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.............................................

Today at last is friday.

Well first half of week was horrible. Possibly just being back at work but really I think its down to bosses being paranoid. I am no longer allowed to be alone in the office at lunchtime apparently. No idea what they think I am going to do. Sabotage something??? Stupid people. I am going to take em thru greivance proceedures and possibly an employment tribunal. Why would I ruin my chances and sabotage something. I dont need to, I will get my wages and maybe even compensation for having had to go without them for weeks or by then even years so why would I do something illegal. I dont need to. I just need to wait and let the law take its course. Ofcourse I may lose but from my point of view it wont cost me anything and I might just win so I have nothing to lose. And it WILL cost them so even if I get nothing they will still have to pay so I win either way! I certainly wouldnt do anything to damage anything to do with their company. They really must think I am dumb. I know I am blonde but truly its dye in my hair and my brain does really work! Well Bosses now at Arab Lab so I am being watched by their side kicks now taking turns as to who misses their lunch while I eat mine. Never experienced anywhere like this place. Have applied for 2 jobs and am now going to do Rugby Market in 2 weeks and a Farmers market next week and have Brighton Vegan Fair looming at end of March. Its being advertised as the second largest Vegan event on the planet!! Honestly what was I thinking to go for something so big? I suppose nothing ventured etc but really I have hardly any time to make soap for markets let alone for a huge event like this promises to be. I probably should have gone for it next year but no, not me. Straight in at the deep end. Course it might just be the making of the company. I have a suspician we will just look fooliosh tho. Up there with all these long established huge companies. What was I thinking of!. I suppose it may be a good thing tho. The Yaoh team seem very nice and who knows this time next year I may be saying how it made the company viable. Right now its very scary cos I dont know how I will find time to make enough stock. They have said I need some sort of promotion too. I could buy badges but dont have the cash ( got some quotes yesterday!) so I see lots of late nights coming up while I get some soap stocks made to give away nuggets of soap to anyone who buys something! Considering it takes 5-8 weeks to cure the soap I have lots of work coming up in next 3 weeks to get all this ready on time so forgive me if this blog goes dormant for a while. I will be spending every spare minute making soap - or washing the equipment after making one batch so I can make the next. Boy do I need a dishwasher! Might have to invest in a second set of soap making kit too just to help me on my way! Other than that I should possibly check out wholesale quantities of vegan lollies - anyone got any offers out there???????

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!

new connections

Well I seem to be getting worse and worse at blogging. My life has become very hectic. I have actually made two different soap sales and am meeting someone tomorrow who is a florist who is interested in stocking my soaps. The trouble is it has become obvious I am rubbish at the storage and logistics side. Spent the whole of wednesday and thursday nights reorganising my storage so i can find everything and know what type of soap most need to be made next. I havent had time to make any more yet but suspect i will do so tomorrow after the meeting. At least now we have got round to wrapping some of it we can start to cut some of the large bars which really should have been cut last week or even the previous week and then left to dry out further. When they are cut they take much more space up since have to be lain out to dry and I keep running out of space. It was all getting a bit much but then I decided why am I stressing out. This is meant to be fun and fullfilling .......the fact I still work fulltime means no time for the soap or for me but its going to change. I do not yet know how I shall make it happen but I intend to do my best to and i believe it will all work out so it must. Got ripped off by the labels guy who has charged me £500 more than he quoted!!!!! Well a lesson to be learned here- always get a written quote! So I am learning but this is the painful way. I wont get caught out like that again and not sure I shall be going back to him either. Depends on how it all goes I suppose cos we now have a great design and logo and infact my company has been born! The new ecommerce website is started but yet to go live and I have enrolled for the webdesign course. Also have a job interview for a new job which I am hoping may come off since it sounds much better than my current boredom boredom unfulfilling boredom that is my working life. Made friends with the local scrap man who came and removed loads of metal - well I would rather give away than let skip company have it when we are paying them for the skip itself - let them have the s5it we cannot get carried away since thats the point and they wont make much out of us! Well other than the extortionate hire of the skip itself of which we will probably need another 2-3 skips!

Except for the fact I completely enjoy blogging, I should probably give it up due to never doing it very often! Still perfection is something to be aimed at and never achieved.
I also read part of a new blog Owls Wings which I find very inspiring and interesting so will be going back there. Need to catch up with Tatty too since have been very slack reading blogs recently.

Godaddy website tonight!

Another whole week has gone and loads has happened. I found out whilst looking for a freeware shopping cart for my new business website which I built using GoDaddy`s website tonight package that it is possible to write to the admin file of the account. While I am no expert its obvious to me this must threfore be insecure so anyway I contact Godaddy who help me to secure my Linux site but cannot do anything with my Bsoaps site ( on website tonight) so I have closed it down and now waiting for an authorisation code to move elsewhere. Spent days checking out ecommerce packages and came to the conclusion I will sign up with 1&1 since not only are the "green" apparently but most of the ethical companies seem to use them and also they have a great package for small companies which is only about £6 a month which is very good so going to try them out next...........assuming ofcourse I am able to get away from GoDaddy! I have checked out some forums and it seems that might not be as easy as it should be but we will see. Even if they give me the codes to authorise moving the domain it could still take me 48 hours to get up and running. Anyway tonight I intend to set up the bsoaps.co.uk site on 1&1 and then just move the godaddy site as soon as I can. Unfortunately the soap labels ( finally recieved last saturday) have bsoaps.com on them which is a bit of a cock-up to say the least. If I can get both sites pointing at the 1&1 account tho it wont matter and will be much better really since it will mean anyone searching for me should find me. Boiler man is coming saturday and we still have a skip outside the house waiting to be filled and it will be in his way! Hoepfully he will still be able to put it in without moaning too much about lack of access. I will finally get my labelling gun saturday to add batch codes and BBEs to my soaps so I will actually be able to start trading one week later than originally intended but its not such a bad result in the end. I am quite excited about the whole affair tho need to quit my day job to concentrate on my own company and cannot afford to yet! Also have had several quotes for getting a professional website built - cheapest is £1000 + VAT so enrolling tomorrow/saturday depending how it goes for a course at local tech to learn to build them myself. Means by about this time next year I should be able to do my own website design rather than rely on packages and templates. Whole thing has become very exciting. Its so weird tho that my idea to make hand made natural soap has escalated to the extent I now have a company and am about to learn to build websites. Ofcourse if ok at it I will also be able to do other peoples and make a living from website design. Weird year this has been I have to say. And still 3-4 months left..........whatever will happen next? My mate (currently living in Salisbury ) is moving back to the midlands too so that is great cos we will get to see each other much more often - I feel the pub calling.............