life is moving so quickly I have little time for blogging

Well this last month has been crazy. I am still making soap etc. I am also now writing freelance for a new magazine which is out in October - in time for halloween. Cant say the name of the magazine but its all about making natural cosmetics. I have always wanted to be a writer and never done anything serious about it. I did Brighton Eco-veggie fayre which was a complete disaster for Brackencraft but someone approached me there and asked if I would be interested in writing for a new magazine. I said I was interested but didnt really expect anything to come of it. Well I submitted 2 aryticles and they want to use both which is wonderful. I am hoping to write some more and they have sent me the deadlines for submission so they must have an interest in me doing this. I have yet to be paid - apparently will happen when the magazine is pulished and have to just take this as it comes I suppose. If it really does work out I will be in heaven! As for the rest of my current ventures: the doggy shampoo has been a huge hit and now is back on the market after a complete sell out of the first batch in record time.A close second is the coconut milk soap which is also now sold out and more in curing time so will be ready in about 2 weeks I would think. I was intending to discontinue some of the older soaps but just as I was allowing stocks to run out I have had a real run on camomile & lemon and if I reember correctly it was the same this time last year and now they are buying it with the camomile shampoo bar - they do match really so I am not going to discontinue that one. Similarly white cinnamon was meant to go but is selling too fast to get rid of. The slowest is the old best seller - cinnamon swirl. Still I suppose it could be a Christmas collection soap which would be better really. I have several new soaps which are safety assessed for this xmas so will be able to have a whole new collection just for Christmas. Including and really I am still unser about this a bath bomb with glitter on. It is not really natural but hell why not. Its for xmas after all and if it doesnt sell then I wil not repeat next year. And I am all for natural everything but I do love a bit of glitter! especially at xmas. I have been very slack blogging this last month but have been back out at markets and too be honest it is not going well. Rugby Crafts is a good one for me and I love it since its so small a town. other than that I am doing wellesbourne - one of the largest markets in the UK, Thorseby which is 72 miles away so a serious sunday treck and in between I have done a steam fair and it was brilliant. I am intending to do lots more steam fairs infact cos I loved the whole this. Steam engines everywhere, vintage cars, bikes, owls - rescued, wolf-dogs, you name it they probably had it. It was just wonderful. And there was a real ale tent as well! Leamington peace festival is next month and next week I am off to bristol eco-veggie fair. Not too sure about this one as it goes. I love to be in a vegan world where I can eat without worry and everyone thinks I am normal rather than awkard, attention seeking or just a freak, but the last 2 of these events have done we have made a serious loss so its very worrying. I habve also bought a caravan - well my parents bought ost of it for my birthday which is absolutely wonderful of them. I would have only been able to afford a complete wreck otherwise. My birthday is months away - July but they offered to do this for me and its great. The caravan we have is still very old- 1988 I think and is an avondale perle. Its possibly got a slightly rotten front window but was still the best of the bunch we looked at for the money it cost. Considering its age I think it is ok. Most of the ones we saw we complete wrecks and only really belonged in a horse field as a tea making room! Some even fell to bits while we looked at them. WE went all the way to mansfield to see one and when we got there M put his hand underneath to see what the chassis was like and a big bit of it fell off! And that was a £400 caravan!!! Anyway we added a bit of cash and bought a better one in the end and it was only a mile away at a local caravan dealers. Mansfield is 72 miles away as well so this was starting to be a real expensive venture in fuel! Other than this I have made some new products including a version of Tiger balm and a massage bar - for M. I think the massage bar is ace and if I can afford it will have to pay for safety assessment at some point but for now I am not intending to sell cos have yet to pay for the current new products assessment. Its due to be paid this saturday. I have yet to rais £100 towards it as well so slightly worrying but I suspect saturaday and sunday shoudl sort that small problem. Talk about living on the edge. Eating is the main problem. If I didnt need to eat and hence to buy food or pay bills the business would be a success but sadly I have to keep taking out money for living! I suppose thats the trouble for everyone tho. I can make enbough to replace stock and keep trading no problem. Mind you the safety assessment bill has nearly killed me. Its around the £600 mark so has been a serious drain on rescources but was much needed since I have "prettied up all the older soaps and added several new products some of which are already seeling really well so if I can hang on here I should be sorted I think. I need to find folk to try out the tiger balm now cos I have loads of possible improvements lined up but since its something I have not really used for years and never very often I need some help with this. Tiger balm recipes are everywhere online but they are all differents and the essential oil proportions stated are not legal in the UK so I need to try and make a legal version that will also be effective. People ask me for tiger balm nearly every week so I could do with having some available but I refuse to sell the petrochemical variety normally available. The logical conclusion finally occurred to me about a week ago in a flash of inspiration ( happens occassionally) that I could just make a natural version. Some tho have ginger, others have cinnamon, others camphor and oil of wintergreen so I need to do some serious experiments before this can be marketed! And will I make a good one that is reall worth selling?

grievances, market trading etc

Well its been a long time it seems and I have been so busy had no time to blog. So this is a big catchup. Gave my notice in on Friday 13th February and was told by work I would be paid till the end of of the notice period Friday March 13th)but dont need to work. Spent last week getting markets sorted and then on Monday, yesterday, I did my first market in Hinkley. It was ok but didnt make alot. I was doing well till about 9:30 when the charity collectors arrived. Took about £30 then after the charitry collectors who had mini ponies - poor creatures were forced to stand up for 5 hours. Personally I reckon that is animal abuse at its nastiest since the general public saw them as cuties collecting for disabled children but the poor ponies were seriously not happy and should not have been forced to stand in a shopping precinct having to put up with humans stroking them. They were clearly unhappy but most folk would not have realised. Nor would I normally but I happened to be right next to them and when they are there for 5 hours it suddenly truly hits home how cruel this was.

Anyway, market a bit disapointing but it was my first there and am doing Friday as well. Today had grievance meeting and it was fun! The face of the MD when he realised the T&G had an electronic copy of the file which they forged saying it was sent to me on december 07 when infact it was created in January 09! It was so funny. His hands shook and his face went red! Anyway the emails since when they have discussed have been really funny. They think they have a secure system and me a hacker! If only I had the knowledge. All I did was search using the name of the person who placed me with the company ( from a recruitment agency) and told the pc to search the entire network including hidden files. I even carried on working whist it did its thing. Then emailed the file in question to my Union rep using their email system! My knees were shaking when I did this, even tho I was sitting down, since MD was pottering around behind me. I found my file without any security breach. Ages ago too before they even decided the outcome of the original grievance meeting since today was actually the appeal. So infact all their employees could access their files if they just guessed the right search word, since they obviously have no security at all! I am expecting them to try and take it further tho. I am sure I have done nothing wrong but whether they believe me or not who knows! I am glad they are furious tho. They have been really nasty to me. No idea if they will pay me yet but they are mad if they dont cos I reckon with the T&G behind me I stand a good chance of winning and not only have they ripped me off they have committed fraud in forging the T&Cs of employment and saying I had them a whole year before they actually gave them to me. Even then they only gave me them cos I raised a grievance! Liars indeed!

Next what have I been up to! Wrapping hundreds of mini bars of soap for the BVF. Wish I had more space infact for storage since getting enough stock together for this is a nightmare. I should not have signed up for it this year at all I reckon. Made loads of bath bombs last week and sold the majority in 2 markets so had to make more today. Made another 69 and some mini ones but that wont get me thru till next wednesday. I have markets Friday, monday and tuesday before I can remake stock so will be making more again tomorrow and also need to make some more soap. Finally got the mini bars for the BVF giveaway out of the drying cupboard so now have to fill it all up again. Have about another 6 kilo of bars to wrap for then. I cut them today so they can finish drying in next few days before wrapping.

Saturday I finally got hold of rip off printers - he arrived at my market stall infact. Assurred me he has emailed me - I checked, no email! Yesterday checked again, and today - no email. The W4nk3r wants to get me again I expect. Last time he gave me a quote over the phone of about £300 for the labels but I never got it in writing and when eventually I got the bill it was £849 so this time I have insisted to get in writing and he has not so far given. The company is INSPIRATIONAL LABELS in Rugby. If anyone reads this I would suggest going elsewhere! Anyway I have yet to get the quote I originally asked for more than 2 weeks ago so I think I now have no choice I have to get a new printers! I have 3 new soaps, all ready to sell ( samples to go to testers yet but they are safety assessed) and I have no labels so cannot see the point of making any more bars till I get it all sorted. I shall just have to make the original bars for the BVF. And find a new printers.

My new lip balms are selling well tho. Sold 2 organic ones at 2 markets and one that is not organic so it is [probably going to be a good one. Lip balms are affordable tho. Have yet to make the body butters or moisturisers but now have the ingredients and the packaging so its all systems go for the whole lot. I will try to do body butters tomorrow and moisturisers will more than likely be next week I think. One project a week and it will just happen without stress.

Branching out into selling BioD is working out well too so maybe this will all work out now. I am considering doing refills for the washing up liquid and have some interest. If I can find some other folk interested I shall take the plunge and buy the kit tho its quite a big outlay to get set up and also I now need a new car since my little darling rusty but reliable ancient fiesta is just too small.

Thats about it I think other than listing everything I am trying to sell which would be boring as hell evevn for me! Oh and struggling with CS2 - its just so different. I cannot find the different tools and need to do another course now to finish my website. I am still plodding along with it tho and hopefully one day I will finally upload a real website.

Nearly finished with this slavery!

Market went very well and I am there for at least the next 5 weeks. Turns out last weekend is the traditional worst weekend of the year. People get paid early for xmas and then have to wait 6 weeks etc. Tho I had not considered that since I get paid mid month anyway and so does M. Anyway had best takings ever and if thats the worst weekend of the year I should be able to make this work. Ginger and Lime soap looking good but have yet to pH test etc and will expect it to be ready sometime mid February. Intending to make a citrous - not sure yet but Lime, lemon, orange and possibly grapefruit but may miss out grapefruit since apparently grapefuit essential oil is unreliable quality wise from one year to the next. Also have yet to make this francinsence & myhrr soap I have been planning for ages. Having time to make new as well as make stock is proving difficult! Thats as well as experimenting with lip balms. They are finally sorted and now also have fizzy bath melts tho doesnt look to hopeful with selling them. Or there was no interest last week. That could be a presentation thing tho and this weeks are like little cakes in petit four cases. Last weeks were ( and still are since didnt sell any!) half hearts. I am also doing heart shaped bath bombs which have turned out to be a complete nightmare to make but seem to sell really fast. So I have a problem here. I originally intended just to do these for valentines and mothers day but if they really are best sellers maybe they will end up having to stay. I am only doing 4 flavours of them - all with flowers. We will see. Maybe they are selling cos folk are starting to think of valentines day. I had a go at solid perfumes this morning. Nowadays I get up at 5am and do a few hours before going to boring day job ( 2 weeks till give in notice now so only 6 weeks left there!). Means I get to do some experiments. If I try to do at night have serious problems with making dinner etc and since M does shifts it simply doesnt work! Causes arguements and have to say he does have a point when he has to eat dinner at 8pm and go to work at 9pm so have had to stop doing that ( dogs dont like having to wait for dinner either!) and so I now do early in mornings instead. Anyway back to solid perfume experiment - by the smell of it there is no perfume left. Must have volatilized when putting into the hot oils/waxes. What a pain this is. have to work out how to get perfume into the hot wax/oils before they cool and go solid. I need to do aromatherapy by the looks of it as well to learn how to combine fragrance types and also need to do lots of experiments with perfumes. Well should be fun but its going to cost in both time and essential oils by the looks of it. I also want to have a go at making vegan milk bathsalts or bombs. No idea if this is going to work but nothing ventured etc...........have never seen anyone else making these either. Must do an internet search infact. Other than that I have actually blogged, honest but cant publish it yet cos of possible inductrial tribunal and it might end up stopping me from winning. They decided not to pay me. That was on Tuesday and gave me 5 days to apeal. I am going to but they obviously think because I have not yet gone back that I am not going to. They dont know I have a very interesting document in my possession. Will wait and see what the union tell me to do tho. Anyway market tomorrow and I am really believing now that this is really going to work. If it does then its a thank you to Sandy Maine for her book about making your own natural products bodycare business http://http://www.amazon.co.uk/Creating-Herbal-Bodycare-Business-naturally/dp/1580170943/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233308728&sr=1-1 cos thats what inspired me to go from a hobbyist cosmetics maker to a manufacturer albeit a small one.

If you want to do this you can do much worse than reading this. It doesnt give yopu business plans, it doesnt give you help in anyway really it just gives you inspiration and the belief to have a go and make it happen!

Well I think this weekend I will find out if I can survive doing this and if I can then slavery for me is about to end.............................................

weekend

Well its monday again. We did another market at Wellingborough. Have decided we will continue there till Christmas Eve and then try some others. Made only £6 after fuel to get there and the hire of stall so not a good day and a complete waste of time really - stood out in the cold. A guy on an opposite stall was £1100 down on the same saturday last year so it must be bad. Not a good time for me to be considering going solo maybe. Difficult to decide what to do. The place was empty. Good for us to actually do that day tho cos we proved we can do high winds and rain. Not that anyone but us actually cares but really its good to find these things out. If we had not done it I would have wondered if we are just fine weather market traders but we are not. We can survive adverse weather. Stayed there till about 4pm and then spent £16 of takings on supplies at local Tesco. Going to enquire about doing Coventry after xmas. For now will continue where we are and maybe those few days before xmas will make it all worth while. We will see. Sunday parents came over with tons of stuff they have cleared from my Grannies house. Its goes up for sale 1st January. There are loads of big garden pots, a tumble drier ( could actually save us money cos right now we have to have a dehumidifier on constantly due to drying washing inside and its working out more expensive than using a tumble drier!) Loads of bath towels which we really need - dogs can now have old ones which will be good for them and us. Tho Grandma apparently didnt go in for big bath sheets which we prefer but then they are all free so we will manage and there is a whole suit case full. Also a washing machine which is great cos mine is dying and best of all a wooden bench which my paternal Grandfather bought for my Nanna in 1952 and then when she died she left it to my Grandma ( my mums mother). All slightly strange but now I have it. Its in great condition considering its loads older than me. Apparently I have to oil it every year so will have to remember that. I think once the summer comes we will put it next to the pond so we can sit and feed and watch the fishes. Lovely! Only problem now is we have limited time to get the house sorted and have 2 huge TVs in lounge and boxes everywhere. I am intending to try and freecycle the old one. It works perfectly. Is larger than the new one and is a Sony Trinitron so surely someone will want it. Seems criminal to go sending it to landfill and we have another almost as good in the garden shed. Maybe I should freecycle both infact! Only keeping new one cos in theory being several years younger it should ultimately go for longer. I hate taking risks with this sort of thing but we cant keep them both and there is no where we can store it so one of them has to go! Still no word from the local council about giving mediation between us and next door over this hedge. I just wish I could see her face when they tell her if she carries on shes going to get an ASBO - whether she works for a solicitor or not. AND whether she thinks we are scum or not. hey ho. I `d like to be a fly on the wall for that one. What we will do if she does continue wrecking our lovely garden after that tho I really do not know. Nearly Xmas. Break from boring work on friday but have markets saturday, and right up till xmas eve. Then if all is ok will have 2-3 weeks off and then start up again in different town. I do hope 2009 is a good year for us.

Friday at last

I forgot to set alarm last night and didnt wake till 7:55 today. Lucky to get to work on time. Mind you feel better than have felt for weeks so probably good to sleep longer occassionally. Have been averaging about 5 and a half to 6 hours a night and I know I do best on 8-10 hours so no wonder have been feeling a bit knackered. 95 pepes get laid off at today at Unipart where M works. All temps but very worrying. I feel so sorry for em at xmas. They have little chance of another job right now I suspect. They are talking about redundancies in January too. M will more than likely be on the list since hes only been there for 3 and a half years. We are going to be stuffed unless our markets take off big time. Still I suppose it could really be a new beginning for us if we can just stay positive. The Govt breaks will more than likely not apply to us either cos it turns out altho we got our mortgage thru Alliance & leicester its actually with a company called SPML and they are part of Lehman Brothers group who went down in the US. No idea if we will be able to defer our interest for 2 years like every one else. Anyway other than that tis friday, tis a market day tomorrow and sunday and tis only 20 days till xmas. cant wait. We are not going to do any markets from 25th to 3rd or even possibly 10th Jan so we will actually get some time to look after our dogs properly ( they wont get a decent walk this weekend since we will leave and return in the dark poor lads) and have a rest. have a big xmas market on sunday so hopefully we will take lots of money and then we can realy start to plan and to believe in the business. Right now its hopeful but has yet to prove itself. I have so much to sort out tonight for it..........even taking a heater that I bought last year for the sheds. Strangely - cos its work- I am dead excited about it. Its our 2nd week and I just have this feeling we are going to do really well...........
Ive been considering my own options jobswise. Well who knows what the future will hold. I dont think I would be able to go back into a lab now..........altho apparently cos I am a manufacturer of soap etc I can apply to be a CChem which I may have to do. Well have to comply with GLP etc and theres quite a lot of routine chem in my chosen profession even if it is basic such as pH testing and H&S and COSHH and interpreting stuff like allergens for labelling etc. You know I do like that "my chosen profession " bit!!!! Its all an accident but it really really is my chosen profession isnt it! How weird is life. I left chem for ever to do office work only to find a way to do permanent real chem. Now that has encouraged me that has. Have to get round to doing company accounts soon tho.........hate this bit......cos have now over 6 weeks to sort and the hours are mounting up. There have been lots of transactions in and out too so its going to be hassle. A month of receipts usually takes me at least a day to sort out. Still I am off at xmas tho will have to do at least 1 days accounting. I need to find an accountant too now I think since this I feel is going to be big. Its just a shame I had to waste money doing the PGCE year really cos that is draining my current income. Tho if I had chosen a different pathway maybe I would not have found my way to where i am now.......Hmmm...... yes getting a bit mystical here. I dont really believe in fate as such but I do beleive you get to chose a pathway from several possible ones and the choice you make causes where you finaly end up.........if you see what i mean. Mind you I am no where near to the final end yet. This is just the begginning. Hey I am so happy today. I think the hard bit is deciding where you want to head for and once you take that desicion the going there is just easy. For months I have been wanting to give up the job and do markets etc but it was just a dream -now I am doing both ( job and markets that is!) and have already made the desision I needed. I just have to wait for the right time and carry the plan forward. Maybe its the risky nature of it all that makes it so exciting. I think I just dont want to live in a safe nice comfy world. I have to risk everything on a reasonably regular basis. Thats who I am. Either I will end up very rich or very broke but then I came from the bottom of the pile living in a homeless persons shelter and no qualifications etc so who knows so far so good. I just dont believe we are going to go under. There is a way of thinking that you make your own luck in life. I always believe stuff and it happens so maybe that is true. So in that case all I have to do is put in the hours, believe and make it happen and we will have our freedom ( as much as anyone in this world does) and be self employed and make lots of money or at least as much as we need cos I have no particular need to be a millionaire. Just to be free. Its friday tho and I am going to make it happen tomorrow onwards. Wait and see. Incidentally "Make it Happen" is a song by a band called A Look Inside. they didnt get very far, they are/were all very close mates of mine. ( My Ex housemate is best known and currently having a revival as Guitarist in the SECT) and this song inspired me to do just that. I went and got GCSE Maths and then my degree ( all because of a song and something quite psycadelic - I was young then tho and it was the 90s!)
But it still changed me and my life forever..............The POWER OF MUSIC!

Tuesday at work

Well work as usual is totally boring. Did a market on Saturday and it was ace. I reckon I have found what I am meant to do in life. Didnt make loads but did make a small profit. Ofcourse by the time fuel to get there and back is accounted for I probably still made a loss but we got a lot of interest so I think this is more than likely realy a viable option. It was our first week too. With me I have a look and if teh stall is there again I try it out and then if its good \i go back. Again and again! I have built a great website whilst on my evening course - last lesson was last night so either I post website now which cant do as yet since dont have a program that supports CSS. My dreamweaver program is MX and wont allow anything in CSS. When I decided I prefer to use CSS to the normal HTML templates I had no idea about that so now I really need to buy a newer copy of dreamweaver. Next part of the course begins on 20th January so its quite a few weeks away yet and that means my lovely website ( which actually works!) is stuck on a pen drive and I cant upload till I get it all sorted. Made bath bombs this morning and am packaging and labelling liquid soap tonight for this weekends markets. We are doing a big xmas market on Sunday in Towcester so hopefully that will go well ( it cost £60!!! so really hope we at least sell that much of stock!) and doing Wellingborough again on Saturday. We intend to do Wellingborough every Saturday now right thru to xmas and have actually signed up to do the week immediately before xmas too. Then we are taking the bit between new year and xmas off and then we will start again as regulars in Wellingborough i reckon on second week of Januray or maybe even on 3rd we will have to see. I dont want a Jnauary sale tho so not too sure about this really. Mind you my Mini bath bombs seem to be really popular which is great since I have a much bigger profit from them than from the large ones. maybe straight after xmas anyone who was given them will want some more and buy lots off us. Weird tho that people seem to prefer 3 small ones to one giant one. I personally go more for luxury rather than quantity. Tho I suppose 3 mini bombs for £1 is pretty good as a stocking filler. I will see how this week goes but really I think we may actually be on to a winner here. Work is boring me to death and starting to get eye problems with looking at a PC constantly. Never had such a PC oriented job. I mean I am literally chained to it it seems. They dont even like you to do the look away from the screen every so many hours which I have always been told to do in other jobs. I have been here a year on 18th December and never had a workstation assessment or an eye test and I am sure you are meant to have both of these by law! I have always had them in other jobs even when I was temping. I saw an optition anyway a couple of weeks ago now cos I am worried about this problem with my eye. I had an operation as a kid so I have to watch it cos dont want to have to have another. Anyway work is getting no better. Since I am bringing my own lunches now and no longer going to the cafe with everyone else they have got very weird with me. I really dont want to go tho. The food is the same every day and to be honest having eaten Hummous every day for a year I am sick to death of the stuff. I actually love hummous but variety really is the spice of life. I feel much better eating what I know is a healthy lunch tho rather than sarnies coated in marg!!! Also I know this cafe have poisoned me 3 times. I know when hummous is off ( I eat it lots and it goes sour after about 3 days). They have given me off food too many times. I reckon more than 3 day old food too! Once I would ignore cos it happens - tho no excuse really - but 3 times is just too much. Anyway I am once again self sufficient with lunches and it feels great. Eating daily in a cafe stops being a treat after awhile. It only takes 5 minutes to make a couple of nice healthy sarnies and I have different fillings every day now. Great! Sadly I simply do not belong here. Tho no it isnt sad at all. I dont want to belong here. I have alwasy got on with folk and usually been the person organising the Friday lunchtime pub visits in other jobs so no idea why I just do not fit in here. It must be them thats weird. I have never before worked anwhere where you have to socialise with the work team outside of work either. We have no contracts so theres nothjing to say i must go along but I am made to feel I have to. Not a nice feeling. They are all saddo apparently who have no life or even friends outside of work. well I do. Not hundreds of mates but I have them and they are nice people and I really do not want tyo spend every weekend and half my weekday evenings seeing people I see all day. Not that I hate em cos I dont but we are just work colleagues and really have nothing in common. Also they can never ever even of a minute it seems forgive or forget that I am veggie. What is their problem? veggies are the fastest growing food choice? Doesnt sound right but the numbers of vegans shot up to over a million last year and the numbers of veggies or meat avoiders are now huge. I am not unusual and I have no desire to try to convince any of em to change so why do they have to take exception to me all the time!

all work and no play make me a very dull boring git

Well sick to death of going to work 9-5 ( anyone who has ever stumbled upon thios blog before propbably is already aware of this. I was meant to check out some local markets last weekend but never got round to it!! Did manage to finally find a home for my ancient but almost mint condition flower faires collection. (Given to me aged 21 so never really played with!). They have gone to a friends daughts and I hope she enjoys playing with them. They are lovely dolls and really should be played with. i will post a few piccies infact later. Anyway going off at tangents here, Friends came round and we had a great day on saturday. Got very drunk saturday afternoon and woke up fully dressed and hungover on sunday and spent rest of sunday in recovery. has to be done occassionally. So now still have not checked out any markets. Going this saturday to both Wellingborough and also to see Loughborough so we will be doing lots of travelling. The idea is to decide which and then go for it the following week and get started truly trading. Advatage of Wellingborough is not too far from home and also not too close and its possible to beome permanent after 3 weeks whereas most markets its about a year before you can beome a perm. I have to sort this out now tho having spent ages making products so now its time to just do it and stop talking about it. Anyway have also decided to branch into organic unfragranced liquid soaps and shampoos which I didnt want to sell since not environmentallly frinedly but people keep asking me for. have to buy a laser printer tonight since inkjets cannot make good labels apparently. I need a new printer anyway. My lexmark keeps taking in 20+ sheets of paper and wont feed so I have to hand feed every sheet if printing in black and white. Strangely it works ok in colour! My canon photo printer gives good quality but is also an ink jet and currently I cant get any refills for some reason since everywhere has sold out! So anyway have to buy a laser printer. Then need to label everything up and launch business on the markets. Hoping that over xmas will make a reasonable anmount of money back to be able to buy new stock. If all goes to plan I shall be giving in my notice on 9-5 job around 3rd week of january and going it alone for real. Interestingly market traders generally only do 3-4 days a week and still manage to make a living so I am getting very keen on this. I can see it being freezing this winter but wonderful in summer so I cant wait to get started now. I suppose you spend the other 3 days a week doing the books, making new stock and packing stuff for the next market.

xmas markets and tons achieved

Well life is too short. Done lots on monday to wednesday when not at work but spent the last 2 days wishing my life away again. Trying to sign up for a Christmas market on Towcester but dont actually know how to pronounce Towcester. Toe cest er? Or Towster?? Who knows. It could be a bit embarrassing tho doing a market in a town you cant pronounce the name of. Still got a few months yet to sus out the pronunciation. Spent all of Monday at interview for dream job which didnt get. Looked round Camden market and didnt buy anything which was very difficult but being broke and in trouble and trying to pay off debts would be silly to spend what havent got. Then tuesday made soap and cleaned the house but in the opposite order. Wednesday decided no way will afford accountant next year so best get off 4rse and do the company books. Not a great surprise to find lots gone out an very little come in tho have actually now sold £39.95 in soap!!!! Not a great amount I know but very encouraging for me. This entrepreneurship stuff is dead hard maan! Starting to wonder how I will ever get this company off the ground and actually trading. Then delivered some soap to local florist who is selling for me and came home and had encouraging email froma site who sell stuff like mine saying someone would call me but they havent and not sure whether to be cheeky and just go for it or just forget the whole thing!. Then wednesday afternoon spent hours and hours till 7pm wrapping and labelling soap and individually pricing to sell when do get a stall somewhere. Seriously knackering is the word for it. I need to buy a bar stool for the kitchen so I can sit whilst doing all this hard work. Anyway having wrapped everything. Made 4 new bars of soaps ( curing ready to cut next week) and sorted out curing cupboard have now decided need more to actually do a stall than just bars of soap so going to make lots of bath bombs since over last few months of playing for us seem to have perfected and now dare I say it as good as Lush ones. Well I think so and so do several others who have tried them out. No longer using basic recipe off internet either have altered. Just need to decide which are best recipes and then get safety assessment and hopefully will have about 100 for the xmas market on 7th December. And need to buy some nice looking baskets to present them in on this stall. Then last 2 days back in dreary office doing boring work which just gives me nothing back and doesnt even pay very well. There has to be a better way to live really there does. Got to enquire about local University markets too since a very long time ago in the 80s I sold lots of stuff like hand made jewellery and screen printed Tshirts at one and could do that again one day a week or fortnight. I think this will come together eventually really I do but so far I have laid out nearly £4000 and got £39.95 back! Still they say you need to speculate to accumulate................we will see.........Luckily have very nice partner who is encouraging me all the way. Well he may not be rich but he has lots going for him in other ways or has now I have gone and invested all my savings and lots of money each month from wages in this slightly mad idea. Maybe it will eventually pay of who knows. In meantime have caught up with reading other blogs and am now intendingt o get round to properly subscribing to them. Oh and has lots of problems with 1&1 internet ecommerce site not working so emailed em and complained and they said they couldnt find anything wrong but when logged back in they have fixed it all so hopefully by monday might even have online business going! Reminds me of that song..............things can only get better.............cant remember for life of me who sang that ( probably very uncool band) but who cares. Today is friday and cant wait for weekend this week. Not that anything has changed there!