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dang!  I've been so busy trying to prep for the Inman Park Festival that I totally neglected the promotion of it.  Also, yesterday, instead of making sugar scrub - which I will be doing immediately upon finishing this post - I made my first ever bath bombs.  One turned out great.  The first batch got too wet inciting a premature chemical reaction and thus puffed up like big marshmallows instead of drying and hardening.  The second batch turned out pretty well, except for that the two halves wouldn't stick together so they're all domes rather than spheres.  

On a sad note, my vinyl decal of the sudstress logo was never made by someone I will never attempt to order from again, so I will not have it for this festival.  On a happy note, that means that one lucky etsy seller will get a custom order from me!  I'm sure that will make their day ;)

You should be getting two things out of this post:  

1. If you live in the Atlanta area, please visit my booth at the Inman Park Festival this Saturday and/or Sunday.  The weather is supposed to be perfect.  Also, it will make up for the tumbleweeds that have been blowing through my etsy shop this week.

2. My first batch of bath bombs shall be known from here on out as 'stay puff lavender'.  I would like to post a picture with funny commentary written in, but that requires time taking, uploading and editing pictures for which I have none today.  I promise to post Monday or Tuesday with those pictures, however.  

I feel bad writing without visual representation, so here are a couple of my new packaging, professionally designed and printed.  w00t!

honorable mentions

This has been a really good week for me regarding soap.  I made it to the front page of etsy twice and one of those times was chosen by an etsy administrator, which feels really special.  I also surpassed my goal of 30 etsy sales this month (have since readjusted goal to 50), shoreline was featured in a treasury by dennis anderson of anderson soap company and two of my favorite soapies were featured by Joanna of the soap bar.  Let me tell you a bit more about dennis and joanna.

Dennis Anderson is one of my inspirations not only because he makes such beautiful product, but also after reading about him in the recurring storque article "Quit Your Day Job", it gives me hope that one day I too can quit my day (or night as the case may be) job.  The original article is what inspired me and just now, looking for the link, I found the follow up article!  I recently joined the etsy SAFE team, of which I am still a provisional member and have learned a little more about his personality through the forums.  He seems bold and hilarious and if there was ever a doubt that this guy is a complete bad ass, it is forever erased.

Joanna has created a blog called the soap bar that is tremendously successful.  In fact, I would guess that almost half of my blog hits come from the link on her site.  I believe her site is so popular because she is passionate about handmade soap and for every person who sells soap, there must be 1,000 who make it as a hobby and can't get enough soap porn.  On Joanna's site, you can find the best soap porn all in one place.  I can't say enough how awesome it is to be featured in one of her blog posts.  

It is truly an honor that my soaps have even received a second glance by these people and I really appreciate the chance for exposure because of them.  I hope I don't sound ass kissy, it's just that this comes at a time when I was starting to feel a bit hopeless and wonder how I'd ever make it out of an industry that is getting more and more dangerous and moving closer and closer to my place of employment.  I feel lucky and aim to replace fear with hope, which is just what this week in soap has done for me.

Etsy Front Page. Part 4.

Another one, w00t!  I feel like I'm starting a collection.  This is now the fifth (?) soap of mine to be featured on the front page of etsy.  WOO HOO!!!

springtime for neko

My kitty Neko is so damn cute, but I always have trouble taking his picture because he's black and doesn't stay still.  Of course trying to take pictures of him rolling around in catnip probably requires more light.  This first one is my favorite, but I wish I'd gotten his whole other paw in the frame.  He's so cute in the second and third that I just had to post them.  He's a bit of a panther. 

Spring time!  I love the water in this one, but the geese were so dark.  I photoshopped them lighter, but it's so obvious.  Maybe geese shadows would've been better.

Better lighting on the geese, but this picture kinda bores me...

I thought this picture would blow, but I kind of like it.  Swim little guy, swiiiiiim.  To the trees!  This one has a bit of an antiqued feel to it.  I wish I could frame it in a viewfinder type of thing.  I almost never like the same picture viewing it on my LCD display after seeing it on my computer.  It's not quite as instant feedback as I'd like, so I'm still perplexed trying to find the right settings for the right situations. 

I always favor macro.  

The Fam.  I need to rotate the original a bit to straighten out the trees and re-crop.  I wish I'd used a larger pixel count for this one.  I set them smaller on my camera so I could take tons and tons of pictures without carrying spare memory around with me.  I think the turtles would be sharper and I could play with the picture more.

Etsy Front Page. Part 3.

Woo Hoo!  For a while, the only one of my soaps that was in treasuries making it to the front page was the healing waters spa bar.  Now there have been four - blue sugar (as seen above), healing waters spa bar, cloud 9 and swirled sandalwood.  I have a screenshot of the swirled sandalwood one, but I can't find it right now...  Happy Easter :)

gentle giant

gentle giant

I took pictures of Neko today.  I pretty much try the tv (shutter speed priority) setting, the av (aperture priority) setting and manual settings for every subject.  I like the composition of this picture, but it was really difficult to get a sharp focus since I don't have a tripod and have to put the aperture at about 3 seconds because he's so dark.  Fortunately he didn't move around too much.  

I adjusted the midtone levels mostly, made the hue a bit more yellow and decreased the saturation a tinge.  He's such a gentle giant and I wonder if that comes through in this picture.   I love his little beard.  Of course it will never look spectacular if the focus is a bit blurry.  

something blue, nocturnal roots

I'm starting a new recurring post topic, that is photo of the day.  I'm using this as a way to track my improvement in the realms of creativity, composition, lighting, technical abilities, etc.  Also, it gives me an avenue to receive feedback and a sense of obligation to upload, edit and post.  I welcome and encourage all constructive feedback.  For my first post, I'm starting with two.  So, without further ado...

something blue  

This is a Fenner/Dunlop tire factory that has recently stopped production and is scheduled to be destroyed and mixed use buildings built upon the property.  It was a windy day, even with a few snow flurries (in Atlanta!)  I didn't do much to this in photoshop.  I adjusted the levels and the hue to bring out the rust.  I'm thinking about erasing that power line in the upper left corner.

nocturnal roots

I went grocery shopping at the farmer's market tonight and when I came out I saw this awesome tree lit by a parking lot lamp.  Originally, I thought the branches were the real subject, and they were, only it was their shadows on the concrete.  They appear to grow and spread.  I tooled around with contrast, hue and saturation trying to find what I liked best.  Currently I favor black and white or minimally pigmented with one concentrated spot of more intense color.  My main problem is figuring how to eliminate the grain.  I still think it looks cool.

..but first, a bee!

First, a bee!


Continuing with my great week, this past Thursday I got to see Neko Case on the second stop of her tour for Middle Cyclone.  She has been one of my absolute favorite artists since I first discovered her on an episode of Austin City Limits with Roseanne Cash a handful of years ago.  She has a haunting, one in a million voice and she's mesmerizing to watch and is captivatingly beautiful.  It's surprising how many people have never heard of her.  

She and her band seemed a little nervous about playing the new material, maybe because the album was more heavily produced than usual (not in a bad way) or perhaps because it was only the beginning of the tour and still fresh in the live-performance-of-new-material-learning-curve.  Either way, it sounded fantastic.  Even if they were not heavily rehearsed, with such talent, it's really hard to suck no matter how new the material.  I went with my friend and neighbor Skotdog (a.k.a. smfc) who brought his manties to throw upon the stage but alas, forgot to pin his name and phone number in the waist band and therefore remained in his pocket.  I have photographic evidence of this...  Fortunately, due to the beer in my bloodstream, his 6' something frame was my makeshift tripod.  I'm still learning the functions of my camera, so experimenting got me a few great results.  I regretted not bringing my camera to see Ryan Adams (was still bitter about his engagement to stupid Mandy Moore) and was not going to make the same mistake with Neko.

Also, Favorite happens to be one of my favorite songs and though I don't normally yell songs out at shows, I did say quite loudly "I would like to hear Favorite", which I did hear during the encore.  Woo!

Behold:

Welcome To Nashville.

It's been a great week, especially after rounding out last week by catching that nasty cold that sneaks up on you.  Thanks to those who took me into the triple digit sales on etsy, including my brother who doesn't seem to know that he gets soap for free what with bein' family and all.  I came home from my 24 hour trip to Nashville to find myself at 99 sales.  What?  I didn't tell you about Nashville?  Oh, my bad.  I went to Nashville.

In the continuing saga that is my long distance relationship with Peter, I drove up to Nashville to meet him (and his 8 passengers) during his 3 week trip working as a tour guide.  Also, I got to meet my wonderful blog friend Holly, who gave me the "Holly's Nashville" tour.  I was so excited to meet her and had so little time that I just sort of ran off at the mouth, nonstop.  I was also so excited to see Peter that I had to crawl through the trunk to get my keys after a narrowly avoided keys-locked-in-car-hanging-from-the-ignition scenario.  Sometimes I'm easily distracted...

Before I post the rest of the pictures, I'd like to explain that Peter grows a beard semi-annually and then shaves it off after the Yukon Quest every year in a tradition known as "fun with shaving".  This year he shaved it into an I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE kind of mustache and kept it on until I got to see it in person.  It cracked me up but I got used to it pretty quickly.  He says he misses it.   Also, I'm learning how to do photography at night...

heartbeat of the city

hill billy grill

blue moon on a red brick wall

I DRINK YOUR MILKSHAKE!

Nashville by Night

great smokies