This Week Is Flying Right By

I can’t believe it is Wednesday already! We are a little behind in finalizing the Indiegogo campaign mostly due to my allergies forcing me into bed most of the week.

I have a summertime battle with cottonwoods every year but this year has been especially bad. I’ve really spread myself too thin over the past several weeks and my immune system just gave up. My allergy issue has turned into a full blown respiratory infection and let me tell you… it is NOT fun. I’m sneezing, coughing, having trouble breathing (which is fun on top of my being a mild asthmatic), and I sound like a 90 year old man that’s smoked two packs a day his whole life (its super attractive I’m sure).

I am starting to get a little better thanks to Stud Muffin and Pretty One letting me sleep and trying to not be too taxing on my time. With any luck I will be back to 100% in a few more days and the campaign launch can proceed as planned. If we need to push it back a couple of days I will let y’all know.

On the good news front the campaign looks great thus far. Hopefully it will generate a lot of buzz and publicity. Also in the good news department… THE HAWKS WON THE CUP! All of mothering Illinois is still in celebration mode in spite of the continuing rain and flooding. This morning McHenry County got more than three inches of rain in less than 2 hours, it’s been ugly. The farmers are all overjoyed I’m sure.

That’s it for today. I am off to try and work on the Indiegogo video spot I want to add to the campaign. Hopefully I can spend some solid time on it today before crawling back under the covers to hide and get more rest.

Go Hawks and yay to the Supreme Court getting it right!

It’s Raining, It’s Pouring…

I’ve done lots of snoring… The weather here is still very stormy. That’s a good thing when you consider the drought over the past few years. All of the farmers out here are dancing in their fields and I don’t blame them! Plus with the party over I got to finally take a nap!

Our house warming party was a great success (at least I think it was).  My fabulous Mother-in-law to be gifted us a new blender and a new crock-pot both of which we needed! Our VIP came out for the party as well as did my dear friend Bridget and her brood of awesome kids. Our pups were a little nuts and my mashed potatoes came out terrible, but other than that I would call it a great day! We even busted out Rock Band and Guitar Hero and giggled at all the kids trying to play. The house has definitely been warmed.

Indiegogo is now just one short week away. I am excited and scared at the same time. I am polishing the campaign now in hopes that everything is ready for Monday’s launch! I hope everyone is as excited as we are.

This week will be all about Indiegogo with a very brief break to make our next soap that I think we are going to call Coconut Paradise. It’s going to be awesome! I will also be working on a tester run of lip balms. There will be a Peppermint Lip Balm (Clear) and a Pink Lemonade Lip Balm (Light Shimmer Pink). I’ve made them before with great success so we will see how they sell.

If anyone is interested in helping with the campaign please contact us. We are looking for people to help spread the word and critique the completed campaign. Luckily I have the ability to improve it while the campaign runs!

Thank you again for all of your support in this endeavor! I can’t wait to share all the results with you over the next few weeks!

Coming Soon…

Coming soon to your friendly Indiegogo.com . . . Bathe Happy’s Expansion Campaign!

Today I’d like to talk about some of our goals for this project and where we would like to see Bathe Happy go.

If you don’t know what Indiegogo is, let me first explain Crowdfunding to you. Crowdfunding is a method of raising capital for a business or start up project that gets numerous people involved from all over the world. Basically you put it out there what your project or business is, tell people how much money you realistically need to make it happen with transparency in what the money will go to, and you offer exclusive perks to people to make them want to help.

Success is largely dependent on how much work you put into the campaign and how much help people are willing to offer to share what you are doing. The more work you put in the more you get out of the campaign.

Our goals for the Bathe Happy Campaign are pretty straight forward. Here are some are the most important:

• Start making cold process soaps. CP Soaps are huge business right now and offer a lot of creativity and flexibility and also allow for ease in making truly all natural products.
• Expand into more bath & body products such as body wash, body spray, more scrubs, more custom items (such as wedding/party favors and personalized gift baskets), nail polish (maybe), lip balms, mineral make up, etc. There are tons of stuff I have the knowledge and ability to create but lack the serious funding to get started.
• Join the Handcrafted Soap & Cosmetic Guild
• Attend many more shows and events next year
• Have more professional labels for all of our products
• Purchase the rights to the set of fonts we’ve chosen for our permanent logos and banners to help us be more personalized and stand out from our competition

This is just a brief list. I will go more in depth into a few of them over the next few weeks.

And as a side note, I’m proud to say that we’ve been officially open for one month now and we have made back about 20-25% of our initial investment into starting the company. Not too shabby if I do say so myself!

I hope everyone is having a Happy Wednesday!

Two Weeks Until Indiegogo

Yes two weeks, not one as I’d originally planned. Happy Monday All!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Father’s Day weekend and that all the Dads (and Moms that have to be Dads) had a lovely holiday. We celebrated the day with me sleeping in while Stud Muffin and Pretty One spent some father-daughter time together. They went to breakfast, then grocery shopping, then she kept him company while he installed the second power steering pump in six months on his Jeep and also attempted to slice the top of his finger off. (If the two of them were any more accident prone I swear I’d need anti-anxiety drugs). After that Pretty One and I made stuffed shells, then we all watched The Breakfast Club together, then we went for ice cream, and then for a drive up into Wisconsin and around lake Geneva. It was a very nice day over all.

Our Indiegogo Campaign should be starting on 7/1. I’d originally planned on 6/22 but unfortunately we have a crazy week ahead and had a crazy one last week and I made the executive decision to push it back a week so I can give it my full attention. We need the Campaign to be successful if we are going to be able to start Cold Process Soaping and launch other products this year.

I really look forward to sharing all the details with y’all as we get closer. There are going to be some great perks for those who contribute! There will be T-shirts, Soaps, Washcloths, Body Scrubs, Gift Cards, Discount Offers and all sorts of other Swag! PLUS if we reach or surpass our goal we will have a ton of new products out just in time for the holidays.

That’s all for today! I am off to get some cleaning done and work on a quote for a large custom order for our big-shot customer to give out as gifts. There will be more on that in coming weeks as well!

I hope everyone has a Happy week!