What a brilliant idea..

Why don't you follow too...

showing off....

Well, yesterday I went with my son to pick up his new car it's a little beauty I'm not one for cars as long as they get me from A to B but this one is lovely and goes like a little rocket even though it's getting on in years..ideal car for all this sunny weather went for a spin with him and at first I said ooh I could do with a ..and my son said what a scarf I said no a flippin neck brace as he put his foot down my head nearly flew off haha but he soon got used to driving it and it's so much fun,driving along with the wind blowing in your hair..

mmmm chocolate

Ha ha thought I would catch your attention if I mentioned chocolate! I felt in experimental mode yesterday and had a play about using cocoa powder and titanium dioxide not new I know but my pattern surprised me..fragranced with black pepper,lemon and niaouli strange combo I know but I did say I was experimenting my son says it smells like cola .. it does smell good

a few infusing oils just sitting in the sunshine...

Just though I'd share this little pic of infusing oils ,they just caught my eye because they look so pretty when the sun is shining through the glass jars...
Anyway as promised earlier here is a pic of another soap which was made yesterday using infused calendula petals that had been infusing away for a few weeks..I placed a few 'fresh' calendula petals on the top.Fragranced with orange,grapefruit and rose geranium essential oils..

Goats milk ..ha.. more like yuks milk...

I have felt the urge to make goats milk soap for ages now so decided to have a go yesterday..I used frozen goats milk and half water added small amounts of lye and mixed it really well it took a lot of patience and thought I had done well ha..what I didn't keep a check on was the temperature of the oils compared to the temperature of the lye/goats milk/water combo it was all going too well until I started to bring it to trace and there in the bowl staring back at me was a massive lump of rice pudding mix arrgh I did everything I could to save this I bunged it into the crock pot and let it cook and when it didn't taste like a battery (after doing the zap test)I poured it into my mould only to find about 1 inch of oil sitting at the bottom of the crock pot... ooh I thought you aint getting the better of me and left it overnight dripping in oil .This morning it has set but it's going for a rebatch when it's hard enough..so the moral of this story is to soap cool when using frozen goats milk..I had read up on this before I started but in my excitement of not have orange foul smelling lye from the goats milk I simply forgot to watch my oil temps...
I also made another batch without added goatsmilk... pics later

a few soaps

I hope you all enjoyed your easter break and that you didn't eat too much chocolate.

I made a few soaps over the easter weekend the white and green clay soap (last pic) is HP and the T.D.(titanium dioxide) can be a right pain and you can see it didn't mix well hence the white speckles so if anyone has some tips about this I would be very grateful the others are C.P.

It's all happening ....

Well after telling you about my table top last week and meeting a lovely lady who was the most helpful person I have met regarding craft fairs I will soon have loads of fairs lined up for the summer months ahead and like Samantha from scentsations soaps I don't really know where to start haha just need to keep cool and plan ahead and start by making a brand new range of soaps. The trouble with me is I keep thinking that it takes at least 4 weeks to cure cold process soaps and what happens if I have a fair every week or every other week and I have sold most of my soaps? that's what I like positive thinking(that I will sell them all)anyway I guess I can fall back on HP as they can be ok after a couple of weeks.
The first fair is at the end of April and runs every fortnight it's a farmers market in Bude full of lovely holiday makers in a lovely position down by the canal.I will keep you posted on the future fairs that I have to get my applications in, they are quite big so doing the Bude markets will be a learning curve.I forwarded my website to all the contacts and got lovely replies back so much so that I had a lump in my throat ..I really am getting soft in my old age...