Why We Make: The Passion Behind Our Craft

Today’s March Meet the Maker Challenge question is Why do you make?

Our initial response to that questions was we created the business to create revenue streams when we were between jobs. If you have followed us for any length of time you will know that in 2010 both of us lost our career jobs to the economy and went from 6 figure income to $10K the next year. Fast forward to 2026 we view this as a retirement revenue stream, and we love creating and all of the details of keeping the business going.

Soap making was initially a curiosity for Steve, but the more research he did the more he fell head over heels for it. He loves the challenge of our customers requests. The most recent request came from a guy named dave that came to the studio with a nub of a bar of his favorite soap. He was hoping we could figure it out and duplicate the soap. Initially we were trying to determine what we were smelling, and what could be in the soap. After a few questions we discovered that the soap was made by an old, well established soap company. The funny thing was we had just bought 6 bottles of essential oil with plan to launch “the spa series”. This particular soap featured Bergamot (a citrus) and tea rose with spice. When he sniffed that essential oil it was spot on.

Steve also loves to find solutions for customers that ask for help. We visit friends back forty every July to pick Jewelweed to make products that help resolve the problems related to exposure to poison ivy. Jewelweed is the natural remedy.

I paint silk because it give opportunity for adding a pop of color to a wardrobe…. but deeper than that, I paint because sometimes there is a deeper emotional connection. I painted a series of my version of the works of Gustav Klimt. One of the most famous painting is often called “the woman in gold “. Its really called the portrait of Adele Bloch Bauer. I had my version of that portrait and it was hung at the front of our tent at an art show when an elderly woman kept coming back. She came back on the last minutes of the three day art fair and insisted she must have the scarf. As she handed the credit card to me I saw it – the tattoo from her days in a German concentration camp. We had talked about the original painting having been seized by the NAZIs during WWII and held by the Viennese government until the legal battle her niece waged was successful in getting the painting back to the family. The raw emotion was at the surface of this woman – even though it has been 70 years since her captivity.