The Congress St. family setting up

Cream and Sugar setting up her vintage wares (we traded some stink for some awesome wooden crates after the show, thanks mlove!)

Portland-based Patti Ceramics

The roaming PICNIC yeti

Pedal Wench

The derby dolls love the craft

Kriya Davis Jewelry was set up with Boom Chick a Boom next door!  I bought one of these.

I wish I’d gotten a better pic of Boom Chick a Boom’s beautimous clothes!  You can kinda sorta see them behind our melt and pour display…

Our cold process display.  Joe bought me a sausage sammy from Skinny Cart BBQ, and then he ate most of it. And then we had words.

Perfumes + creams.  Yeah, the perfumes magically rearranged themselves after an hour!

Zoe and Lucy find friends wherever they go!  Here they are sharing beauty tips with Golden Apple Jr.

And of course, threadwren was our other neighbor.  That’s Liza’s mom, Lucinda, looking terrified.

My friend Daria!  Daria makes and prints clothes out of sustainable fabrics in her Damariscotta studio.  Check out her brand new shop!

Strong Arm Bindery and 43rd Parallel Press, our across-the-walk neighbors

Shara Porter’s display

Closing time!

pineapple lemongrass body lotion by flourishbathbody, $8

sunflower 8×10 photograph by DovieMoon, $20

customizable lemonade stand pdf party supplies by paperandcake, $14.95

vintage yellow beach dress (but i’d wear it as a tunic with jeans) from eleventwentyeight, $26

chai spice mug cozy by knitstorm, $16

cloth picnic napkins by peppermintpinwheels, $15

linen pincushion by namolio, $11

13″ laptop sleeve by sandrastju, $35

berry earrings by vadjutka, $25

orange arch pyrex casserole from faithandfranny, $30

cranberry orange marmalade cold process soap by lotionsandpotions, $4.25

fair isle fingerless mittens by helengraydesigns, $30

smoke no 2-original painting by coolranchstudio, $25

vintage size 10 riding boots from nstylevintage, $48

tan and truffle swallow brooch by avifauna, $14

vice organic emulsifying scrub by gloilocksandbody, $10

So, we’ve decided to stop doing wedding favors for a while.  Possibly forever.  We’ll of course honor any orders that we’ve discussed previously, but we won’t be taking on any new ones.

Why, you ask?  Well, because we’re slowly going insane.  I can’t remember the last time I woke up in the morning and didn’t lie in bed panicking about last minute brides bumping back our already thick stack of queued orders, worrying that somehow one may have slipped through my thoughts until it’s too late.  Our supply orders are always rushed, our retail orders always take a back seat, and my children are constantly told, “not now sweetie, mommy has to get this box packed by 3:oo.”  And what is this life worth?  About .70 a tube, after supply costs and venue fees.

Not that it hasn’t been a blast meeting so many amazing couples and playing a role in their celebrations of love.  Truly, I’ve loved every minute of it.  But, we’ve recognized our moment to call it a day, and we’re happy to take it.

I figure if we finish an order a day, we should be sending out our last orders in early September, at which time our retail shipping times will blow your mind, and shop organization up in this bitch will be god-like.   We’re planning to re-focus our energy on soap, which is what soapers do best.   Expect an actual line of scents, and expect said scents to stay in stock for more than two weeks.  It’s a revelation, I know.

So you’re a bride that didn’t get to us in time, now what?  Don’t freak out.  Seriously.  I know you’re in the habit of freaking out 5 times a day lately, but this is not freakout-worthy.  We’re not the only soapers with label design ability!  Here are some others:

balm favors from shadow090109

balm favors from mudandtwig

if you’re after an exact replica, balm favors from littlebatch

soap favors from rockytopsoapshop

soap favors from dennisanderson

soap favors from elegantroseboutique

Here’s the view from the front of our tent. Yes, the crooked sign made me crazy.  Yes, the unruly flags made me doubly so.

Here’s our display of perfumes, creams, buckwheat pillows, and my friend Liza’s soap savers and chenille cloths.  Really wish I’d had time to make some hooded towels!  Maybe for the next show…

Here’s the lip balm display (after being given what for by the first wave of customers) topped with balm sets, soap dishes, bags of soap scraps, a bowl of blueberry blend lip balms, and a cake stand of naked soaps.

Here’s the table view, with 35 different cold process soap scents, a cold process soap cake (which nobody bought yet again because that would mean breaking up the happy family), and a crate of melt and pour soaps which I added last minute after setting up a test run in the back yard and freaking out about lack of stock.

And here’s the view of all our crap.  Yes, I know the Mt. Dew is lowering my sperm count, and I’m very upset about it.

So, what crap did we bring exactly?  Let’s see if I can remember the run down:

• cash box
• knuckle buster + slips (soooo glad I bought one of these and signed up for propay so I could process credit cards!  it actually saved several customers from having to walk away soapless. it’s only $29.99 a year if you use the link above!)
• bags
• paper towels
• drinks
• food
• chalk
• chalkboard signs
• sales slips
• displays (shelves, wooden crates, bowls, cake stands, soap trays, balm display boxes, perfume riser)
• pop up shelter (10×10′) with sides
• lots of pens
• camera
• business cards
• signage
• folding chairs
• 2 tables (5×3′)
• table cloths (6×8′) + burlap squares cut from landscaping bolts
• tent stakes (although we didn’t realize we hadn’t forgotten them until we were packing up to leave) (awesome)
• knife to cut the soap cake
• naked soap bars for petting and ogling
• phone
• trash bag
• $50 in change
• stock.  forgetting that would have been reeeeally stupid.

What did we forget/wish we’d done differently?

• a printed sign advertising credit companies accepted/to whom to make out checks would have been nicer than my 3rd grade handwriting
• asking credit customers their billing zip would have made propay transactions quicker
• making individual chalkboards to display the price of each individual grouping vs a big sign listing all would have saved a lot of breath
• hanging the sign with chain instead of gardening twine and weighting the flags would have put me in a better mood and saved Joe the “sit down you insane excuse for a hippie” comments
• bringing a notebook for customer requests would have made people feel better about their future hygiene than entrusting it to my feeble memory
• more melt and pour soap.  holy moses people love that stuff.

The good news is we’ve got another chance to get it right on August 28th.  PICNIC Portland!  It’s at Lincoln Park, and it starts at 10am, and we’re booth 2, and if we don’t see you there, we’ll think you don’t love us.  And then we’ll cry.

So I’m thinking the dad might have been a Maine coon…or like, a bobcat.  Maybe a moose.

So, a couple weeks ago, our kitten had kittens.  Our indoor-only, about to be spayed kitten, found herself a stray tom.  Had five kittens.  Daisy was an amazing mother for the first week, and then came down with a nasty case of mastitis.  For those who don’t know (I knew because I had it, which was gross) mastitis happens when a milk duct gets backed up, inflamed, and infected.  The duct was completely plugged, so no amount of milking did any good, and a couple hours after she stopped purring, I had to rush her to the emergency vet with a fever that should have killed her.  It was 1am, the emergency vet is an hour away.  Abscesses formed below the gland, which had to be lanced and drained for a week (that was possibly the most disgusting thing I’ve seen yet) but she’s good as new, minus a nipple and a uterus.  And she’s back to mothering, sort of.  I’m bottle feeding the kittens, she’s cleaning up the results.  Team work makes the dream work, right?

This is Nori, the one with triple thumbs, and one of the two we’re keeping (the other one’s Chester Webfoot)

In other news, we attended our first market day of the season!  It was a great success, outside of the fact that we forgot the table cloth and got rained out halfway through…

Joe salesman

the chocolate almond soap cake which drew them in, but which nobody wanted to split up

the balm display Joe built, and the perfume display that isn’t big enough

Wedding Favor Cozy by Blackbirddesignhouse, $18

Set of 20 Custom Wedding Matchboxes by lilmissi, $20

Calla Lilly by LondonDemimonde, $500

Hydrangea and Feather Bobbies by gardenofwhimsy, $20

vintage blue ball jars from ricksrelics, $35

wood place card holders by thisfineday, $10

chocolate diamond ring by bloomstudios, $600 (drool.)

Ticket Save the Date by Cheerupcherup, $1.50

recycled hearts garland by bookity, $28

one dozen edible butterflies by SugarRobot, $8.95

hemp flower girl dress by consciousclothing, $82

pair of vintage milk glass candlesticks from havenvintage, $28

Custom Spread the Love labels for preserves favors by misspicklespress, $15

And we were mixing creams, cutting soap, and labeling lip balm!  By candlelight.  Candles are a big huge part of off grid yurt life, and I actually prefer them to bulbs.  Which is fortunate.  Plus it gives me an excuse to buy old FTD containers and milk glass bud vases.  That’s enough reason to live off grid and depend on tea lights right there.  Zoe, by the way, is becoming an expert lip balm capper.