Make It

Skinny Skinny Soap Packaging

Fresh off the presses, via the Coin-Op blog. Eco-friendly soap bands for Skinny Skinny soap company. This company wraps each bar in found papers and then unifies the look with a professionally printed belly band. It's a great example of strong packaging design and a strong brand identity.

Reusing Materials for a Chic Craft Table

Biggs and Featherbelle is a favorite new-to-me soap company run by two sisters in Maryland. I admire so much about this business, from their kicky branding to the hand painted packaging to their embrace of thrift when it comes to display set-ups for fairs. What do I mean? Take a look at the following images, culled from their Flickr account, and see how the same materials pop up over the years in different configurations. The result is always a polished and professional presentation that's easy on their wallets and the planet.

Wooden crates at first craft fair - 2003:

Wooden crates in 2004

Wooden crates, standing up vertically, at left. Square crates at right. 2008

Crates wrapped in brown cloth. 2008

Hopefully this provides some inspiration for how to reuse and rework your current craft table decor to vary up your look without breaking the bank. There are many more photos in the Flickr account where these came from. It's fascinating to see their presentation evolve over time while still remaining very true to their origins.  Check out all their goodies in the Biggs and Featherbelle shop.

Being smart about supplies purchases

I was excited yesterday to get my new soap molds from SaharasSupplies. I've found this Etsy seller to have the best prices on molds, with reasonable shipping prices. For some unknown reason, at every other site I've found, the price of shipping soap molds is nearly the same as the price of the mold itself.

The new molds I ordered, pictured above and to the left, create square 2 oz bars. The molds on the right create rectangular 4 oz bars, these are the ones I've been using for all the soaps I've made so far. I've got two of them and I've been cutting the bars in half to make the 2 oz mini soaps for my shop. Using these molds to make all the soaps has been a cost effective way to get the most bang for my buck, but it's also limited my production. Now that I've introduced the soaps in my shop and gotten a great reception, I felt confident enough to spend the money on more molds to streamline my production process. With my old system, I could only do two batches at a time and then for the mini soaps, I always had to take the extra step to cut the bars in half. With the new molds, I've now doubled the amount of molds and my 2 oz mini soaps will now have a more consistent and professional appearance.

When you think about expanding your business, take a look at the supplies that you already have and think about ways to get maximum usage out of them. After your product has been proven on the market, then consider investing in new materials to increase productivity.