Soap Business Coming Along

I am really coming along with my soap business. I can't believe it! I really felt like it was just another nice dream, but I really am going to have my own small business making and selling soaps. I am so excited. I was not aware however, how time consuming it would be! I read once that making the actual soap should only be 10% of your time. The other 90% is working on the business, marketing, etc. I wish making soap was 100% of the time, but it is a business so I have to sell it too!

I have my Washington state business license and a reseller's permit. I've applied for a city of Tacoma business license and a home based business permit. I got samples of packaging materials, picked out what I want to use, and ordered them. I have worked on my Etsy listings so I can open my shop when I am ready. I need to get insurance, make lots more soap, and take lots of good photos for the listings. I still have a lot to do, but I am making so much progress. I am pretty proud of myself for sticking to this. It's scary opening a business and putting money into it. It's risky since the market is completive. I want to do it though, so I am putting 100% into it. 

It's late and time for bed. Good night! :)

Soap and a Prayer

Last August I started making soaps as I thought it sounded like fun and eventually I wanted to start a soap making business. You can't really open a business unless you know how to make the soap, and it's quite a process making them, so you can't be too impatient. I allow my soap to cure for 6 weeks so it takes a while for me to even test the finished product. I make all my soap with lye so I also have to test it when I unmold it to make sure the ph is in a good range. I haven't had a bad ph batch yet, so that's good!

Lately I have been stocking up supplies and things for opening a business. I have now made 3 loafs of soap and plan to make more. It's not the easiest thing when you have a little one to take care of. I can do a lot of the soap making, like getting the oils ready and things like that while watching Emily. Once I have to pull out the lye I make sure there is someone else watching Emily. I've made soap when my grandma is over playing with her, which is perfect! 

On Monday I made my first big step and am finally committing to my goal of opening my own soap making business and becoming a master soap maker! I applied for my WA business license and I have been waiting for their approval - approx. 5 business days, so I can go get a business license in my city. Once I get these things, I will get insurance which is the biggest cost of them all. Luckily the licenses are fairly cheap, especially because I am getting a 12k or less in revenues license. I can dream big, but I am going to assume I won't make 12k my first year haha. :) 

I am so excited because I have always hoped for years and years I would find a crafting passion that I could actually turn into a business, and now I finally am. I am jumping all in, because that's just what you have to do!

I'm also adding my faith into my business too, which is awesome because it's a big part of my life. I am calling my business "Soap and a Prayer!" I am still figuring out the logistics of incorporating my religion and everything into my business, along with figuring out how to package, design everything, and more. Either way, I am at the beginning of my journey and I'm excited for the new beginning.

It's Becoming Summer

Here's what we have been up to lately:

Swimming at the YMCA!

Trying out the high chair so she can be in the kitchen while mommy cooks/bakes/eats.

Strawberry picking!

Hiking trails around near our house

Flat Diaper Challenge Results

So about that flat diaper challenge. I did not make it the whole week handwashing diapers. :-/ I felt pretty bad, but on day 4 I had to stop. I never quit on anything, I really try to finish everything I start. But I couldn't get my cooking project done while doing this challenge, and we spent a lot of money on that. So my cooking project came first. On day 4 I had 30 dirty flats and no time to wash/dry, so she went into the fitteds and for my sanitary, and my husband's sanitary, I washed them in the W/D. Looking back at the weekend we had during the challenge, we were hardly home so I'm not even sure what we would have done if we would have ran out of clean diapers while out and about?

3 Months Old!

Cooking Project!

I got 40 pounds of ground beef from Zaycon Fresh on Tuesday. It's Wednesday night and I'm still working with it! :'( It's such a big project to do with a baby. 

So far used this much ground beef:

• 5 pounds for sloppy joes (Wednesday)
• 5 pounds for enchilada meat (Tuesday)
• 5 pounds for spaghetti sauce (Wednesday)
• 10 pounds for taco meat. (Tuesday)

I still need to do:

• 5 more pounds for spaghetti sauce
• 5 pounds of raw (need to package by the pound)
• 5 pounds of browned ground beef

The spaghetti sauce was BY FAR the most time consuming to do because I had to chop up 1 onion and 1 bell pepper per pound - so 5 of each. For the 5 pounds, I had to slice a pound of mushrooms and do 40 garlic cloves. I should really try to chop up more onions/peppers tonight, but I am exhausted and it's already after 9pm. I am really not looking forward to making another 5 pounds of it. I have to make to batches of 2.5 pounds because I don't have a pot big enough for 5 pounds. 

I am already committed to this, so I will deal with it. I have packaged everything in about 1 pound packages as that's about what we eat. We are going to have A TON of meals so I am not sad about that. 3 hard days of work for months of easy meals makes it not so bad at all! :)

Let's pray Emily will actually nap tomorrow for a good nap so I can finish this project up before Jesse gets home tomorrow. That would be a miracle! 

Day 3 - Flats and Handwashing Challenge

Today's question is open topic. I am going to choose this: What are your challenges?

Oh man am I having challenges, but I am not giving up! The last two days have been super rough especially since I am doing another big project - making freezer meals from 40lbs of ground beef. The beef was pick up only this week, so it really didn't make it fun for me. I've been working my butt off the last two days trying to do both of these things. By the time I get to my diapers, my almost 3 month old is fussy, wants to be held, and my husband gets home from a long day of work and wants to relax. Poor husband has helped me out a lot the last few days after work since the cooking project is taking so much of my time. I have been still cooking and needing to bag all my food when he is getting home. How do people other people do this with little babies?! 

Tonight I ran into an issue. Emily pees in her diaper SO much! I have 30 flats and when I went to do the last rinse on my first batch of dirty diapers, I had 1 flat diaper left! I am having to use her GMD fitteds until this batch of 9 diapers dry. I am still handwashing everything, but I just didn't get to them in time. I have washed 9 each day so far, and that is clearly not enough.

Tomorrow I am finishing the cooking project and will probably only have time to do another batch of 9 diapers. On Friday I have no plans so I plan to do all the diapers and actually dry them outside. So far I have only dried them inside because it's been raining, plus it's 9pm when I am putting them up to dry.

Also, my flats are drying super stiff! :( I think it's because they are drying indoors. I have to shake them all around to make them some what soft. I miss my soft flats from the dryer. :(

Day 2 - Flats and Handwashing Challenge

Today's question is: What is in your stash?

Just to let you all know first, I did not buy anything extra for this challenge, so I used what I had. I know some people are using receiving blankets and flour sack towels, but since I already owned a whole stash of flats, that is what we used. I also wasn't going to go out and buy anything since my stash meets the requirements. 

My diapers:

• 30 Green Mountain Diaper Organic Cloth-eez One-Size Flats - $75.00
• 2 Large Hemp Doublers $7.50

My covers:

• 3 Sloomb Wool Covers $144.00
• 1 Disana Wool Cover $29.00
• 1 Imse Vimse PUL cover $18.95 (was given this from a friend)

My accessories:

• Bucket with lid $4.00
• Plunger $1.50
• 1 snappi $4.35
• Rubber Gloves $2.00

The total comes to $286.30. If I was in a situation where I didn't have cloth diapers or much money, I would do the wool covers still, but use upcycled covers or much cheaper ones. I had already purchased these, so that's what I used. Also, my stash of 30 is probably a lot to use for this challenge, but I want to point out that I am planning to use them with our next baby, so I wanted to get a nice rotation of them, plus, newborns go through a TON of wet diapers! Emily has wet diapers every time I check her, even if it's been 5 mins since a change! 

I am trying to do wool full time, but when I started this challenge, Mother's Day was the day before and she got poo on 3 of her covers and I didn't have a chance to wash them until Monday so they were drying and I needed to add a PUL cover for just in case. :)

What is in your stash?


*I'll try to add photos later - I'm currently cooking 40lbs of ground beef and trying to hurry with that while baby sleeps! 

Day 1 - Flats and Handwashing Challenge

Today's questions are: Am I taking the challenge, and if so, why?

Yes! Although I feel like this is a terrible week to do so! The challenge started the day after Mother's Day so the house is a disaster this Monday after our busy weekend out of the house. I already use flats during the day, and with the busy weekend, I had half of my flats stash in the dirty pail this morning!! :( 

The point of this challenge is to show that if someone doesn't have much money to diaper their child and/or a washer and dryer, that it is still possible! Actually, if someone were to do cloth diapering this way, it would be super cheap compared to other cloth diapers or disposables.

The reason I am taking this challenge is for several reasons:

1. If someone tells me they can't afford to CD or they don't have a w/d, I can have the experience to tell them it's possible and show them how, as well as give them good tips from what I learned.
2. I am always nervous about what could happen. I have been without money before and know what it's like to really like as minimally as possible. If for some reason we get into a situation where we have no money and not much stuff, I can still hand wash cloth diapers for way cheaper then any other means of diapering.
3. We are going camping and to a week long girl's camp at a state park. I want to be able to learn how to handwash now so I am prepared when we are in the great outdoors!

Are you taking the challenge? If so, why? :)

Mother's Day

This is my very first Mother's Day! It's been a Mother's Day weekend for sure! I had Emily help me make all the grandmothers and great-grandmothers Mother's Day gifts - Flower pots with her feet/toe prints to create a butterfly, flowers, and a caterpillar.

Painting all the pots white. 

Letting the pots dry!

Getting the area ready for Emily!

Practicing painting her feet. She was super ticklish.

All done - letting them dry.

This one is Nana's.

Bringing them with us Saturday to give to everyone!

We had brunch Saturday morning at my mom's house and then we did dinner at Jesse's mom's house. 

Meme, Grammie, Emily, and Me!

Mommy and Baby Emily!

Our new little family!

Today Jesse made me breakfast - here's him cleaning up afterwards:

After breakfast, we got ready and went to a Catholic mass that I mentioned we would go to. I thought there would be a nursery, but perhaps this specific church did not? So I went in thinking I could give my full attention to the service, but I ended up spending a lot of it holding Emily. Eventually she got a little fussy and I had to move her around, pat her back and after a while she fell asleep. She is like 12 pounds, so she is very heavy after a while of holding her. Besides this, we both really liked the service. I will be prepared next service and probably wrap her before we head in as I can't hold her like that for over an hour. My arm almost fell off after mass. But like I said, we enjoyed the service. Jesse definitely seemed to give his stamp approval. He kept saying "ohhh, I like this." He liked that we prayed over the children before they went to Sunday school and the hymens. He actually liked the up/down aspect as he always has to get up during church and stand in the back as it hurts his back to be on certain chairs. I'm glad he liked it, as I want to find a good place to go and I like the idea of the Catholic church. I am excited to go back next weekend. We also saw a friend couple there too. They normally do 8:30... I doubt we will ever make that mass time at this point. We get up at 7:30 just to get to the 10:30 mass in time. OH! I was so proud of us! We got there 15 minutes early! Last week we were 15 minutes late to church. I love being early, and it seems like such a win to do so with a newborn. 

We had Jimmy Johns for lunch and now Emily and Jesse are taking a little nap. After they wake up we will do something. Jesse keeps asking what I want to do, so I need to figure it out! :) I kind of want to go to a baby boutique store. Hah. I also wanted to go to Macy's. I really want to find some skirts that go just below my knees or mid-calf. Why are they so hard to find?! 

I hope every Mom out there is having a great day! :)