Tinkery Ballistics

Thank you everyone who came out to the first ever 2-day mini Sharon Church event! We had a great time and can’t wait for September!!

Tonight’s the night! Come check out Sharon Church Friday Summer Mini Craft Event tonight from 5-9, and again tomorrow for the Sharon Church Saturday Summer Mini Craft Event from 10-3!

Hey yall!

Long time no see! Hope everyone is having a great summer break!

I’ve been quietly tinkering around in the workshop here and there in between playing in the woods with my family and neurotically watching my herbs and veggies grow. I can make a mean bar of soap but I’ve never had a green thumb and I’m trying to change that.

Do y’all want to see plant pictures? Because I have them. A bunch of them.

Anywho! In case you haven’t heard, there is a 2-day Sharon Church Friday Summer Mini Craft Event and Sharon Church Saturday Summer Mini Craft Event coming up next month that yours truly will be slinging soap at! I’m really excited to be able to bring you some fun summer scents before I get cracking for the fall/winter season.

I’ll be introducing my first MEGA bar of soap. This upcycled soap confetti bar smells like fresh lemons and is quite literally twice the size of our standard bars.

I call this upcycled soap because the confetti is shredded soap that lost its scent or test batches that never made the cut.

This XL bar can be quartered and still be generously-sized bars of soap.

Hey guys! Long post alert!

Tinkery Ballistics will be taking a large step back in 2024.

You may remember, my mom passed away suddenly one year ago yesterday. Something broke inside me that day and I battled that burn out all of 2023. It never got better. It was a struggle to keep going. I kept telling myself I just had to get over the hump but I never did.

I have realized recently that that something didn’t break, it more so clicked. I’ve been in a cycle of being in a hurry for so long that when I let myself slow down I came to a screeching halt. Gaining the momentum back never happened because my heart wouldn’t let me.

Tinkery Ballistics started as a hobby that was blessed to gain incredible traction very quickly that opened a lot of doors and experiences. I’ve been incredibly blessed to have help from Amanda since day one, but in terms of making and creating I’ve always been a one man show. Here we are almost 5 years later and it’s just not sustainable for me to keep going at this pace. If I have to choose between spending my free time making soap or spending time with my husband and kids, soap isn’t winning.

In addition to reallocating my free time, 2024 is a year of really big changes for my family. It’s all good, amazing things, but I’m not the kind of person that thrives during periods of change. I like routine and familiarity, and all of that has been thrown into the air.

My husband is starting a new business and I’m going to play a more central role in that. (It also means I get to learn how to drive a skid steer for funsies) That role is taking away from the business hours part of my day that I can work on products.

My kids’ needs have also evolved as they grow, and I can’t have myself distracted over soap when they need my undivided attention. That means I can’t work in the evenings like I used to.

We were also blessed to find a beautiful piece of property to purchase last fall, and I’d rather be out exploring on the weekends this spring instead of being at home catching up on inventory. I’ve had a lifelong interest in foraging and all the different uses of wild plants and I’m finally at a place in life where I can explore those interests outside of books.

I also have a huge pile of ideas for new things that I can’t even lend a brain cell to because I don’t have any to spare. It’s incredibly difficult to focus on production when your mind is stuck on creation.

So. Anyway.

What does this mean? No I’m not closing up shop. Not by a long shot.

I made the hard decision not to go with Bunny’s Nest into their newest location in Griffin, and I’ll be withdrawing from Gigis Gelato and Nadia’s boutique in the coming weeks. Monticello is still up in the air.

I’m also reducing my event schedule, as of right now I’m only committed to the 3 Sharon Church events scheduled each year. I may add to that as time passes, but I have opted out of larger event like Cherry Blossom and Geranium festivals this year. I won’t be at Taste of Spring in Conyers, but I do tentatively plan to attend the fall festival just depending on what happens between now and then.

I love doing events and enjoy every moment under that tent, I thrive in those conditions. But the rigorous process of getting ready for event day has stopped bringing the excitement and anticipation I used to feel. I’m genuinely hoping by reducing the work load this year that joy will come back.

In the same respect, I’m hoping that the lightening of the load will bring forward improvements in areas I’ve been viciously lacking in since last year. Despite best intentions, I haven’t been able to restock stores in a timely fashion. Despite several messenger problems that happened on both fb and insta, my customer service hasn’t been good at all, responding in a timely fashion was hard because my brain is in so many places at once and it’s easy to get sidetracked and forget. Heaven help me if a message came through while I was at a stoplight. I’d look at it, leave it open for me to see and respond when I got home, but then it would close out and I’d forget. Then panic a few days later when I remember and respond. I can’t stand that about last year. I’m sorry yall, I’m aware and trying to do better.

I also hope to be able to record and share with you more parts of the making process of different products. I love teaching moments, but I’m in such a hurry all the time to get stuff done that I don’t have time to worry about photography or recording.

All in all, I need a break but refuse to quit. I still have the passion for what I do but it’s spread so thin it can’t shine right now.

All that being said, I’m genuinely looking forward to the Sharon Church Spring Craft event in March. I don’t experience the dread of “got to get ready” when I’m preparing for those events. It might be because it’s so close to home, or because I don’t have to wrestle a tent or battle wind 😂

It’s here folks! Come see us today at our last event until MARCH!

Are you ready for ALL that's happening this Saturday at the farm? 🥳 Buy your tickets now for our annual 𝑫𝒐𝒏𝒖𝒕 𝑩𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒌𝒇𝒂𝒔𝒕 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝑺𝒂𝒏𝒕𝒂. Also, enjoy over 50 unique vendors at our 𝑩𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒆'𝒔 𝑪𝒉𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒎𝒂𝒔 𝑴𝒂𝒓𝒌𝒆𝒕 𝑫𝒂𝒚. 🎅

Don't forget that our farm activities will be open until 6 pm! It's going to be a day you don't want to miss.

✨ Tickets for breakfast with Santa must be purchased in advance. https://www.southernbellefarm.com/christmas

FYI FOLKS!

Due to the forecasted rain this weekend, 𝑩𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒆'𝒔 𝑪𝒉𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒎𝒂𝒔 𝑴𝒂𝒓𝒌𝒆𝒕 𝑫𝒂𝒚 has been postponed to Saturday, December 9th. We hope to see you then! 🎄 Our Market will still be open this weekend for you to shop, visit with Santa, and enjoy a homemade treat from the Bakery. 😋

Thank you guys for an amazing day today at the Sharon Church Christmas Craft Event !!!! I love seeing you all and I super appreciate all your patience when I got busy and you had to wait a minute to ask your questions or get checked out.

In case you missed today, my last event this year will be at Southern Belle Farm on 12/2 for their first Belle’s Christmas Market.

I posted last week about a project soap overheating on me, and I said I’d elaborate on what I’ve been working on later.

Well later is now.

Introducing a pet project heavily influenced by my husband: Oak Bottom Soap.

Hubby has been after me to make a hunting soap for a while. Other than using essential oils or odor-neutralizing additives like charcoal, I had no idea how to make a soap that would actually benefit hunters.

Hubs loves to randomly rattle off hairbrained ideas and ingredients at me, so he said to see if they made acorn oil. He was thinking in terms of essential oils, so I told him it wouldn’t work that way.

To humor him I skeptically searched the interwebs and after some digging I found actual oil made from acorns. Acorn carrier oil.

I ordered this ridiculously expensive bottle of oil to see what it was like and what I could concoct with it. When it arrived, I opened it to smell a very strong, earthy, dirt and tree kind aroma. Just like… acorns, ironically.

The wheels started to turn. I drew inspiration from Aleppo soap, which is another soap scented only by a pungent carrier oil.

Y’all, I thought finding the Acorn oil was going to be the hard part. It took some extensive research efforts to figure out how to plug acorn oil into my soap calculator (you can’t just scroll to the “acorn” option. There’s not one) once I figured that out I whipped up a recipe and made the first batch just in time to test at the start of hunting season. Hubby used it and got two deer on opening day 🤷🏼‍♀️

This soap makes your skin smell like nature. It’s really pleasant believe it or not. I’m offering two styles: plain Oak Bottom Soap and an Oak Bottom with pine and cedar essential oils.

Just a heads up: Oak Bottom is going to be a higher ticket soap because Acorn Oil is over $50/lb. This started as a personal project but it’s so neat and different that I had to share with y’all to see if you like it. I’m working out introductory pricing at around $7 a bar.

I’m really excited to introduce this to y’all. I can’t say for sure this has never been done, but I haven’t been able to find Acorn Oil soap anywhere else.

I’ll have a few bars with me this Saturday at the Sharon Church Christmas Craft Event! Come snag one for your favorite hunter!

at some I’ll have with me this Saturday at the !!!

I am only attending two events to get all your holiday gifts taken care of! The Sharon Church Christmas Craft event is this Saturday 10-3 and then on Dec. 2 I’ll be at Southern Belle Farms very first ever Belle’s Christmas Market!

So I have quietly been working on a targeted soap project since the spring. I’ll expand on that on a different post, but I wanted to show y’all what this crazy soap did in a larger batch.

I’m pretty sure this soap overheated. I should have known better than to use a wood mold because even the single bar mold soaps I’ve made in small batches got really warm, which is unusual (in my limited experience)

The original loaf not only gelled to the point that it remained translucent in the middle, but a good portion of oil separated.

I chopped it up in a bowl and put it in a crockpot to try and rebatch it. Watching partially saponification soap cook was strange. It soogied for several hours before I decided to pour it and just let what happens happen.

I cut it this morning and it’s still two textures, the pH is wonky between the two layers, but there’s no more separation. Essentially, I’m calling it a bust on trying to save it as of now… but I’m going to hang on to it and let it cure anyway… for science. I think the high temp essentially created glycerin soap in the translucent layer. But I could be dead wrong too 🤷🏼‍♀️

Overall this is going to be an expensive mistake. I knew this soap got hot in the mold. But it’s okay! I got to try a couple of new things, and have since successfully made a batch of soap in a different mold.

Stay tuned for what this neat soap project is!

Thank you for an amazing day yesterday at the Olde Town Conyers Fall Festival 2023!!! The weather was beautiful and the people were friendly!

I’ve got two events left for the year:

Sharon Church Christmas Craft Event on November 11 and Belle’s Christmas Market at Southern Belle Farm on December 2. Both great opportunities to shop local and get plenty of Christmas shopping done!

Hey guys!
My messenger is really messed up, all of my messages are completely gone and I’m not sure if they’ll come back.

If you’re waiting on a response or an item to come back into stock please try to send me another message or comment here so I can find you!

It lets me look up people I have corresponded with, but even that is sketchy. I’m working to figure it out.

Yesterday was such a blast, thank you to everyone who came out and shopped!

We are all set up and ready for tomorrow! 10-3 at Sharon Church Fall Craft Event !!!

Hey guys!

Just a heads up: I have made the decision to discontinue the large 8 oz body butter size option. Costs keep rising and I’m making every effort to keep prices as low as possible.

I’ll be offering a special “buy 2” deal at events to help you save a little money also.

I have a small handful of large butters still in inventory that will be available at close out pricing this weekend at the Sharon Church Fall Craft Event!

sugar scrubs are getting a face lift!

Hey guys! Sorry I’ve been radio silent (again) but I’ve been a busy bee getting ready for fall event season!

As always, we kick off at the Sharon Church Fall Craft Event next Saturday, 9/9/23!

For my first trick: limited edition “3 Sisters” bath bomb trio! There will be a limited amount of these available next weekend, so come early to make sure you get yours! These are event only exclusives, so you won’t be able to find these in any stores!

of all the soaps I’ve whipped up this week! Some old favorites, some new stuff for fall. I’ve been transitioning a lot of soaps over to cold process so they may look a little different. It’s the same soap, just made without the crockpot. I am releasing more options without goats milk as well!

Y’all are the best! Thanks for a great day! I’ll be back at doing events in September

In just a few days we will be back at the in !!! We will be in the same spot we have been in years past, right in front of the judicial center in spot J42! We can’t wait to see y’all there!

Oh this is fun. This coffee cup bath bomb will fizz AND foam, and has a gentle vanilla and cocoa butter scent. I’ll have these this weekend at the Geranium Festival in

I have to focus on today but I did get a chance to make this yesterday. This Harvest Moon soap will be available in the fall.

🎶 oh I’m a gummy bear, yes I’m a gummy bear… 🎶. You best believe that song was on repeat in my head while I was placing all those soap gummy bears on my very first cold process soap with embeds! Mom life follows you everywhere! I should be building inventory for next weekend’s event but instead I’m making soap I can’t sell for a while! I used new Rainbow Sherbet fragrance and not only does it smell amazing, it soaped like a dream!

Huge restock this morning at !!! Come get a cup of coffee and last minute Mother’s Day gifts while you’re here! You can also shop with and more!