Sending You Elsewhere

Time continues to move forward, pushing us along with it

by Veronica on March 25, 2015

in Sending You Elsewhere

Rainbow Soap

Two weeks ago I changed the name on my Sleepless Nights facebook page. Today I requested it be merged into my Veronica Foale Essentials page.

It was time. I knew it was time and yet, I’m still a little sad about it.

As business decisions go, it’s a smart move. Merge my social media profiles, streamline any time spent updating pages, consolidate my fan base.

As someone who has spent nearly eight years writing here, it was a big move. It’s sad to make the change from Sleepless Nights branding to Veronica Foale Essential branding. It’s a new chapter, sure, but a new chapter means the old one finishes.

Which leaves this space.

Honestly, I’m not ready to give it up. Not yet, I don’t think.

Sure, it’s going to be all soap from now until forever (probably) but there you go. It is what it is. My children are growing up – even if one of them is curled up in bed next to me right now after a Nap Of Doom, stroking my arm and demanding I make her milk “hotter, I needa it HOTTER!”

Life moves on, we grow up, grow older, change. Things change.

It’s not a bad thing.

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And the business is live!

by Veronica on September 12, 2014

in Sending You Elsewhere, Soapmaking

800px-WhiteBG

It’s finally here! The shop is open and launched and I am so very excited.

Head on over and buy some soap!

Giveaway:

As a bonus, everyone who buys soap in the next two weeks gets entered into the draw to win an amazing gift pack:

Gift Basket

Contains:

Chilli Lime Chocolate Block
Salted Caramel Chocolate
Torched Macadamia Chocolate
Dark Chocolate Fudge
Mocha Fudge
Apricot Almond Fudge
After Dinner Mint Fudge
Raspberry Fudge

Lily and Ginger Candles – Coffee Date
Lily and Ginger Candles – Almost Spring
Lily and Ginger Candles – Black Forest
Lily and Ginger Candles – Fondue for Two

Exfoliating Foot Soap
Orange Blossom and Calendula Soap
Lemon Meringue Pie Soap
Cardamom Teakwood Soap
Roses all the way Soap
Woods and Bitter Coffee Soap
Skin Lover Soap
Shea Butter Soap
Chocolate Lip Balm
Vanilla Lip Balm
Strawberry Lip Gloss

RRP $140

Thank you so much to Lily and Ginger Candles, and The Fudge A’Fare for being involved and supporting our launch!

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All the possibilities: Supporting the community which supports me

by Veronica on June 14, 2014

in Sending You Elsewhere

Look, I only support Pozibles when I think the rewards are cool enough to warrant my money. I look at it as pre-buying something, rather than donating. It’s not a charity, right?

Which is why I’ve been so happy to see cool Pozibles popping up lately.

This one is from my friend Sallyanne who is a professional balloonist, a single mother of three girls (one with serious complex disabilities) and a fantastic lady. And she’s offering you awesome rewards so she can get to a ballooning conference, which sounds like she might be trying to run away somewhere, but I don’t think so.

If you’re interested in a children’s entertainer for a birthday party or event, or a bouquet of balloon flowers, or a freaking jet pack, you really ought to check out her pozible.

Sallyanne is also my friend and she’s supported me while Eve was in hospital, being all around awesome. I feel like the least we can do is support her now. And receive SUPER AWESOME things in return.

Sallyanne Pozible

—

Speaking of super awesome things, you know who else is running a Pozible at the moment? Frogpondsrock. She’s met her goal, but with every dollar over, it takes the pressure off the travel costs she’s already paid.

Plus, it might allow her to do some cool things like see Lake Ballard at dawn, and buy fripperies like super powerful sunscreen so she doesn’t fry in the Kalgoorlie sunshine.

If you’d like to Pozible up a pledge, it’s basically like preordering her ceramic art, only it’s wholesale prices, not gallery prices, so you really can’t lose.

Also available are family workshops and corporate workshops – the former is great for birthday parties also, and the latter is a good way to make your work colleagues get dirty in the name of art.

Kim Pozible

So my lovely friends, if you’ve got a spare dollar or three hundred, there are things up for grabs you might otherwise not get at such good prices.

Go forth! Support!

 

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Adding a third child was expensive. But good.

by Veronica on April 25, 2014

in Sending You Elsewhere

So what happens when you have a third child and need to tote third childy things everywhere? You get a new car. Which is what we did, twelve months ago. A bigger car. More seats, more room, more trouble if the amount I’ve spent at the mechanic lately is anything to go by.

A third child brings a lot more into a house.

A lot more love. A lot more chaos. A lot more time needed to keep things running.

And it’s the little things that are hard, like financing a new (second-hand) car. Not the fact I can never shower alone anymore, or naptimes are filled with all the things I can’t do with an almost 2yo in tow.

I wrote about loans this week for Money Circle. Which is mostly about how loans are complicated and frustrating and probably not as good as being able to pay for things outright.

This is the point of starting the soaping business, so one day I hopefully don’t have to pinch pennies and count costs quite so closely. So I can be debt free.

Yeah. Feel free to laugh.

Pipe dream, baby.

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Starting a business, and chocolate lip balm

by Veronica on April 9, 2014

in Sending You Elsewhere, Soapmaking

I made another two lip balms today. One chocolate, using real chocolate, and the other using olive oil.

I wanted to see if the olive oil flavour comes through (it does) and whether I hate it (unconvinced yet). It might be better with a light olive oil, but I’ve only got extra virgin in the house, because that’s what was on special.

The chocolate lip balm however, after quite a bit of tweaking, is delicious. It was quite draggy and heavy after the first recipe and I didn’t like it.

But now? It’s divine.

I’ll post the recipe in a few days once I’ve done some more tweaking. I’d like to try using dark chocolate insted of milk, and cutting out the rice bran oil, which I found a bit heavy. Sunflower oil seems like a better oil for lip balms at this stage, until I can get hold of some apricot kernel oil, or avocado oil for testing.

I was going to use sweet almond oil, but decided being nut free in all my recipes was probably safer. Amy has friends with nut allergies and the last thing I want to do is introduce sweet almond oil into a lip balm and cause a reaction in a child.

Plus, it’s about brand trust isn’t it. If I use nut oils in my soaps/balms, then I rule out a number of people who might buy from me.

So, nut free.

Because I’m heavily in the middle of testing recipes and seriously considering turning soaps and lip balms into a business venture, I wrote about my process of thinking for Money Circle. You should read it. I probably got a bit ranty about poverty, but that’s nothing new.

Coming up tomorrow: Making yogurt from scratch.

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