My sign is mangled, but my spirit is not

I had this up for all of 2 days.



The Cookie Studio ladies warned me this would happen. There is just no good place to put a sign out by the road. They inevitably get run over. This was supposed to be temporary until I could figure out my best signage option for the street. Oh well, the chalkboard had seen better days anyways. Never to fear, it will not end up in a landfill. I will chop off the legs and make it a table top model. It wouldn't be the only thing in my shop given a new life by a roll of duct tape. I can feel my Grandpa beaming down on me.

So anyways, the store is open. But everyone who comes in the shop has said they couldn't tell, so I obviously I need to fix this stat. This is why I did a soft opening. Calling the sign guy tomorrow.

My fall music is starting to jump out at me during my itunes scrolls. Fleet Foxes. Radiohead. The Strokes first album. The transition from summer to fall is my very favorite time of year, and it breathes new life into me. Except for the ragweed. It's my personal version of Kryptonite.

Pics coming soon of the new shop. I'll be pimping my wares at the East Atlanta Strut this weekend. Looking forward to it, because it's my favorite festival in Atlanta. Oh, and this too:


New Mama products making their debut, complimentary mar-tea-nis from local tea maker Just Add Honey, yummy sweets from The Cookie Studio and swag bags full of goodies for the first 25 customers. Put it on your calendar and more details coming soon!

Come see us at the Grant Park Festival this weekend!

I figured since the Grant Park Summer Shade festival is tomorrow and Sunday, it still isn't too late to post that we have a booth there! We are in booth 35 on Savannah Circle. For more info visit the Summer Shade website.

Oh, and the new shop will be open next week! I decided to do a soft opening so I have a little time to figure out store operations before opening to the masses. The official grand opening is October 3rd, but in the meantime, here's where you can find me running around with my hair on fire:

Mama Bath + Body
743D East College Ave (behind the Cookie Studio)
Decatur, GA 30030
404.377.7800

Shop summer hours: Wednesday thru Friday noon to 6 and Saturday 10 to 4.

Be there or be square.

ICE Re-cap

What a great great weekend. I’m writing this in a very relaxed, very grateful state of mind. It’s not very often you’ll find me like this at the end of a festival. The getting ready wears me out to the point that I usually enter the weekend exhausted, so I’m on the verge of collapse once the weekend is over. Something was different about this one, and though I haven’t quite been able to succinctly define why, I do have some thoughts about the matter.

I’ve been pretty frank about how I feel about doing festivals. But I’m starting to feel a shift in my attitude. Festivals have a lot of the same familiarity that film sets do. You can be in different cities with different crews, but you make fast friends. There’s a “we’re all in this together” comraderie that you don’t get very often in life. And I happen to have chosen two jobs that have brought that into my life. That can’t be an accident.

One of the aspects of my business that has always greatly appealed to me was being a part of my community, and now that I'm out and about in the festival circuit more regularly, I'm feeling that tenfold. It is the best feeling when people come into my booth saying, "Oh, I bought your products at (insert place) and I love them!" Or, "I've heard about your products and I've been wanting to try them." Mama felt invisible for a lot of years because I was so in and out of it. And now that I've put myself and my products out there, I'm loving all of the new connections that I've made with people in the community.

I want to give a big hats off to Christy and Shannon and all of the people that went into making ICE a success. Centennial Park was a fabulous back drop for this show, and it was hot hot hot, but that didn't keep people from coming out in droves. I was really impressed with the vendor line-up. There were a lot of talented crafters and artists who I had never seen, and the ICE crew did a great job of getting them there.

This marks the end of spring festival season for me, and will be my last until the fall. I just found out that I was accepted into Grant Park Summer Shade, which will kick off the fall festival season in August! In the meantime, you can find me at some farmer's markets around town, or you can stop by the store and shop in air conditioned comfort!

Kirkwood update

So I woke up this morning at 6am with the forecast looking the exact same as when I went to bed. I talked to my friend who was going to be in the booth next to me - she had done a risk vs reward assessment and decided not to go. I turned on the weather channel and mulled it over for about an hour. I called another friend who was already there and said there were a lot of vendors setting up. I decided that I would be uptight all day if I didn't go and at least give it a shot, so I got in my car and headed over. The morning was nice, albeit humid, so I was feeling hopeful. I was next to some friends who were keeping up with the forecast throughout the morning, and got the news that storms were rolling in around 1 and were supposed to last all afternoon. They started to break down around noon. Still uncertain, I took a few extraneous things to my car and kept up the mental debate. Around 1:30 the dark clouds rolled in, the skies opened up, and within 10 minutes I had a 3 foot wide river running through the back of my booth, which was jammed full of people trying to wait out the downpour. My gut said to cut my losses and go, so I started making very wet trips to my car. I got soaked, but my products did not, which was what was important to me. It had lightened up a bit as I took the last load, but was still drizzling when I got home. I again looked at the forecast, which had 80 to 100% chance of thunderstorms throughout the rest day. It stopped drizzling around 3 and... IT DIDN'T RAIN ANOTHER DROP ALL DAY. It actually cooled off, and the afternoon turned out to be a lovely one with the sun occasionally peeking out. I heard a lot of people showed up at the festival. I keep telling myself that I made the best decision I could with the information I had, but I'm still feeling a little remorseful. I actually had a pretty good morning sales-wise, even though there weren't that many people out. It was indicative that if it had been a nice day, I probably would have had a really good day. And if I had I stuck it out, it may have been a good day after all. Sigh.

I realize that I'm not a great candidate for festivals. I don't like the unpredictability, and the extreme weather wreaks havoc on my products. I didn't intend for festivals and markets to become the mainstay of my business plan, but they are the low hanging fruit so to speak, so I've crammed my calendar full of them for this year. I thought that I would be able to focus on promoting the retail store and making wholesale contacts in between, (as well as keeping my site updated and sending more marketing emails, blogging more, sending out press releases, etc etc.) but I am a one person shop and I've found that getting ready for festivals is taking up the majority of my long hours. That being said, I've noticed a considerable jump in foot traffic at the store since Inman Park, and I've made some wholesale contacts as well. Most of the festivals and markets I've participated in this year have been wonderfully profitable, but I have had a couple of bad weather days where I came home determined to about-face to a business model that mandates I conduct all of my business in a controlled climate. Immediately. But I made the decision to bootstrap my business for the time being, so I'm doing exactly what I need to be doing. Except for today.

I'm not one for regret, so I'm trying to look at this as a learning experience. This whole thing has gotten me thinking about my process and business in general. I'm usually pretty decisive, and I usually make good decisions. So when I don't, I have the tendency to beat myself up. I need to work on this, because all we have is our intuition and our knowledge of past events, and there's no way to accurately predict the outcome of something. This is the ultimate truth for running a business in general. Most people who do festivals for a living have a "you win some, you lose some" mentality, and I can't say after 6 years of doing this that I've ever been able to get my head around that. And the more I've thought about it, I realized I don't really have that attitude in regards to my business in general either. Not to say making a wrong move should be taken casually, but I know small business owners who accept their mistakes or bad judgment calls with humility and without a lot of mental anguish, and they seem to have happier lives as small business owners. That being said, I have to remind myself that I'm transitioning out of an industry that wasn't very forgiving about bad judgment calls, so I made it a point not to make them. I am realizing now that this was an awfully rigid way to live and doesn't give you much of an opportunity for personal growth. So I'm having some growing pains, but at least I finally feel that I'm going in the right direction. I'm screwing up all over the place, and I'm weathering the storm.

To show or not to show?

That is the question, indeed. I've spent all week gearing up for the Kirkwood Festival, and the inaugural East Lake Farmer's Market, which are both happening tomorrow. This is what weather.com has for me:


Not pretty. So now comes the conundrum, do I go to the show? I've decided to definitely do the market because it's in the morning, when things look a little less sinister. The Kirkwood festival is open for set up at 7 and goes from 10 to 7pm. That is a long day of sitting in off and on thunderstorms. And honestly, who wants to be trapped in a 10 x 10 metal tent when there's the possibility of lightning? My in the know husband, Chuck, explained that the percentage of the chance of storms isn't really a prediction, and is actually based on the last 100 days that had comparable conditions. Right now the percentages are 30 to 50%. Not high enough to make the call tonight, but enough to keep me up worrying about it all night. The deal with festivals is once you're in, you're in, so there's no breaking down until the bitter end unless you want to carry everything out by hand. And that's usually frowned upon.

I really hate not honoring my commitments, so I've been stressing about this all day. But I also know that I have to do what is best for me and my business. I don't want a big sudsy lump of freshly made soap or soggy labels and ruined products. I slaved away this week, working long hours to make everything. I really don't like the thought of losing money, but I loathe the thought of wasting time and losing money. I have orders to fill and 100 other things to do (like update my website with all of my new stuff), and that will be hanging over my surly head while I'm sitting in my soggy booth. I told Chuck I feel like a farmer. I don't like having my finances so dependent on mother nature, and this has made it glaringly obvious that it's time to make the time to expand my business plan so I'm not so reliant on festivals for income.

In the meantime, I've decided to wait and see what the morning brings. I've packed up my car, but I pared down my booth from the usual mini-store that I set up for festivals to my single table farmer's market booth. That way if I have to bail out in a hurry, it won't be a 1 hour + breakdown. I wish I had a crystal ball.

Inman Park this weekend!

We are busy busy gearing up for the Inman Park festival this weekend. The weather is looking good, which is a big relief. This is my first time doing a big 2 day show, so I have no idea what to expect. I've been making soap for 2 weeks straight! As I mentioned in my previous post, we will be premiering a NEW COLLECTION OF SOAPS as well as a NEW PRODUCT! Plus we've got some serious SALES going on, so be sure to stop by!



Unfortunately I'm not sure exactly where my booth will be located, so if you don't stumble into me, feel free to call: 404.808.6900. Click here for more info about the festival, as well as upcoming markets and festivals that Mama is doing.

Mama update

In the effort to become a better blogger, I'm going to start trying to write some short and sweet posts vs the occasional verbose rant. There will be more of those too, just with some other stuff in between.

I'm currently busy busy getting ready for the Inman Park festival which is in 2 weeks!! Times-a-tickin'and I'm up to my elbows in olive oil, making batches and batches of soap. My mom is making the trek from Ohio in a week to help me get ready and then she will be doing the festival with me, which I'm really looking forward to! She has been an amazing source of support and inspiration in my journey with Mama, and I only wish she lived closer to share it with me more often.

I will be premiering a SPECIAL COLLECTION OF SOAPS at Inman that I've been working on for the past few months, as well as a BRAND NEW PRODUCT! You'll have to stop by my booth to find out what it is. In addition to making the goods, I'm working on a plan to freshen up my booth a bit. I have only done the occasional festival for the past couple of years and this year I'll be doing most of the ones who will accept my application, so I decided it was time to funk it up. I just hope I have time to do everything that I want!

I have also have a new scent in the line called Fresh - it's a delightful blend of pink grapefruit, tangerine & lavender, and has been selling like hotcakes at the markets I've been doing.



I will get Fresh online after Inman. The plan was to do it before, but I'm trying to get better about pacing myself and prioritizing.

Also coming up on May 16th, I will be at the Kirkwood Festival. Hope to see you out and about enjoying our hard earned spring! I'm crossing my fingers for great weather...

East Atlanta Strut

I did the East Atlanta Strut today. All I have to say is: Best. Festival. Ever. I have sat at so many festivals wishing something would fall out of sky and hit me on the head, so I would have to go home. This was not one of those festivals. It was a beautiful day. I met some great people. My husband hung out with me all day and we drank beer. Friends stopped by. And I sold more than I ever have at any other festival. Even more than the Strut in 2006, which prior to this one, was my best festival ever.



Chuck and I got so amped up that we were ready to sign a lease on an empty East Atlanta store front.



That was the beer talking - it is something that I've been considering for a while, but now is not the time. However, I did come to the realization that these are my people, and it's great to find your people. I did a festival in Marietta a couple years ago where I sat in the baking sun for 2 days and I don't even think I made my booth fee back. Those were not my people.



Any entrepreneur will tell you that there are many days where you wonder what you're doing and where you're going. This is not one of those days. And I am overwhelmed with gratitude.