By Karen W of Ellie Marie Designs
Our featured artists this week are Garreth and Carla from Scentcosmetics They have generously offered a giveaway this adorable Irish Sheep!
To enter, go to their shop and pick your favorite item out of all their items, then come back here and comment to let them know. Regular comments don't get you entered, so don't forget to name your favorite item(s). Please leave your email address so that we can get in contact with you too!
Introduction-
I'm
Garreth, the social entrepreneur, coach, facilitator, one time
television presenter, pastor, chief home-maker/child-carer, baker and
occasional soap-maker. I come up with ideas but Carla makes it happen; I
try to serve in any way in order to help her achieve the success she
deserves.
Carla
is the Soap Artist. One time Hospital manager, scrap-booker &
make-up artist she came over to Ireland as a missionary to work in a
meat factory with other foreign nationals! Having stayed just 7 months
and on the verge of returning to Brazil she was introduced to a local
church leader at the time. Me. With a heart for prayer and for young
people it seemed God had given us the same vision for the town in which
we lived.
18months
later we were working together on a church plant, community/voluntary
project. Our focus was specifically the most marginalized young people
in our community, began fostering etc, all as a means to blessing the
local community.
Funding
dried up and as a social entrepreneur we needed to look at tent-making
as an alternative lifestyle choice in order to make a living and live
according to our calling. Scent was born.
She has the skill and creative genius that makes what you see in the shop.
How did you get your start on Etsy?
It
was a friend who suggested it to us. Initially I was very skeptical.
Who wants to pay $5.00 postage on a bar of soap that costs 6$? It was
only when we started to focus in on Soap Art that we felt we had a niche
which might work on a site such as ETSY. Within a few days we started
getting noticed, some work establishing ourselves in the forums led to
some opportunities and got us to an established foot on the first rung
of the Etsy ladder.
How did you choose your shop name?
ScENT
as the name for the business was my idea. We all know that soap smells
good and I had the idea that as we wanted to grow into a social
business we could carry the “fragrance of heaven” through the soap
business into the community. This also sat with our fundamental belief
that we are “one’s who are SENT”. There is an apostolic call of mission
on our lives – the business is secondary. To highlight the SENT in
ScENT demonstrated our calling, our vision and the very product we
wanted to sell. ScENT wasn’t available so we opted for ScENTcosmetics.
What does a typical day look like for you?
Usually
up at 6am with one of the two children and I find an hour or two on the
computer in the morning. Carla usually heads over to the lab (which
overlooks the sea) at about 10am-11am. We join as a family at about
12.30, 3.00pm for coffee & we all have tea at the table. I might
get another hour at the computer during the day in the midst of
child-care, cooking and cleaning – but generally that is left for the
evenings. Children go to bed at about 6.30 and 8pm respectively and we
gen continue working to 10 -11pm.
We
Structure the week so that Wednesday evenings we look at some bible
teaching, we keep a Sabbath meal on the Friday night and don’t work at
all on Saturdays. I lead Church on the Sunday and usually we socialise
Sunday afternoon/evenings.
The
joy of being self-employed is that we can drop this routine like a
hat, people visit, have tea with us, perhaps need someone to talk to –
so key for us is be flexible at the same time as be committed. It is
the first year of a business after all. We need to make it work.
If you could be anywhere in the world for one day, where would it be?
Carla
really wants to be back home at the minute to meet her new niece. She
is a twin and so desperately wants to see the new addition to the
family.
What is your favorite Bible verse?
“Don’t
you know that you yourselves are a temple and that God’s Spirit lives
in you. If anyone destroys that temple God will destroy them for Gods
temple is sacred and you are that temple” (My translation)
This was the first and most current verse of the bible for me at the moment.
What is your favorite Etsy item listing to feature?
The
pear wasn’t my favorite fruit to be honest when Carla first showed it
to me – but as she has practiced this one I have to say it has grown on
me somewhat and smells simply divine! A real favorite!
Where else can we find you on the internet? (Facebook fan page, Twitter, your own dot.com, your blog, etc)
Thank you for agreeing to be featured Garreth and Carla! Everyone please go check out their shop and even the links that and show them some CAST
love! Winner of her giveaway will be announced next week! Last week's winner for a prize from First Light Glass is Anna Marie aka Vintage Junkie! Congratulations!
10:20 AM |
Category: |
12
comments
Comments (12)
Very nice meeting Garreth and Carla! I love your shop... you have brought soap to an artistic level! My favorite is the stone soap just because I have a weakness for stones!
Thanks for sharing.
Thank you so much. Look forward to letting you know who gets the sheep.
How cute are those sheep!? They are definitely my favorite followed by the calla lilies. So creative!
Nice to get to know a little bit more about the shop and the owners. :)
Jennifermhine @ gmail.com
Well I pretty much love everything, especially the apples, but I would have to say the hand salve would be very useful. With all the weeding I have been doing lately my hands are getting quite messed up!
Wow, what pretty soaps. Almost too pretty to use. I love the Calla Lily soaps but also thought those Lego and puzzle soaps were great for kids. Thanks for introducing me to this great shop!
lovelucy@frontiernet.net
The sheep or the apple sphere soap, would be my favourites... But really, it was so hard to choose since they all look so awesome.
Great teamwork, you two:)
The pear is my favorite. I collect pears because my maiden name is translated "pear" in Italian. All in all - the soaps are too beautiful to use as soap. I would treat it as a tiny sculpture.
G is for Gingerbread.... I love that little gingerbread man soap! I collect gingerbread people and display them at Christmas. Your little ginger-man soap is cute!!
My favorite is the carrot and sandalwood hand salve http://www.etsy.com/listing/108083377/hand-salve-carrot-seed-sandalwood?ga_search_query=sandalwood
I bet it smells relish!
I meant delicious! Darn auto-correct made it relish!
Oh wow, I can't believe how realistic your food soaps look - fantastic! Actually, all your soaps are AMAZING, the birds egg ones are my favourites. :)
Hallo Garreth and Carla,
I like the domino soap, it makes me remembering my dear grandma and the domino game we did play together. She did'nt like to loose ;-)
Mathilda