What did you do this weekend? I went to Ga Spring Fling!
I went to the Georgia Spring Fling this weekend. If you work in the soap industry, perhaps you know what that is. For those of you that don’t, I’ll explain! It’s a meeting of soap and candle minded folk that get together to celebrate and share their love of the craft. Many vendors come to add to the creativity and sell supplies and tools that help also. It’s a conference where collaboration is easy to be fostered in my humble opinion.
I found out about this conference a few weeks before the first one commenced last year(2008). It was posted on the Handcrafted Soapmaker’s Guild website and I remember thinking what a find! This conference is in a few weeks very close to home! I made new friends at that conference last year. I also developed an obsession for pouring candles at the last one! Penny Arrowwood, it’s all your fault!
This year was different for me. 2009 featured speakers that I’d had contact with over the internet as well as fellow soap makers. I got to meet Donna Maria Coles Johnson of the Indie Beauty Network in PERSON! (We just hugged and hugged as we just plain are kindred spirits!) I wonder if she thought I was shy? HA! psst…twitter is what brought us together, don’t tell anyone! HA!
Sindy Anderson is the lead coordinator of this event. She and her team did a fabulous job putting it together. Being local, it seemed silly to stay in the hotel over the conference. Most of the demos and speakers were scheduled for Saturday. I began to wonder if I should make the effort to come out on the Friday night before. Sindy called me or emailed saying I should come that night and bring my daughter as it would be a bit more casual. I jumped at that chance! This would be a neat way to exposed my daughter to the folk that I spend a bit of time with via internet and phone. I was curious to see her reactions to the products there also.
Any 6 year old kid is going to be a bit bored with a bunch of adults talking, we all know it’s a fact of life no matter how well behaved they can be. When she wasn’t bored, she was busy hearing stories of one artistic soapmaker riding off into the sunset on her Harley motorcycle, playing with jelly bath at Kelly Bloom‘s booth, shopping for soap tools at Paula Kates’ PJsoaps table, and getting a mud facial at Tammy’s Dead Sea Bulk Materials to boot! This kid was not bored for long this night, oh no! Did I mention she and “Sammy” (Paula Kates’ dog) got along? We had a blast getting our mud facials to be sure! Enjoy the pictures! This was only the “casual” Friday beginning! Stay tuned for more shots this week of a wonderful celebration of soap and candle making! – Like right here!
Happy Washing! Literally!
~Regina