Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all! I hope you all had great holidays and a happy New Year celebration. I enjoyed meeting many interesting people over the holidays and going to new places. Last two weeks of the year we spent with kids, looking into their eyes, absorbing their voices, and making fun projects.
Marmalade Hills had another successful year and it is now ready for a bigger growth. I am very humbled and thankful for all the love and interest that we have received. Slowly but surely the routine is getting back on track: filling new orders, working on new leads and organizing my life to be more efficient, more productive and more happy. So this year I decided to concentrate my attention on things that are important and not always urgent. Which led me to my first official resolution list, that so far, I’m proud to say, I am following pretty good. So here is what I have lined up for myself to conquer this year (I will try to blog about every individual resolution and my progress on it):
1. Sleep at least 7 hours a day
2. Physical exercise at least 30 min every day
3. Have salad every day
4. Double our vacation time
5. Have timely physicals and other routine checks for ALL members of our family (including the dog...and sometimes our fish....sigh...)
6. Spend less time on Social Networking and research
7. Develop and launch new products
8. Update and improve MH studio and equipment
9. More frequent blogging
10. Learn 5 new things; do 5 new activities or projects
11. Be more understanding, talk less and listen more
12. Be humble and happy with what I have and who I am


This is my dirty dozen that needs to be polished and perfected this year. I really hope that some of these routines will become an integral part of my live.
Do you have a resolutions list? What would you like to improve in your life? Share some tricks and tips on how to stick to the resolutions list throughout the year.

Looking forward to what you guys have to say!

Till next time,
Liana.

Second Fan Page Giveaway

Our second Fan Page giveaway is here! Anyone who is our fan on Facebook can enroll to win any product from our shop! There are a few rules: to enroll in this giveaway you must be Marmalade Hills’ fan on Facebook; you must be 18 years of age or older; you have to comment on this post and tell us which product you would like to select as your prize and why. If you are submitting your comment as anonymous you will have to leave your first name and last initial at the end of the comment. You cannot choose sets as your possible prize, only one particular item. Giveaway will go on for one week, until 12-12-09, collecting comments from our fans. Only the ones who left comments will participate in giveaway. After one week I will use online Randomizer to choose a winner. Winner will be contacted via Facebook messaging about their shipping information.

Good Luck!

In case you missed it, results for our first Fan Page giveaway are here.



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Elf Shelf 2009

I finally came to my senses after the show. When I applied for this show I had no idea what to expect and I had no idea how big this show was. I just knew that I have to make progress every day and keep moving ahead. What a crazy time that was: taking care of kids, I gave up on cleaning the house, going to the studio to make products, cooking dinner, back to the studio to make more products… Last night before the show, we stayed up till 2:30am finishing labels and got up 3 ½ hrs later to go to the show. That day was really rough, but adrenalin kept me going and I think, I haven’t eaten all day that day, just coffee and water. Thank God I had my friend with me, who was helping me with everything. I am not sure if it is even possible to do shows on your own. Our booth was in the last room, so the foot traffic was kind of light compare to the two main rooms, in the early morning it even looked a bit empty. People started coming in at 9am sharp! We had our first sale 30 min or so after the opening. We burned and crashed with our first credit card order, it was a $40 purchase and the system was BUSY! Why does it always have to go this way? The lady was very nice and gave us a check and made another $30 purchase :) It was a good start and now looking back, we were pretty busy all day: meeting people, telling them about cold process method of making soaps, talking about benefits of using natural skincare products, making orders, refilling shelves with products, making customized gift sets and processing cards. We could hardly catch up on things, because it was a lot of people around our booth at all times and we tried to be helpful and attend to every stopper-by. There were many different people: some were just wondering around and stopped by just to get a chocolate, some went straight to soaps, and some were interested only in facial care. A few of my good friends stopped by to show us their support and make a purchase, it was very important to hear their words of encouragement. So after all, it was a great show with a big turn out of 1,600 guests and us making great sales! If this is how people shop when the economy is bad, then I can hardly wait to find out how they shop when the economy is good! We had 22 people sign up for the raffle which will be held tonight. The winner will get Omega 3 Body Lotion and one Soap of their choice.
Marmalade Hills will be back to Elf Shelf next Holiday season for sure, only bigger and better and in either of two main rooms! This show has taught me so many things and I cannot wait to improve my flaws next year. I will keep trying until I get it perfect!

I wanted to share with you some of the pictures from the show, please keep in mind that I had only 3 ½ hrs of sleep that night :) So have mercy!
Early Morning: setting up (next year I will have a huge banner behind my booth to cover up any ugly doors or walls)
Side View with soap rack, body mists and soy melts.
Display with raffle sign up sheet, my MICE poster and Specials Menu.


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Reborn and awaken...

Finally my first post, yippee! I’m very excited and don’t even know where to start… Recently I have been awaken and reborn after almost five years of hibernation. Last five years of my life I have been concentrating on being pregnant, raising my wonderful kids, being a good wife and the usual - making the ends meet by working full time side-by-side with my DH in automotive industry. Somewhere in the middle of it all I have discovered a fascinating hobby that would take me away from my everyday routine and get me super excited and energized. It didn’t take long to realize how much potential my favorite hobby had. Effects of my natural soaps and skin care products just blew me away. My skin never felt this good before! I kept smacking my head in amazement: “Natural ingredients, how simple it can be and what a great result!” Ever since, I have been madly in love with natural and nature derived ingredients.

After working on my lotions and potions for a year and some, from a studio in our family room, I have decided to take my hobby to a next level. I wanted everybody to try my products, I wanted everybody to feel the difference! And that’s how Marmalade Hills LLC was born. After getting my head out of my hibernation hole I have been looking around the Internet and I have noticed a new interesting creature - Blog. When I discovered that many companies and craft people keep blogs in order to connect with their customers, to bring them news on every day basis I started to wonder if I should start one of my own. I’ve read many other people’s blogs, I’ve read a lot about running your own blog and finally I’m here.

I’m planning on using this blog mainly for showcasing my products and talking about the process involved in making them. Everything, from why I picked a particular ingredient for my lip balm to why I have designed my label the way you see it. Also I would like to talk about challenges in running your own business, your home, raising kids and being a caring wife at the same time. I hope not to bore you to death and thank you for reading this far!

Liana at Marmalade Hills.

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