Monday, September 27, 2010

Handmade Life- Studio Tour with Emily of Sweet Olive Soap Works

Emily is a fellow Craft Mafia Member and makes the most delicious soaps in her childhood home under the name Sweet Olive Soap Works. You can smell the aroma of herbs wafting out of her studio, into her back yard as you walk up. Not only does she make soap, she raises chickens, and has a wonderful city garden too!

Lucky me, I was able to visit Emily in her Uptown home- just off Oak Street to tour her newly renovated Sweet Olive Soap Works studio.

Only the best, all natural, ingredients go into the soap at Sweet Olive Soap works.


Emily learned to make soap from her Grandmother and started making soap full time a few years ago. I love the story she tells about her father helping her to renovate her studio and how, as a child he instilled in her the value of working with your hands to make a living.

Miss Emily's Chicken Palace

Herbs, berries, and fruits grow here and are used in Emily's soaps.


After soaps are hand cut, they cure for 30 days in the studio before they can be packaged and sold.
I love the connection to Emily's roots that comes out in much of the actual physical construction of the studio. The retail/ packaging part of Sweet Olive Soap Works was once the childhood bedroom of Emily and her sisters. Much of the shelving was reclaimed from existing furniture that has been in the family home for many years.


Soap ready to be packaged and Sold finds its home on reclaimed wooden shelves.


Please take a moment to visit Emily's online shop. Her soaps are a bit of daily luxury, great quality and great for all skin types.

I'm so happy to announce that Emily is sponsoring a give away. The Lucky Winner will receive a bar of her Bon Temps Poulet- all natural egg soap!

The give away will run until October 15th. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment here with the answer to ,What is your most prized family possession?






5 comments:

casey said...

My mom gave me a little trunk filled with items she saved from her childhood and ours. Little tea set, some hankies - it's beautiful and has a home in my sewing room!

Purl Scout said...

my most prized family possession is most definitely the photo album stash. every time i visit my parents home, no matter how frequently, i find myself pulling the albums out and thumbing through page after page.

Lara said...

I would love to win a bar of this soap! My most prized family possession has to be a collection of items that belonged to my deceased father.

Heather said...

i have a photo of my mom from 1967 when she was 16 that my grandmother framed for me when i was a kid. it's sort of amazing.

Erica said...

It's probably a tie between a ring my mother made when she was young made out of the end of a silver spoon with her family initials on it and a poster size photo of my father from the 70s wearing bell bottoms, platform shoes, shoulder length hair, and a mustach while standing in front of a hot rod in the middle of Detroit!