little happy apple

soaps on!

hooray! the soap is all finally in my etsy shop ...  pretty little bundles and boxes and more!

also lots of new sparkley pretties too...

measure twice cut once

sliced up those mondo chunks of soap into generous bars;  patchouli , chocolate neroli, vanilla almond, lavender & bergamot grapefruit .  beautiful indeed and wrapped in pretty paper, coming soon to my etsy shop.    handmade soap makes me happy. 

  and the house smells lovely.

3 is the magic number

i went all out and spent a big thirty bucks on a digital scale. movin on up baby. hence the three mondo batches of soap i made on sunday (it was a family affair, everyone stirred and helped with scent blends) as i was saying, the soap turned out perfect, naturally. firm and lovely. get your mind out of the gutter, we are talkin' soap here people.

first batch i let my daughter be the aroma specialist. vanilla almond. heavenly.

second batch old faithful...lavender. gotta have it. added a drop of ylang ylang to spice it up a bit.

third batch an uplifting scent...some bergamot grapefruit.

i checked on them yesterday and they were hot as hades, still saponifying...but today, perfect.

tomorrow we slice it up.

peppermint patty

since we are onto christmas and for many this means charlie brown and all... way back when, somewhere in my school age years, maybe even high school, i was forturnate enough to get the very prestigious nickname dubbed by cathy perry of peppermint patty.  only it wasn't because i was chatty or anything or that i called anyone chuck, it was because i have the straightest, finest hair imagineable and no matter what it just did the same straight thing day in day out.  so what you say?  well, this is tragic for a girl growing up in queens when big hair and aqua net was all the rage.  my shiny pin straight hair just wouldn't cooperate with the fad so, me & PP were tight.  cathy (who had great big hair) loved to try to make my hair big and was always so shocked when, once again, despite the hundred layers of stiff stuff and combing, one half hour later, there she was, peppermint patty herself live in person.   but speaking of peppermint...i have a small collection of blue ball mason that i plan on using to line the shelves in the studio, filling them with miscellaneous assorted small treasures such as buttons, pins, rocks and the like.  however, i could not resist the temptation to fill a few with some peppermint guest soaps and tie on a red ribbon and candy cane...what a sweet gift!  and you get to keep the pretty jar when you're all done...  it's a vase, a luminaria, a keepsake, a bottlecap collector....and and and it's aqua.
need i say more? 

so much soap

this weekend the girls came over for some soapmaking....so per their request we made up a big batch of lavender oatmeal sans cocoa butter. then sunday mornin' i up and made another batch- peppermint...and it smells divine with its wintery goodness. monday came and still more soap, this time, a rosemary lemon-ginger kitchen soap with some cornmeal...lovely and golden and....it's so yummy too.

black & white

every time i make soap i like it more and more.

this pretty duo reminds me of a b&w cookie. the soap that valentine and i whipped up early saturday morning is some of the prettiest soap i have ever seen. especially the geranium grapefruit....just look at the pretty swirls.. the frankincense & myrrh soap is not far behind either with it's pretty chocolate lines throughout. you never know when you will get a surprise. these soaps smell so lovely, it was a perfect batch; zero separation, good scents, firmed right up, popped right out of the mold.
mmmmmm.

mano a mano

on father's day i also whipped up three batches of soap while the good daddy worked on the crane. still haven't a name for that beast yet. hmmmm. you know how it is; a machine isn't really your machine until you take it apart, clean it, put it back together- you know, love it up a bit. since i was in the kitchen cooking i figured i may as well make some soap!

first i made some unscented baby soap made with organic calendula infused oil, some dried calendula flowers from my garden and finely ground oats. not just for babies; sensitive skin too. i have been wanting to make this for a while now; the color is gorgeous and the gold specs scattered throughout are so pretty, like sunshine.

since it was father's day after all, i was inspired while soapmaking~ i decided that two batches would be especially made with my man friends (there are just so many) in mind. most of the guys i know get dirty; i don't know too many manicure type guys--- not that there is anything wrong with taking care of the old mitts- it's just most of the guys i know like to use their hands to work so they need....workers soap, and that is what i made. not just for guys though... for anyone who works with their hands- mechanics, painters, artists, etc... it's got some pumice, oatmeal, cornmeal and a hint of spice, just a hint. really nice batch. perfect in fact.

the other batch is farmhand soap; it has some lemon and cedar and a wee touch of vanilla; some oats and cornmeal too to get the dirt out yer nails... good for gardeners too. nice big bars to keep at the sink.

making soap is most definitely addicting.

chocolat

i remember when i finally watched that movie with juliet binoche and johnny depp... a friend said that it made her think of me; the way she was graceful and loved to make things beautiful and make people happy and how she was always so sadly misunderstood...intrigued, i rented it from the library. true enough she and i did have some similarities but.. i was too in love with the story, romance, scenery and chocolate making process to notice much else. and johnny depp is in it, and let's face it, he is brilliant. (pirates, benny&june, edward scissorhands, etc.etc.)

stirring a pot of melting liquid reminds me of making soap and my ideas on soap and chocolate, well....the chocolate neroli soap is just divine. i mean, i like chocolate, but i don't LOVE chocolate- like my friend orpheus; now there's a gal who LOVES chocolate...true chocolate lovers know who they are... but this soap, i love this soap.
it is a sure fire way to get the children to actually wash themselves in the bathtub. it smells delicious. check out these little chocolate soap bundles in my etsy shop. everyone will love it- it is really dreamy.

want more information? you can read more about how soap is made under the tiny bubbles category.

soon to come a soapmaking tutorial... with tips and links, but for now i am off to whip up another batch. and remember, if you make a list of everything you have to do today and put "eat chocolate" on it, you are sure to get at least one thing done!

moondust

you can't win 'em all. i'm okay with that.
for some reason the blue moon soap is very crumbly. this happened once before with the lavender dry skin soap. the common denominator is bitter almond oil. the lavender soap was superfatted with cocoa butter however, which probably helped it congeal a little better. this is extremely soft and crumbly, which is usually attributed to too much heat loss too quickly during saponification.
i managed to salvage a few very rough bars and turned the rest into moon like balls of soap. still smells wonderful, but we will have to wait to see how it cures. back to the old drawing board.

off to sewing the prayer flags (finally) together. i was hoping to find a company that could convert the image into woodcut like stamps so that i could reproduce them in the future, and i did, at $32 a pop,... but i may have to do it myself via silkscreening which shouldn't be too difficult in one color. we'll see. so many projects...

big balls

round, smooth & shiny. fits perfectly in the palm of your hand. a delight for the olfactory sense...seems that soapmaking, like many things comes in waves. which explains the following two batches. look at the color of the ylang ylang soap (beeswax crayon) aren't those bars gorgeous? the other, still too soft to slice; from the addition of the benzoin resin i suppose...naturally colored by the essential oils is a warm moodlifting earthy blend with benzoin, palmarosa, orange, patcholi and petitgrain; it's called firelight.