I have just returned from my second Handcrafted Soapmaker’s Guild Conference. This was in Denver, Co at the beautiful Inverness Hotel.
After my two hour unscheduled tour of Denver, I arrived at the hotel. I went to go sign in and register for the conference and upon entering the room, I knew this was going to be another organized success. Everything was set up to run smoothly from picking up our badges, to our photos taken, to getting our schedule packet all the way to the overflowing goodie bag!
I knew I had brought an extra suitcase for a reason!
The entire four days was spent going to educational seminars, great food, meeting the fantastic vendors and attending some incredible wing dings!
We first started out with the keynote speaker Ambassador Carol Braun Moseley who told us that we all need to be “careful” with each other. To be responsible for each other. She was a very well spoken woman and although we may have political differences, she was very informative.
Throughout the conference, I learned to finally try to make Liquid Soap a brand new way from Anne-Marie Faiola from Brambleberry, which I will start this week.
Anne-Marie from Brambleberry
I also heard from Robert Tisserand who is well reknowned for understanding essential oils. Debbie May from Wholesale Supplies Plus taught us how to turn our passion into profits and Kevin Dunn dispelled the Dove Mirror myth!
There were so many more amazing speakers and I learned so much from each and every one of them.
The food at the hotel was wonderful and we were always supplied with great snacks of fruit, vegetables and nachos! During the lunches, it was great to network with so many other wonderful soapmakers.
Meeting new friends
It was also interesting to find that many of us did other things besides making soap and bath products. Some were gardeners, others were web designers and still others were writers! With a network of people like that, we have nonstop resources for all of our needs.
At this conference, we had the most vendors ever with a total of 18. But we received information about so many more that were in our goody bags and tons of giveaways from an assortment of other wonderful vendors.
The Prize Table!
I was lucky enough to win a gift certificate from one of my favorite suppliers, Mike Lawson of Columbus Foods!
Mike Lawson of Columbus Foods
If was delightful to finally meet the faces behind our supplies such as Funlayo Alabi from Shea Radiance. I can’t wait to hear more about the trip to Africa in the works. Also, Rob and Irv Brown from Lebermuth. We learned a lot about Irv from the Wild, Wild West Party! It was also nice to sse new vendors and what they had to offer such as the guys from Lightning Labels and Salus bulk soap making supplies. I know I will be visiting a lot of new websites shortly!
Oh, and can we talk about the parties!! We started out with Debbie May at a question and answer dessert function in which she ended up giving away $5000 in supplies certificates! The next night Kayla and Dennis Fioravanti
Dennis Fioravanti from Essential Wholesale
outdid themselves from last year with a Wild, Wild West party complete with Annie Oakley, Wild Bill Hickok, the Unsinkable Molly Brown and the rest of the cast of Victorian Gold. They were a funny improv group who kept the guests entertained. They then topped it off with the return of Wendy Liebman, a humorous comedian that had people crying with laughter.
Comedy troupe Victorian Gold
The conference parties continued with the Annual Awards Dinner in which we had a contest to guess where the next conference will be held. The winner? Miami, Florida, May 18th-20th, 2011.
2011 HSMG Conference - Miami, Fl May 18th - 20th
A good time was had by all as we enjoyed the camraderie of each other, over $10,000 in prize giveaways, lots of information from all of our speakers and vendors, the food and we certainly can’t forget the parties!
I can’t wait till next year! If you are a soapmaker, will I see you there?
