I need help ayone have any ideas???

Soapmaking Forum

Help Support Soapmaking Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Missjulesdid

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 9, 2008
Messages
255
Reaction score
4
Location
Massachusetts
Ok, I have a cool idea to set my products apart... My company name is Birch Hill Soap.. (thanks again Tab for saving me from calling it Quabbin Naturals) My stuff is pretty natural I use primarily eos for fragrance and herbs to color. Anyway, I wanted to incorporate the birch into my brand a little bit more so I got this idea that I would scavnage for fallen birch (I'm in new england so they're EVERYWHERE) and harvest the bark and then cut it in small circles and then stamp on each one:
Genuine Birch Hill Soap
handcrafted in Athol, Mass.


My question is, does anyone have any ideas about producing these quickly, and also how to stamp on the inside of the birch bark? can you get an electric wood burning type stamp that says anything you want? or maybe an engraving type stamp would work well... or maybe just a regular stamp with ink? What about cutting? I've cut birch with scissors, but that would take forever to cut all of these tags with scissors, anyone have any suggestions for better way to cut?
Thanks!
 
For cutting you might use one of the heavy duty paper cutters with the long arm, but it would need to be for straight edge tags. There are also bits you can put on the end of a drill that would cut circles. As for your logo, burning it into the wood would be awesome! I am not familiar with branding equipment but I'm sure it's out there somewhere. If you find this becomes to labor intensive, you may consider doing it only for your baskets or high priced items instead of each individual product.
 
Well this might be a bit off the wall :) but here goes my offering :)

First of all I think you will find circles are much harder to produce in quantity than rectangles. I think a nice oblong shape would look good as a swing tag kind of thing and easier to imprint your name etc.

I think you might have to process sheets of bark so that they are flatish and dont curl up, so you might have to steam and bash it a bit.

As for actually getting the info onto the bark, you said you wanted a kind of brand effect ? I think that getting a 'brand' made up would be very costly, but how about a template like a stencil idea and use a heat gun to scorch the wood through the stencil ? I guess it would have to be sheet metal.

As I say it might be completely off the wall but it might give rise to other ideas :)
 
scotsoap,
I think you might be right about the rectangles, and I can do like chay suggested with a big cutter, or even a razor rectangle with oval stamp would be good... I've been surfing around.. to get an electric woodburning brand with custom lettering is like 60 and to go with logo and lettering is a little over a hundred.. high price, but not unreasonable..

And for the birchbark, I was thinking I would wet down and press between two pieces of plywood then park my car on it..... Hmmm, maybe I need to keep thinking on this one. I think it needs to be pressed pretty well... although... if I'm doing rectangles, there wouldn't be much of a curve.

I know these tags sound like a pain in the butt, But I really think they'd help my stuff stand out and add that little extra touch.
 
for cutting, a hole punch (they make them in big sizes...)

http://www.1stopsquare.com/hole.html

Id start by cutting the bark into long strips like suggested above, then punching them with the hole punch..

as far as branding them...try a branding iron ( you can get them custom made)

http://www.myartsandcrafts.com/prodsubcat95page1.htm

but beware, since birch bark is thin, you might burn through it if its too hot...


also another thing you might want to do is make a signature "Birch beer" soap...this is the original Root Beer, it was made with boiled birch roots/bark and wood pulp. You can make teas out of the leaves as well...then use these to make a soap!

that would be AWESOME for your company name.... glad you picked the one you did, I like the sound of it!
 
also another thing you might want to do is make a signature "Birch beer" soap...this is the original Root Beer, it was made with boiled birch roots/bark and wood pulp. You can make teas out of the leaves as well...then use these to make a soap!

How Funny, yet another case of our *great* minds thinking alike, I made a birch beer soap, and it went all afowl.. I actually sent some to you with the sauna soap so you could have a look you should get it on Friday...

I have strange orange spots on it, but I don't think they're the "dreaded" orange spots since they showed up immediately.. even while the soap was still cooling down... and they're not growing or anything...But I'm obviously not going to sell any soap from that batch, I also sent some to the folks in the swap because I want to see if anyone has any ideas about them before I try to make another batch... I used birch oil, anise oil and black pepper to fragrance, and popyseed for an exfoliant.. I also added Titanium dioxide to get the soap white.

I love Birch Beer, It's one of my favorite kinds of soda, or "tonic" as the old time newenglanders call it.
 
meeee tooo! :) oooh Im excited! will check my mail friday!! The orange spots , I think they could be from the poppy seeds or the pepper? or maybe from one of the EO's?? who knows :) Im sure its fine though ! :)


Hey dont give up on the idea even if the first batch didnt turn out the way you like!! I think that would be AWESOME to add as your signature scent! :)

soo excited :) 8) :lol:
 
Back
Top