my task for the day was to wrap and pack all the soap for the weekends stall. Well, here it is...wrapped & packed.

I love the sight of it all ready to go, all neat and in order. This box is holding approx 24kg of fine handmade Barony Soap. We usually take 2 or 3 boxes like this to market, more if it's a large show. This doesn't include all the stall build up stuff (stall table, cordless drill, duck tape, strong clamps, string etc).

I was a delicate little flower before I started having to humf this lot around (who am I kidding?). I probably got a very good training for lifting huge, heavy, ungainly boxes from my time working in the Virgin record store in Perth (oh, my yoof!). A tray-box full of CDs is not so heavy when you just lift it but by the time you have carried it from the stock room, down two flights of stairs, through a shop full of people and deliver it to its destination... now that's heavy. It's much the same with soap. I don't have rock hard biceps but I can fairly tackle a stuck top on a jar of pickles!