Easter Eggtravaganza Giveaway

For the up coming Easter weekend I am having my first Giveaway!

From 0.01am Good Friday morning to 11.59pm Bank Holiday evening I am offering 10% off all my products to all of my Blog and Facebook fans and if you are a fan of both you get 20% off!!

All you need to do is choose and buy the items from my Folksy shop then send me a message saying Facebook or Blog fan and I will refund the discount to your Paypal! It is as easy as that!

And that's not all the first 5 sales receive a Eggtra gift :)

Hen Doo Gift Bags

This past weekend was my Best friends Hen weekend in Manchester. We travelled up Friday afternoon on the train. We spent the afternoon getting ready and dressed up for our night out. We also dressed my best friend in L plates, Bride t-shirt, bunny ears, garter and tiara. We then head off to the Tiger Tiger club for a meal, a couple of hours in a karaoke pod and then dance the night away on the tiles. It was such a great great night. I had to leave Saturday morning but the Hen party continued into Saturday with a spa afternoon followed by a salsa lesson and then the hen and her chicks danced the night away at a salsa club using the skills they had just been taught.

As I am my best friends bridesmaid I took a gift bag for all the girls for them to take home to remember the weekend by. These are a few photographs of the gift bags. They all included a Bath Bomb, Fizzing dust, Cocoa cubes and soap so the girls could go home and have a lovely soak to relieve those achy muscles and sore dancing feet.

Quernus My Beagle?!? Wee Lily:)

After having a long look around Folksy I stumbled upon a shop called Quernus Crafts. The Shop was full of lovely little creatures made out of polymer clay. These absolutely gorgeous characters really captured me I loved them I could have bought them all but then............a light bulb went on above my head .......... ' what if I could get this marvellous crafts person to recreate my beagle Lily
So I got in touch and got talking to a lovely lady named Kirsten Miller so so helpful and obviously loves making these sweet little creatures. She said that most of the orders she gets are for customised pieces and that she would be happy to make a 'Wee Lily' So I just email a couple of pics of my crazy little beagle (one from the front, back and from each side) and yesterday morning my Wee Lily had arrived.
She was lovely, so identical on to my Big Lily (even tho she is only tiny, but obviously a lot bigger than Wee Lily) I've took a couple of pics of Wee Lily and My Big Lily so you can see the likeness . I think Big Lily liked Wee Lily. So I was over the moon with my Wee Lily and then my curse of being a clumsy oaf raised its ugly head again and when moving my camera from one side of Wee Lily to the other I managed to knock my lovely Lily onto the very hard floor and broke her ear off :(
I was devastated I got back in touch with Kirsten and she said It would be no problem to make my now one ear-ed beagle better again so off to the post office I go.

If unlike me your not a clumsy oaf then I seriously recommend you take a look around Kristen's site http://www.quernuscrafts.co.uk/ or www.folksy.com/shops/quernuscrafts


Big Big Thank you goes to Kirsten your creations are legendary xxxx

Cocoa Cubes

Here is another addition to the ever growing products of Sleepy Valley, and what fun did I have creating these cute little cubes of loveliness :O)

Basically they are made from high-quality cocoa butter and sweet almond oil.

These pampering little cubes are solid at room temperature, but melt with the heat from your skin or hot water.
Just pop into a warm bath to melt for a luxurious moisturising bath. Alternatively you can rub the cube all over your body as a moisturiser. These were my best seller of the weekend and I only have Lavender scented ones so far but I will definitely be making lots of different scent for these. If you do like the look of cocoa cubes but would like a scent other than Lavender just drop me a email lucy@thesleepyvalley.co.uk and I will make them just for you :)
Caution: Your bath may be slippery after use. Please take care!

Spring Craft Fair @ Coventry Transport Museum

These pics were taken at the weekend when we took part in the Spring Craft Fair @ Coventry Transport Museum. We could only attend on the Sunday but it was a weekend event.

I have got to say what a fantastic Venue!! The organiser Julia Gandy did a absolutely cracking job!! ALL the stalls were handmade which was great because we have attended craft/gift fairs and found that it is just bought in tat and not very original. But this event was very original no two stalls looked the same. There were a lot of people coming in and the atmosphere had such a great buzz. I was told by a couple of the other stallholders (Who were lovely :) I might add) said that Saturday was a lot busier so I was a little disappointed that I hadn't been able to be there :(. Also as the Transport museum was free entry Dave took himself off for a while to take a gander round the cars which pleased him no end ;)

This was also the first stall where I have showcased my new items, bath bombs, cocoa cubes, scented pouches and fairy dust. I have to say the cocoa cube were flying out :)

Overall this has been the most professional, well organised event I have taken part in and I would definitely do it again if the opportunity became available and I would clear my dairy to make sure I could do both days Heehee

Well Done Julia Gandy!! xx

New Products!! :)

I have created a few new products which I will be adding on here for you to take a gander at or alternatively you can pop to my shop and and take a look around there!

I have started to make Bath bombs, Those lovely balls of fizz and fragrances!! Again I am only using natural ingredients. So they NEVER include chemicals, Parbens, SLS or synthetic ingredients!

I have 3 scents so far but this will be a growing number as I have many different scents and textures that I am itching to create :)

The scents so far are:

Lavender Essential oil with Lavender Buds - Very relaxing and Soothing

Rose Essential oil with Rose Petals - Sooo Romantic and Uplifting

Tea Tree Essential oil with Calendula Petals and Nettles - Stimulating and Healing

So simply to use just pop into your warm bath. This allows the bomb to fizz, perfume and soften your water and gently fragrance your skin. Lovely :)

Spring Craft Fair - Coventry Transport Museum

We are going to be @ the Spring Craft Fair in the mezzanine gallery in the Coventry Transport Museum. It is open 10am to 5pm. There is all day parking on Bishop Street for £1.

So put a Spring in your step and come along to see all the lovely quality handmade items on sale.

Hopefully see you there :)

Update

Right so my blog has caught up to where I have got to so far on my journey of The Sleepy Valley Co now looking to the future.

We are getting in touch with shops, hotels, b+b's and farmers markets about showing or selling my soaps.

So I will let you know if we get any news from these areas

We also have a few craft fairs on the way and I will put more information about these later

Fright Night @ Dudley Castle

Ok so this pic was taken at our 4th craft fair (and I use that in the loosest of terms) I was really excited when I saw a fair on Stallfinder in my hometown and didnt read the ad very carefully until after I had been accepted. This was a psychic and ghost fair. Where people pay £20 to walk around dudley zoo and castle with a torch at night and being told a loads of old yarn about ghosts and their presence!! We heard alot of funny stories through the night about what was going on in different areas of the castle with the members of staff becoming possessed and a ghost from the 1700 that was supposed to be a punters nan that had died the week before (They obviously didn't do the maths or the punters nan was very very old!!heehee)

As for the craft fair it was a complete waste of time for us crafters being there as we spent most of the night just being us 10 traders!!

I meet a couple of lovely people namely Becky and her beautiful handmade jewellery it was great to speak to other crafty traders.

But I will not be doing another psychic and gift fair ever again it was the longest night of my life!! and my pocket came home emptier than when I got there!!

King Edwards School, Stratford -Upon-Avon

This was our third Craft show. An Evening of Indulgence held at the King Edwards School in Stratford-Upon-Avon. What a night!! So so many people came through the door. This venue completely shocked me as it was £10 for a table which is the lowest I have had so far but the biggest and busiest fair!! The organiser Serena did such a great job very proffessional. We would definately be interested if they held another Evening of Indulgence.
But we may need to ask if they would mind positioning us away from the cheese stall!! as you can see in the pic it was a couple of tables behind us. It wreaked!! Eurgh I'm not a massive cheese fan anyway but I don't know how anyone could put such disgusting smelling cheese in their mouth. It smells like mould.......Yuck I'm so glad I could keep sniffing my soaps to take the smell away heehee

First Folksy Sale Feedback

The lovely lady that bought from my Folksy shop left feedback about the products on Saturday I was so happy with what she said :)

Feedback from buyer (heartsandcrafts) :
Rating : positive
Comment : Arrived today - very fast as only ordered yesterday! The soaps are absolutely gorgeous: smell as described (lovely!), packaged beautifully, can't wait to start using them, although I may end up giving them as gifts for mother's day and ordering some more! Two free gifts also of other 'flavours' - thank you - have started to use those and they are lovely - the pure is great, really natural, and I've put the peppermint poppy in the bathroom - smells divine! I have real problems with synthetic soaps and my hands, so am looking forward to seeing what a difference it makes using these. Thank you and thoroughly recommended! Nikki :-)

Folksy Shop

I opened the Folksy shop a week ago. The pics look great and I've had some great feedback about how the shop looks.
I had my first sale on the shop on Friday morning. I was so over the moon when I saw it I was hyperventilating :) Dave said I sounded like Davina McCall heehee.
I wrapped the soaps as a gift in my Bayan tree tissue paper and and tied with raffia I also sent two small samples with the soaps.
I used Paypal to print my postage for the parcel such a good idea saves queuing at the Post Office.

Photoshoot :)

These are pics Dave took whilst I spent the afternoon doing a photoshoot with my soaps!!

I'm really chuffed how the photos turned out. I really think the way you present your products goes a long way! It had been ages since I'd picked up the camera but its like riding a bike you never forget best settings and what helps with composition.

It made me think about a quote that always rings true with me in regard to photographers

Amateurs worry about the equipment, Professionals worry about the money and Masters worry about the LIGHT!!

These pics were taken at our second craft fair in Ironbridge. Absolutley beautiful surrounding area and it was a stunning warm day considering it was early March. The organiser and the other traders were lovely and made me feel welcome as they hold the craft fair every month and every sunday from May onwards so all knew each other very well. The table layout was a little strange as you can see in the pic we had to sit to the side of the table which felt a bit wrong to me as I am used to sitting behind the table. It was a very quiet day in the hotel and we didn't really have many people come through the door which was a real shame as there were so so many people outside. Dave spent the day wondering round Ironbridge enjoying the sights with his Nikon and flirting with the lady in the tea room :) heehee. It was a real shame that they couldn't hold the craft fair on the bridge I would have sold out :) We were asked to come to Ironbridge again but we may leave it until the summer months as it felt like quite a long day as there wasn't many people coming in. But if you haven't been to Ironbridge it is well worth the visit and the pasty shop next to the Tontine Hotel is divine :)

Setting up!!

Ok this was a few weeks ago now but it was a very exciting time. It was the night before our 1st craft fair and I was practicing my table layout at our workshop. These are a few pics from that night.

1st Craft fair

These are few pics from our 1st craft fair it was held in Halesowen's Cornbow Hall. Everything went fine we had a lovely day and had a lot of interest and sales. We had a few members of our family come down to see us. We decided to change the layout of the table after this event as we wanted to incorporate the larger bars with the mini bars.

Introduction Post

Hiya My name is Lucy I am married to a wonderful husband and I have a beautiful Beagle called Lily. I am a definate Designer maker from knitting to baking to making wedding favours. My favourite of all is soap making! I adore all things soap. I have a small soap company called The Sleepy Valley Co that I am very proud of. I use cold and hot process to make my soaps and I only use natural ingredients and pure essential oils. There are no chemicals or synthetics in my products so they are so kind to your skin. I love inventing and developing new scents and textures and seeing people enjoying the benefits of a natural skin friendly soap. I also only use fairtrade or eco friendly wrapping and I also use recycled paper from a wonderful company called Ellie Poo Paper which is exactly what it says on the tin!. Please get in touch if you would like to know more :) xxxx