Soapdeli- May's Featured Shop

Everyone month Stick Owlie will be featuring one artist to feature in a blog post. To enter please leave your comments under the "Be Featured" posting. Each winner will be featured and promoted for one month. All winners are randomly chosen. Lets get to know our fellow artists!


1. Name and where you are from? My name is Rebecca and I was born and raised in the Roanoke Valley surrounded by the Blue Ridge Mountains. Flat land scares me because I've had the comfort and protection of the mountains for so long. I couldn't imagine living anywhere without mountains or at least tall building.2. How long have you been making soap? I've been making soap since I founded my business in February 2001. I started out making melt and pour soaps but then progressed to cold process soap which I make almost exclusively now.
3. What inspired you to make soap? I had problem skin and commercial soap only exacerbated the problem making my dry skin even drier and often times breaking it out. So I turned to handmade cold process soap which helped immensely with the problem. After buying them for some time I decided to research soapmaking and give a try at making my own. Things simply progressed from that point.
4. What are some of your favorite soaps? I love soaps that have a fruity scent and are filled with anything scrubby! One of my favorites though is my Exfolimint (tm) Peppermint Foot Soap because it's like a pumice stone on crack and does wonders for the rough soles of my feet.
5. How do you come up with new ideas for your product? I research top new scenting trends and take note of many of the scents around me. My favorites are often brought to life in a new shea butter soap or goat milk lotion, though I do have some regular scents I make for customers like the florals.
6. How is your shop different from every other soap selling Etsy shop? I care about every customer. If a customer isn't happy, I want to know. I never hesitate to send out a replacement product if a buyer isn't happy with the scent he or she purchased. Buying scented products online is hard because as of yet, computer monitors lack smell-o-vision.
7. Do you sell on any other sites? If so what sites I recently opened up my own shop. It offers the largest selection and the best prices on shipping. You can find it at shop.soapdelicatessen.com I am slowly making the transition to selling almost solely on my own website with just a few samplings of items on etsy for new customers who might find me there.
8. What are some of your favorite Etsy shops? Tiny Fig for sure. Her winking toast makes me incredibly happy and I love the mustache t-shirt I bought from her. I also love the teas from Tea for All Reasons, the handmade polymer clay pendants from Zuda Gay, Spiderbite's journals, and the artwork of Jessica Doyle. There are many many others I love as well and have purchased from since I found Etsy in beta back in 2005.
9. What are some of your other creative talents? I was a fine arts major in college so I've dabbled in a bit of everything. I hate product photography with a passion, but I do love portrait photography. I can also paint with oils, watercolors, and acrylics. I am in love with pastel chalk. I've also done some writing, screen printing, pottery, and 3-D design along with studying up on art history.
10. Describe your soap in one word. Cozy.

What's your soap choice?

Money Mondays!

Link Up your Etsy Stores, Shop Websites, Photography Sites, ect. Please remember to keep it family friendly. Explicit Sites will be removed. Let's all have some fun, promote our own businesses and check out every one else!

Click on the link below to get started!
http://themisplacedmidwesterner.blogspot.com/2011/05/money-mondays-week-18-in-2011.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+blogspot%2Fmidwest+%28The+Misplaced+Midwesterner%29

Be Featured!

If you would like to be featured on my blog please post your shop info below. I will pick one random artist each month to be featured on Stick Owlie's blog. I will contact you for an interview for my blog. I will feature your shop and promote you through Stick Owlie's FB and Twitter for 1 month. If you're interested please don't forget to include your contact info!!

What Helps With Sales?

I always have so many ideas and not enough hours in a day to fulfil everything I want to get accomplished. How do other sellers manage to keep adding new items to their stores? Crafting full time would be a dream for me, right now I fit it in between a full-time job.

Do BNR's really help with sales?
Do contests help with promoting your shop?
Does posting in forums help create exposure?

I would like to hear some thoughts on these topics or any other ideas you may have!

Random Owl Facts

I decided one day that I wanted to learn more about these lovely birds. There is an owl that lives in a tree behind my house.......you can hear him/her hooting, but you never see the owl!

• An owl can hear a mouse 60 feet away.
• All owl eggs are white.
• An owl has three sets of eyelids.
• Owls cannot move their eyeballs.
• An owl can turn its face upside down.
• An owl can swing its head around and look behind its back.
• Owls live on every continent except Antarctica.
• An owl can open and close its ears
• An owl’s coat is made of thousands of feathers.
• Owls use many different sounds to communicate
• There are about 220 species of owls.
  Owls belong to a group of birds that includes about 220 species. These species are sorted into two basic groups, the barn owls and the true owls.
• Barn owls have a heart-shaped face, long legs and powerful talons. Barn owls are medium-sized birds with a wingspan of about 3½ feet. There are 16 species of barn owls, including the greater sooty owl, Australasian grass owl, ashy-faced owl, barn owl and Sulawesi owl.
  True owls are more diverse than barn owls, with more than 200 species in about 23 genera. Some better known true owls include screech owls, horned owls and saw-whet owls. True owls vary in size from the tiny elf owl to the bulky Eurasian eagle owl. True owls have a round facial disc, a short tail and a large head. Their color is muted (consisting of mostly brown, rust, gray, white and black) and their pattern is mottled, helping to conceal them from both predators and prey.
  Owls are predators.
  Owls feed on a wide variety of prey. Their main food source consists of small mammals such as mice, squirrels, voles and rabbits. They also supplement their diet by feeding on birds, insects and reptiles. Owls cannot chew their prey since, like all birds, they do not have teeth. Instead, they swallow small prey whole. They must tear larger prey into small pieces before swallowing. They later regurgitate pellets of indigestible material such as bone, fur and feathers.
  Most owls are nocturnal.
  Most owls hunt at night and in doing so avoid competition with daytime avian hunters such as hawks and eagles. Although nocturnal feeding is the norm for most owls, some species such as burrowing owls and short-eared owls feed during the day. Still other species, such as pygmy owls, feed at dusk or dawn.
  Owls' eyes are fixed in their sockets.
  Owls are unable to move their eyes within their sockets to a great extent, which means they must turn their entire head to see in a different direction. Because owls have forward-facing eyes, they have well-developed binocular vision.
  Many species of owls have special flight feathers adapted for silent flight.
  Owls have developed special feather adaptations that enable them to minimize the sound made when flapping their wings. For instance, the leading edges of their primary feathers have a stiff fringes that reduces noise while the trailing edge of their primaries have soft fringes that helps to reduce turbulence. Downy feathers cover the surfaces of the wing to further reduce sound.
  Owls have long been a part of human folklore and legend.
  Owls are depicted in cave paintings in France that date back 15,000 to 20,000 years. Owls also are used in Egyptian hieroglyphics. They have held a variety of symbolic roles in culture and have represented misfortune, death, prosperity, and wisdom.
   The tufts of feathers atop some owl's heads, referred to as 'ear tufts' are for display only.
  Owls' ears are located on the facial disc behind the eyes and are concealed by feathers. Owls have an acute sense of hearing that helps them locate and capture prey. In some species, the ears are located asymmetrically on either side of the facial disc to enhance their ability to pinpoint the origin of the sounds they hear by sensing the minute difference in the time that sound reaches each ear.
  Owls have strong feet like raptors, with two forward-facing toes and two backward-facing toes.
  The structure of an owl's foot is referred to as zygodactyl, which means that tow of the toes face forward while two face backward. This arrangement enables the owls to capture and grasp prey with greater ease. Sometimes, the third toe can be rotated forward into a position occasionally used for perching.
  Owls have a long, hooked bill.
  In many species, the bill is partly concealed by feathers so it appears smaller than it actually is. Owls use their sharp bill to tear their food.
  Owls do more than just hoot—they create many different vocalizations.
  Owls create a wide variety of sounds or vocalisations. The familiar hoot is usually a territorial declaration, though not all species are able to hoot. Other sounds owls might make include screeches, hisses, and screams. Owl vocalizations are loud and low-pitched. Their cries travel well through the night air, enabling them to locate mates and declare territories despite the darkness.

http://animals.about.com/od/owl1/a/tenthingsowls.htm

One Stop Pattern Shop

I thought a lot of these patterns were easy to follow and what could be better than FREE??
http://knittingpatterncentral.com/directory/animals.php

New Ideas

Does anyone find it's hard to come up with new ideas?? How do some people gather ideas?

When I come up with an idea I write it down and than try to draw it out. I'm always looking for different fabrics, buttons and yarn to make Stick Owlie different and unique. I also read a lot online and gather craft magazines. Sometimes I still feel like some of my ideas are dead in the water. Knitting can be a slow process, which for some who want it done quickly can be boring. There is a lot of work that goes into knitting - the pattern, yarn, needles and time. Sewing it seems you get your project completed quicker. With knitting I'm happy to get a few rows completed! I still believe it's not how long the project takes you, but how your end product comes out. The smaller less complex project will complete a lot quicker in both the knitting world and sewing world.