We are ready for our open house! We're stocked with herb plants. We have gorgeous roving from Abi. We have jams and jellies to clearance out (so we can make new this coming harvest season). We have TONS of popcorn, and, are ready to go!

We took the morning to help a friend burn her 10 acre restored prairie (with wetlands area in the middle). it was FUN!! here's a few good pics. :)

We've got some scent blends marinating to test both in candles and for our new "Guy line" (men's products)....we'll keep you posted! :)

Some days, we have more office "help" than we know what to do with. Mo (black and white kitty) loves to lay right in front of the printer, so we have to scooch him over every time an order needs to be printed (every few minutes). Violet (calico) loves to sit on top of the printer and attack the papers as they come out. They are a very effective duo!

Here are a bunch of pictures, in no particular order, from our Soapmaking 101 Class last Saturday. We had 6 people - 3 guys, and 3 girls, which we thought was really cool (we usually have far more women than men at our classes!). I think they all had a really good time!

BUSY day yesterday!!!

We had 100 lbs of shea delivered - 50 for us and 50 for Karla, our soapmaker friend. We get it from agbanga karite, they have lovely fair trade butters, oils, black soap and more. This is what 50 lbs of shea butter looks like - I put a 4 oz. bar of soap next to it, for perspective. Who knew owning a herb shop meant quite so much heavy lifting???



With that shea, I made tons of patchouli body balms. These are for soul-flower, and then I turned around and made another batch, just as big, for us. We LOVE shea butter. So creamy, so moisturizing!!!









Then I made some Just Plain Shea balm, and these samples - these are lavender body balm samples, I think about 100. These will go in our sample basket, and be given out to any customers that walk in the door, or shipped out with our orders.








Donna did TONS of orders - this is her, working in our teensy weensy office. Doesn't she look nice?? She remembered we had a photographer coming to take photos of us and our shop today. I, however, did not, so I wore grungy clothes and had a bad hair day. *sigh*







I got a picture of the photographer taking photos of our stuff too. :)

Weather here is crazy. Last monday, this:
Excellent blizzard pics

This Tuesday? 78 degrees. People running around in sandals, with not-yet-melted snowdrifts all around.

CRAZY!

But, the catnip and thyme are greening up! We'll have some pictures soon!

Well, I think the needlefelting class on Saturday went really well. Everyone seemed to have a good time! Here are some pics of the grand event. Diane, who taught the class, has agreed to come back maybe in the summer or fall to do this class again, or maybe even something else related (felted jewelry anyone??? :) )

Okay! We have revamped and added to our class schedule. Here are the updates:

Crochet class moved from March 24th to March 31st.

Now we have SECOND Soapmaking 101 class open on March 24th (We think the March 17th one is full; we are just waiting for final confirmation/payment from one person).

Clear as mud? :)

WOW! You guys sure love learning how to make soap! Our Soapmaking 101 class is nearly full - we're waiting on confirmation from one person who verbally signed up. SO! If you are interested in learning to make soap...but 1) haven't yet signed up, or 2) want to take the class but that date/time doesn't work for you....let us know. If demand is great enough we will see if Karla can fit in another Soapmaking 101 class. Otherwise, I won't be until June...kind of a long time to wait!

On a related note, there's still spaces available for the Milk Soaps and Hot Process Crock Pot Soap classes. And, we MAY have one space available in our rescheduled March 10th Needlefelting Class...... please email us or call if you are interested!

Our Needlefeling class is rescheduled for Saturday, March 10th, from 1-4. I hope all our original participants can make it!

We had us an honest-to-gosh blizzard! Well, technically, it's still going on. EVERYTHING is closed. By everything I mean businesses, schools, county and national governmental offices...yep. everything!

So - Donna is at work (after trudging through much snow to get from the house to the shop), answering emails and packing up everyone's FREE FACIAL SERUMS (if you aren't subscribed to our enewsletter, you should be! So we can notify you of freebies and specials!)

I (Maggie) am home, working on very exciting things like 1) updating our wholesale price list, and 2) writing press releases. Oh, and updating this blog. I admit, a fair amount of knitting is getting done too. :) But I'm knitting the hat we're going to be making in our March 24th Knit/Crochet an Earflap Cap so it's "real" work....right??? I will post a pic when I get it finished. it's so cute!

In other good news, Karla, our self-proclaimed crazy soaplady , is also snowed in at home (she lives further to the north than we do, so she's even more snowed in!) and making soap like a madwoman. yay!!!

I took these pics from my house. Please note - while they do not look blizzard-worthy by themselves, understand that these are in my VERY PROTECTED backyard. I'm in a very protected part of town, AND have a 6 foot privacy fence. So just imagine what it's like out in the country where Donna is! Snow is blowing everywhere, visibility is practically zero, and the roads are drifted like crazy.

Ahhh...March in Iowa. You gotta love it.

*deep sigh*

More snow is on the way! BLAH!

We'll see what goes on...if the weather is like they're predicting (4 inches of blowing snow, possible ice/rain...yuk!), we may not be able to get out to mail packages tomorrow. We'll let you know....

THIS is why we didn't get to have our Needlefelting class on Saturday. BIG snow. big big BIG wet heavy snow! WIth ice underneath, because it rained alot, then froze, and then dumped snow on top!

These pictures are from Maggie's house. Donna is safe at her place at the acreage where PLH is....hopefully, they will plow her road tomorrow so that Maggie can get into work!

Okay, it's official - our Needlefelting class for today is CANCELLED. We will wait to hear from the instructor about other dates she can come, and will be rescheduling this class.

Sorry everyone!!

WEATHER! GAH.

Well, we've got icy icky stuff here. I'm waiting for the official word that our class is cancelled (we need to get ahold of the instructor), but, I'm 99% sure that today's needlefelting class will be rescheduled.

I'll keep everyone posted!!

Okay. I *think* the site is re-uploaded. If anyone has problems with it, please let me know?

Which brings me to another point - I'm not entirely sure the email is working, and won't know until I get to work tomorrow. So if you emailed us today and we didn't answer...may want to double-check that we got it. You can post here and I will be sure to check on all the comments.

still taking comments on our new prototype site! Tell us what you think!

Well, Mercury Retrograde is in full force....we are having some difficulties with our website. As in, it's not there. Please bear with us while we get it fixed!!!!

So last Friday was COLD, cold cold...we were baking a lasagna for lunch and happened to think...hmm..some nice local wine would go great with this! So we zipped over to Picket Fence Creamery for some Midnight Rain Wine (YUM!) from Madison County Winery (their Prairie Fire is a big fave of ours too).

Some days, it's not at all bad to be your own boss. :)

Whew. The storm rolled past us with out too much incident. Schools were cancelled yesterday, so Donna was home with her 5 year old grandson. Maggie stayed home and looked up new shopping carts. That's right, folks - prairielandherbs is getting a new website and new shopping cart! Do you want to see what it's going to look like (probably?) Check out www.soluscandles.com and see what you think (we're just using that address to park our new site - our actual web address will remain the same.

In other news? We are *just* about to unleash a brand new product in celebration of Donna's birthday. Facial Serums. Yep...they are AWESOME. stay tuned...they'll be on the website very soon!