Great Ideas and Winners




So I'm ready to announce the winner of the "Taste of haeven" giveaway.





But first, I wanted to share some of the ideas that you all came up with and the status of some of them:





1. "Bounce" type dryer sheets - I'm actually working on some kind of moist dryer sheet. Ever since Arm & Hammer came out with it, I've been itching to create something similar, so that one is in research & development.





2. Eco-Friendly Clothing Dye - Not sure how to go about this one. This one will have to wait for when the R&D department has a bit of a bigger budget.





3. Allergy-friendly products for the laundry room, like dryer sheets or clothing refreshers like "dryel" - definiately in development. I'm working on a dryer sheet/sachet that is different from any you've seen before -- even in my shop.





4. Fruit Scented haevenScent linen spray - Definately! I'm in the process of getting some more fragrance oils/essential oils to add to the repetoire. The sky will soon be the limit!





5. Eco-friendly bubble-bath - You took the words right out of my mouth. Coming late this year/early next year, haeven will be having a Bath and Body line to die for!





6. Lingerie gentle detergent - While my laundry powder is gentle enough for those unmentionables, I hear ya. Next week I will be tinkering around with a LIQUID for those pretty frilly things (even the ones with skulls on them!)





7. More variety in your sachet selection - that's only part of my busy schedule. I have a few other scents ready to go online, I just have to photgraph them. Again next week I have a great vacation from the "day" job, so haeven is getting tons of attention!





So now, without further ado, and babbling from me (because of course you know I'm stalling), here's the winner!




who has an ArtFire shop as well!

She will be contacted shortly and will get the Gift Set

Thank you everyone for the entering and for your ideas and feedback -- you definitely be seeing your ideas crop up in the shop soon.

A New Giveaway for a New Look!


That's right! I'm ready to have the first "A Taste of Haeven" Giveaway. The new products rock so much that I want to give everyone an opportunity to try them... for free!









The Taste of Haeven Gift Set contains a wonderfully generous sample of all of our current products! You'll get a nice 8-load sample of our laundry powder (regular scent), a 2 ounce sample of our haeven Scent freshener spray in your choice of scent (Lav/Cham, Black Tea, Sandalwood, or Asian Citrus) and one of our smaller sample size Sachet from haeven (again in your choice of scent). All of it comes in a cute little bag and the laundry powder comes with a scoop.

Now, all you have to do to have a chance to win this set (valued at $11.25) is to comment below with the type of Eco-friendly items you would like to see in our shop! Either leave your shop/username or your email. I'll only use the email to contact you if you've won -- so make sure if it's not your main email then it's an email you do check.

On July 31, I'll pick a person at random and announce it in a post here!



good luck!

Gentlemen (and Ladies), Start Your Engines....

What a wonderfully positive re-start to the shop. Already have four sales in two days, and they are already packaged and labels are printed and they are ready to go!
I learned so much during the debacle of GFT. First and foremost; just package the items as soon as you get the sale. Don't put it off to mail on one singular day of the week.

Second; free shipping sucks! Unless you're shipping something that is so light that you can afford to absorb the cost (or incorporate the cost into the price) -- for me that's less than $2 -- then you MUST charge shipping. The only time when free shipping will work if if the customer purchases so much that the cost of shipping is negligible in comparison to the price that was just paid. Did that make sense?


Okay, so now, I have to chirp and preen about the new products, the new packaging, the whole new attitude:




Laundry Detergent - 8 Load Sampler - $3.75

Okay, this is the first product available. It's the new laundry powder. This sample size offering is actually four 2-load samples of our four fragrances. The new formulation is made with a soap that contains NO SLS, SLES, Sodium Tallowate or any animal products. Yay for vegan laundry soap. I'm still toying with the idea of offering a "heavy-duty" laundry detergent for those scary loads (like husband's work uniforms, kid's sport uniforms, etc), but for now, this will work for just about everything from diapers to regular laundry. Soon, these will come in packages of 16 and 32 loads.



haeven Scent Linen Spray - 2 oz sample - $3.75

I love this product. I love the way the packaging came out and I love the smell! This is linen spray; however you can use for wherever you need freshness! Three of the fragrances match the scents of the laundry powder, and I've added the wonderful smokiness of Black Tea to the bunch. Now both bachelors and -ettes can have cool smelling bachelor pads. This is a sampler of 2 ounces of spray (wow! that 's a whole lot!). I'll have 8 ounce refill bottles available soon.


What's coming next? Well, I'm working on a laundry sachet. I'm trying to give it a unique but functional look, so we'll see how that works out.

Then, hopefully, the sky will be the limit. This time I have better focus and a more positive attitude about being able to do it all! Here's to hoping that the books match my happy mood by the end of the month; that's when I meet with Husband-Man the Accountant. Maybe I'll be able to make it a date night...

Well, have a great weekend all! Don't forget:
Every new day opens a new window of opportunity; make the most of it!

Final Day Fun!


One more day before the new shop opens! It almost feels like the very first time I opened a shop to sell my rosaries. I remember those days -- I didn't have a digital camera, so I put the pieces on a scanner bed and scanned them. So sad.

In any case, now I'm a bit better at taking pictures... and I've found this great site to optimize them for web viewing. Appropriately, the site is called WebResizer.

Why do you need to optimize your pictures? Well, have you ever tried to take a look at picture and it took F-O-R-E-V-E-R to load? That's because it was sized for normal viewing. WebResizer takes that normal picture and shrinks it down so it takes a little time to load, without messing up the quality of the picture. At least that's what I get from it. With this site, you can adjust too -- especially if you don't have a program like PhotoShop or Picnik or something like that. And -- here's the best part -- it's absolutely free!

Anyway, off I go to finish dusting off the virtual shelves and straightening the virtual signs. Wish me tons of luck!

Construction Underway!


Waiting on some supplies and almost ready to re-open next week! The time away from this part of my business was a good thing; I was able to think objectively about what was going wrong.

Now I can commit to better organization, I can guarantee speeding shipping, and a EXECPTIONAL (God, I like that word) customer service experience for my customers all over. My husband has jumped on board as well -- cautiously, but it was better than the previous no support at all. He's going to make sure my finances stay in order. A Chief Financial Officer if you will. So, go me!

In the process of cleaning up and through the physical re-org; I'm destashing a few things. The first are these kraft jewelry boxes. I have about 80 of them and I'm planning to sell them in lots of 10. HOWEVER, if anyone out there wants to whole bunch, I can sell them for $15 for the whole lot. I've only taken a few out, and the rest haven't even left the box they came from. Just convo me @ Etsy or email me if you're interested. I'll probably have more to destash as I clear out my craft closet!

Now, off I go to finish this doggone closet and wait for Friday, so I can order my supply -- because that's when the CFO is going to release the funds. LOL!

I'll see you all next week with ... something I hope!