Wow it has been a long time since I have posted here......wiping the dust off and starting with some pics of our garden aka over grown wild kingdom-lol

Last years pic of Minimoo picking some veggies in one of the veggie hoop tiers.

one of the many huge over grown rosemary bushes we have, I stated as babies and now bigger then my own baby:)

Huge amount of work needed to get these tiers in shape and expand our herb garden. We have three ginormous tiers, first two are about six by twenty to thirty feet long built in bricked container walls the third back tier is about twenty feet by sixty feet or more, not sure really. That area will take some hired help to fix up. It is on a down slope and  full of fruit trees that need trimming and over grown dangerous brush with wild animals to boot!

Minimoo taking a deep breath after some planting :)

Over grown Wild Tea Roses

Our Moss covered brick stairs leading into the veggie garden area and fruit trees that need tons and tons of work and pruning. The scent after the rains on the moss and flowers was amazing! And fresh!

Solar Garden Light Orbs that Change Colors

Moon peaking through the roses at dusk

One of the many Moon decorations in the garden

Minimoon solar light string at dusk

Gypsy Cirkus & up and coming Fall Madness

Scent descriptions for the Gypsy Cirkus collection will be listed here, this is an on going list as brews are tested and finished:
 Already sampled out:

Salome's Secret perfume oil-  A crushing blend of various Amber resins mixed with a rich & boozy Vanilla absolute, for a smoldering promise.

and one of the Manical Cotton Candy blends:
Cloven Cotton Candy ~ a sweet and delicious aroma of spun sugar with a slight hint of real clove bud eo for a naughty twist on a too innocent classic!


coming up in samples:

Amber & Oakmoss ( this is a description of the notes not the name yet- to be determined)

Welcome to the Funhouse ~

Salty Caramels & Vanilla Bean will Funnel Cake you to Helllllllllllllll....... :)

An Oldie but a Goodie:
Carnival of Souls  ( original release 2007) :
Carnival of Souls - You can hear the Fall wind whistling through the abandoned rides, the creaking of old wood swaying, faded, garish signs staring blankly back at you. The faint echo of what once was ... Lingering still is the smell of enticing , however a bit unsettling aromas of buttered popcorn, drizzled honey, dry hay, fresh baked crusty breads and devilishly good caramel treats and bottom layers of hot, burning fires. (Halloween)

And we are back......

 :) Update coming soon!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:SOPA_initiative/Learn_more

What does this have to do with soap?

Soon you shall see..............;)
and oooo its Friday the Thirteenth~ My favorite! We should have a giveaway contest today, hmmmmm...... I'm thinking , I'm thinking......

and.... still shipping the Hallows!

Tiny update~ I just realized I have not updated here in eons!! Sorry about that! ~ well if you are not on my FB, this is a tiny update and I am still shipping the Halloween orders , we finished up the singles from the 18th and have now moved onto the 19th and also packing the doubles from the 18-19th ( those are people who placed an order  twice  with-in the dates I just mentioned;)
We still have a little less then a week of TAT left and we will certainly will be using it all up. Thank you all for being so patient and enthusiastic, I really appreciate it!
Talk to you all soon~ Moo

Last Summer restock update~

When they are done,  it will then be the triples turn ( not many triples about 20 people or so ) and singles placed on the 5th- 8th and then that will be it for the singles and triples.

Then onto the quads and up, but  I only have five people or so and they are not that big in quantity of items. So this should go a lot faster then last time as it always does on the restock sales.
And I do believe we have finally finished all the stock counts at last or damn near close, there was a weird glitch in scent counts because I am thinking because of my bozo move having the sale right  when BC went down for maintenance. But since everything is just about wrapped up now it will speed shipping up quite a bit.
And if you think I missed an order please let me know, BC did drop a few orders,  about seven that I can see ( by comparing the amount of PP notifications to the BC notifications) , hopefully not more then that and I know this because I did a search via paypal when I saw a post someone placed four orders and I only have three for them, but they are in PP, so don't worry we can find them and PP itemizes your order and why I like it, when my site loses your orders it is lost for good. So if you see I missed one of your orders Let Me Know asap!!

And why this: So the Halloween sale will be on BC, I talked to Skye and she agreed it would be best. That damn cart on ML would have to be reconfigured to have a hold and I am not sure I conveyed what I wanted well enough, and I just can't stomach it if it messes up on the Halloween sale which always gets hit the hardest every year. We have crashed three servers at least  with the Halloween sale in the past,  NOT THIS YEAR!! ( knocks on wood)
And matching up your itemized order with your paypal invoice and many use a different email and a different  name , yada yada yada it adds eons of time to the processing of your order, not this year:) 
So what we will do from now on that Ginger has some seasoning behind her;), she is going to handle the tiny restocks on the ML  site on her own, so its a reverse frame of mind. My site can only handle non rushed low traffic sales. This way we can keep the restocks  separate from the main collections, and that way the TAT on the restock  items will be super fly fast and not have  anything to do with what I am doing with the seasonal collections.  So we will NOT be able to combine orders from the two different sites, but we will still combine orders within the same site ( example multiple orders placed on BC will be combined and shipping used refund and same for ML) . We hope this way we can get everyone their staples to them as well.  And I will start to preview the Halloween Madness around Thursday.....
OK, salt mines I go:)

New~ email address for fix-its

ok- new email address for fix its : fixits@moonalisa.com
missing items from your orders or a faulty mechanism i.e.- nozzle , stuck roller -ball , what have you. This way I can find all your needs in one easy peasy file and not have to search for all the notes and or emails from various folders to get your items to you quickly. 

SO- if you are still waiting for an item to be fixed ( completed orders with missing items or a faulty mechanism) Please email me if you can at: fixits@moonalisa.com  And remember this is not an email address for the status of an order pending, this is for an all ready received orders with something missing or wrong scent etc .Thanks guys~ <:)

Update - Rock-A- Billy

Good Morning everyone!:) Been working all weekend and why so quiet. I have to keep strange hours when the mooster is home on the weekends all day, so really... I am NOT a Vampire as some may think ;)... Still on the triples but getting there... We have a major drop of of boxes today, the last of the doubles that didn't make into the shoot on Sat and the beginning of the trips.
CONT BELOW>>>>Ginger will be back soon , and I have left a pleading phone call so I am sure she will back to help in a day or two. Just in time to help me with the Quads and up so we can GET 'ER DONE!! More of an update later this week when we are closi...ng in on this sale about restocks, some things coming are my Herbal Mercy facial scrub, Monoi products and my Calendula infused Olive Oil AKA " Soothing Foot balm", scrub parfaits, the Spray in De-tangler from samps, as well as some things we just had but in much smaller quantities available. Some of the scents added to the line up are : Peach Paradise, Cantaloupe Cooler, Mabon, Lavender Chocolate in other forms , Late Harvest and more. New scents like : What if " Dr. Bombay and the Duchess of Willowdale had a baby?"...., a new mens fragrance called " Sexy Bastard" < name is a clue to the upcoming trivia contest next month.... and the new sultry steamy scents I have been working on for a while now , a couple of you got a tiny preview of those... and a few tiny bits of Fall scents here and there.

The way we list it however.. " Now for something completely different",... Some have asked why I never listed this way before, if I list, sell , pack and ship, seems like a good idea, but I take so long packing- I realized early on when I tried it with the ETSY shop- I spend more time packing then production making, so I was open even less of a time then ever back then. So then I tried, " Hey , lets list enough to make as many people happy as we can, great! Packing still takes forever , but still a better process for me... But NOW that we have competent Ginger! > I can do it the way I would like to:) I make the product, she labels the product , I or mooman finish the final packaging, someone else will pull the orders , Ginger packs them, then ship! THIS way we can list in streams, and a much small amount at a time to keep up, so lets give it a try? Can you hear a slight twinge of giddiness? Means getting close to being done ( or sleep depravation has finally kicked in :))!

TRIVIA CONTEST RIGHT NOW!!!

In honor of the Summer Solstice tomorrow:
Question is : What long lost feature in a remote section of ancient Anasazi territory is made of three slabs of sandstone and two spiral petroglyphs, and was used by  Anasazi astronomers, as a celestial marker for the summer solstice?
Hint: The male lead of the movie , " The Way we Were " did a film about it.
Good luck!!

Congratulations!

Congratulations to tonight's trivia contest give-away winner : Deanna!!! Woot!!

Triva Question is LIVE!

What French procedure was developed in the 19th century for the production of high-grade concentrates using a layer of animal fat, usually lard or tallow (from pork or beef respectively),  heated and botanical matter is stirred into the fat. Spent botanicals are repeatedly strained from the fat and replaced with fresh material until the fat is saturated with fragrance? This method is considered the oldest known procedure for preserving plant fragrance substances.

Trivia!

For example if the answer is " Buffy the Vampire Slayer"
the address you type into the address bar of http://moonalisa.com/
is : http://moonalisa.com/buffy-the-vampire-slayer
..YOU HAVE TO PUT DASHES IN BETWEEN THE WORDS, unless it is a one word answer
make sure you are logged in at ML site, put the prize in your cart
&

• • once the prize is claimed it will display an error message.
    Ok trivia question to follow in 1 min.

Come celebrate MoonaLisa's™ fifteenth year!!

ok ~ another product giveaway tonight! Trivia question will be posted around 4:00 pm Pacific time aka 7:00 pm eastern. Prize is..a paper gift box with a Jardin de Paris graphic theme , items included are :
one premium bottled perfume oil,
one dusting powder
and one old formula potlot all in " MoonaLisa's ™ " Field of Dreams" scent and one mystery item....ooo.. ahhhhh.. :) pic to follow in the afternoon.

rules and instructions are posted on Facebook, please follow us there! But I will also post the instructions here later this afternoon, for those who do not follow us on FB:)

Good luck! ~Moona

Testing 1 2 3 ! :)

time change for sale tonight!!!

Update guys, DH got called away so I have to go pick up minimoo from preschool ( well I go along, I don't drive:)), so it will be 6:30 pm instead of 6:00 pacific time - sorry about that, can't be helped
so that's: 6:30 pm tonight at: http://drivethrumoo.bigcartel.com/

Brave New World~

Happy Mother's Day everyone!!!

LONG POST WARNING:)~
So tomorrow- I am still working on the second boxes for a few of you, and the singles from late April , early May- which are within TAT- YEA!!. And I did find three small orders I didn't even know I had, and still searching for the paypal invoices for and to hear back from each person.
After that it should all be officially wrapped up tight by this Monday meaning tomorrow. We ran out of couple of 4in1's scents and sprays, that dang cart makes no sense at all.  It had me make a bunch more handmade creams that we did NOT need , and not enough 4in1's, figures it would make me work more on the really hard stuff, like a whole batch of 2 oz VCS butter??? But no Peche Melba 4in1( thats the french spelling BTW;)) SO we made a little extra to list of things we ran out of and I also have Eclipse back in stock so that will be added to the left overs as well.
So anyhoo, if I can wrap it tight by tomorrows end meaning nothing left at all for MG, we will do stock counts and relist leftovers this Tuesday evening.
I want to let you know now there is not a lot leftover as we thought there would be, and why I had to wait as well , I didn't dare sell off anything we needed. That stupid cart must not have pulled everything that wasn't "finished" as an order ,  because of paypal glitching and not  letting many people pay that night, I don't think it pulled the stock. I really thought it looked like it did, ahhh  the mystery of x-cart..%$#@&*!

But no matter-we are doing short bursts DTM style for a long while now, I will be making batches of stuff then listing, then make more.... and list, and so on.
 The only thing I can foresee which will be a problem is you guys are no longer accustomed to not having enough moopoo to go around, and why I always did made to order, so I could offer enough for everyone and not have to predict which scents you wanted, the only shock was almost each and everytime was selling out:)~whoops. Some of you may not agree with that statement about enough to go around, but there has been a lot more people happy then unhappy in the past couple of years.
 I do believe if we keep with it this time, for a longer amount of time, it will even out eventually. At some point,  I hope by this midsummer , there will be enough and then some for everyone. I think the mistake I made on ETSY was I listed too much at once, and some of it was still made to order. I was shocked when I listed 27 of each scent and it was gone in like two seconds, list another , same thing and so forth, and the nightmare backend of Etsy also added a lot of time to my TAT. The way ETSy is set up people ordered one item at a time then I had to find them all and then give one invoice for each person, IT is no way any of your fault, it is simple ETSY is not suited for larger volume selling.

Another thing I like about BC is  I can do a maintenance page  and list the new items all at  once for the batches I have made,  so more variety of products all at once . So you will have more items in matching scents to choose from too.  I am still working out how to do  "previews" with  new scents and products with detailed descriptions , I think I will put them on the ML site still, but no big to do announcements for " Drive thru Moo " items, but I can't really predict how this is all going to work, so please bare with me while I work it all out, and I am open to suggestions too.

And when there is an LE collection I will announce it here and blog and my site moonalisa.com, and it will be much much smaller in the amount of variety, for instance only four LE scents at time with about five products for each scent, so tighter and  faster for everyone. And those will be on the moonalisa.com sight as well as previews for LE collections.


 Skye is right , that cart is a nightmare, so I have made a new Bigcartel site for now until I figure out what can be done and what there is  to do with my cart. There will be some work going on with the tags and links on ML soon, we hope the wonderful guy who is going to try can figure it out can succeed where we could not. Skye and I have tried a million times to find where to change the blog link and others and can not see it anywhere.
So to save me even more time and give me less of a headache for paperwork I think its best we move back to BC for awhile, they have added so many new cool things to their carts, products variants, digital downloads, so many possibilities and gift certificates too!! I LOVE bigcartel I really do!!  And your orders are all on your paypal invoices so no more hunting them both down~ awesome!!!
This should make it easier for EVERYONE  for a while. It makes me so mad that the BC cart can do so much where mine which cost a small fortune is a piece of poo! I LOVE LOVE the design, HATE with all my heart that cart, but I digress...
so here is our new temp home for now, we are gypsy I tell ya, I will post Monday night if we are a go and what time on Tuesday:):

http://drivethrumoo.bigcartel.com/

last update for MG....then its all over:)

Still packing, going to bed, super pooped. Only got the big dogs left ( I say that with the utmost affection) and more complex internationals I never do when tried, too costly to fix, and also left are three singles placed in Jan, they are done, just needing final weighing for the most cost effective shipping. Then only ten little singles left place from Feb 1st-present, those will go super fast~ DH got called away today but will be here tomorrow to help me out and get these to the post, and I held back a few that were done but with truffles, we got a little heat wave here today, but its already passed , so they will go in the morn when it cool. Ok. One. More. Day.!

Other side of the Moon!!

So the triples I have only about three left total, doubles about nine, singles about twenty-four, and the big guys aka  quads on up about eighteen more, not including the seven I have on the work table right now finishing up.
I am having so much trouble with our printer /computer communication, I am going to go ahead and print as many shipping labels as I can ahead of time to save frustration and further delays. I normally do not do that unless I am right on your box, but it is costing so much time right now and I am so close to the end anyway, I hope that is ok with everyone. I estimate this sale to be wrapped up by this Monday night at the latest. 
So bottom line is if I print your label expect it to be shipped within four days or sooner of printing. And the singles -triples I have refunded immediately so far upon printing your label, but the quads and up I will refund the extra shipping paid with in a week. reason being I have to sit down " calmly " and figure each person out on a case by case basis, as you bigger guys already know, most of you have more complicated issues to work out with past invoices , international shipping fees and what have yous.
So see you guys on the other side of this Mardi Gras madness shortly!!