Mommaprenuer: Ellen Cagnassola, SweetSoaps

Tell us about yourself: I am a 42 year old wife and mother of 2 girls MaryEllen 14 and Michelle 8.  We live in central New Jersey 30 minutes form NYC. I have a BFA in Interior Design and have been in the soap biz for 12 years with a web site.

How did you start creating your artwork? Made soap with my oldest daughter for fun when she was 3 years old.  Saw the fun and creative possibilities and wanted to stay at home with my girls so I created a small business.

How did you make the decision to pursue your art career and work from home? Always wanted to be at home with my children never a question.

How do you balance work and family? Each stage in life present its own challenges.  When they are really young you work late at night and during nap times to get things going.  As they grow so does your business, it’s give and take.  There are many sacrifices you have to make like free time for yourself.  Support from friends and family is important as well as time alone with your kids away from your business.

If you could go back in time to the beginning stages of your venture, what advice would you give yourself? Don’t worry so much.

Tell us about your average day: up at 6:30 checking e mail, twitter responding to queries. Get soap melting, take a shower,get kids where they need to be school etc. Go to gym, home, start making soap. 3:00 wind down manufacturing. Soap cooling, home work with kids, dinner, 6:00 unmolding soap, shrink wrapping. 8:00 shut down for the day.

What do you love most about owning and operating your own creative business? Taking any crazy funny idea I want and giving it life.

Besides your work and family, what else do you enjoy doing? Writing. I just had a company that was following me on twitter ask me to write tweets for them.  My creativity comes through my tweets as well.  I have the ability to be funny & intriguing enough that people are responding to me.  I am now creating a second business writing tweets for other businesses because I think I may be an advertising exec stuck in a soapmakers body?  My tweets have brought me in touch with some really fantastic people in business. Best marketing tool I have ever seen! TWITTER rules!

Why do you think consumers should shop handmade? Quality, safe ingredients, good customer service, attention to detail, products made by people who care.  We are artists first we care more than your conglomerate about how you feel about our products, its personal!  Yes I said business is personal!!!!!