Busy Week

                       

Extravagance with gelled center

 The week flew by as if the clock had sped up. I moved most of the germinated seedlings to bigger quarters and made three batches of soap. This is “Extravagance”. As you can see it gelled, which is normal sometimes but looks kind of icky. I’m not exactly sure why it heated up. These are the Ingredients: Saponified oils of olive, coconut, grapeseed and safflower, cocoa butter, wildcrafted plantain, rosemary, parsley, Moroccan clay and essential oil.

Fresh Cut Extravagance

 I decided to make this special recipe for those of us with aging skin, so I used plantain and rosemary infused oils from my private stash that I usually keep for my personal lotions and creams. These first pics show a brown soap, but after being exposed to the air for a few days it’s turned back to the colors of the oils, a lovely green. Also, the gelled center morphed back to “normal”.

White Witch in mold

 “White Witch” has similar ingredients minus the herbs. I’d like to give credit to a UK soap maker for the fabulous name. However, my soap is original in design and scent.

Fresh cut White Witch

The third batch this week was a “water discount” experiment in which I became so involved that I left out the honey in this “Honeycomb” soap! The soap came out perfect, but minus the ingredient it was named after. Since these are cupcakes, I will make some soap frosting later and re-name the batch. I’ll show you the finished product after it’s done.

Coloring Tapioca Pearls

When I decided to frost the un-honey cupcakes, I thought about decorations. I’ve found no tutorials on coloring tapioca pearls, so set out on my own. I mixed a little oxide in water and dropped in the white beads. It’s a good idea to get the tapioca in and out because any amount of soaking makes them stick together.

Colored Tapioca Pearls

 I’ll use these on top to make my cupcakes more interesting.

Get Out The Lawn Chairs!

Finally! A perfect spring day. This frilly little daffodil is sunning herself.

The early mini tulips are blooming.

 The hyacinths are out in all their glory.

Fresh Cut Whimsy

 I was shocked to discover that I only made two batches of soap this week. That darn spring cleaning interfered. This is “Whimsy,” as that was the mood I was in when I made it.

Fresh Cut French Green Clay Spa Bars

This is “French Green Clay Spa Bar”. After working on garden clean-up, I need a spa day!

Happy Easter!

Suminagashi and Other Neat Soaps

Hail on the Deck

My, what a busy week. Spring is bursting outside my door and I’m maniacally making soap.

Daffodils Unfurling

In spite of two hail storms yesterday, the daffodils are opening.

A Scary Amount of Colors

Above are the colors I used in the new “Suminagashi” soap.

Suminagashi in Mold

Suminagashi is an ancient Japanese art where ink is strategically placed on top of water and then the design transferred to paper or fabric.

Naked Suminagashi

 This is my interpretation of Suminagashi in the Soap World.

Whew! I'm glad this one turned out pretty

I also made “Strawberry Patch”. Yes, it smells like fresh strawberries. Well, not quite as good as the real thing from the Garden of Nemesis.

Newly Cut Strawberry Patch

 Here’s the “Mocha Cappuccino” made with exfoliating coffee grounds and organic cream.

Newly Cut Mocha Cappuccino

 Now we come to “Cool Candied Apple”. This one was originally named “Little Green Apples,” but unfortunately, the “apples” it was supposed to have didn’t materialize.

Newly Cut Cool Candied Apple

 I wanted to use a technique with a piping bag, but ended up using a squirt bottle. I tried really hard to imagine little green apples on the inside, but they simply weren’t there!

First Order Ready to Mail!

A Confession: Laying Soap Eggs

Now I’ll tell you about my soap eggs. Really, I think I need psychiatric help! It’s certainly a fetish and possibly some kind of a neurotic behavior and/or an unpronounceable psychological disorder. I spend an inordinate amount of time making these little complicated things. Who’s going to pay a zillion dollars for a stupid soap egg? But I can’t help myself. Every time I make a batch of soap, I have to dribble an ounce or two into the Jell-O Jigglers mold I found at Goodwill. This is NOT a soap mold, thus the filled mold has to be frozen in order to remove the eggs by…you guessed it! JIGGLING! More often than not, they have some flaw, which drives me crazy.

I have purple ones, blue ones, green ones, white ones, orange and red ones, flecked and speckled ones, striped ones…help! No hen would lay eggs that look like this. I know it’s coming up on Easter, but this sick propensity to lay soap eggs is year round! If anyone reading this has a cure, please tell me quickly!

Soap Eggs

Bedding Plants and Soap

Gerbera Daisies on Sun Porch

It was a beautiful day to be outside raking leaves and cleaning out the potting shed. The sun porch was warm for the newly germinated bedding plants.

Baby onion plants. 

There are only a few as yet germinated left sitting on the pilot light.

A happy rosemary plant moved from inside window to the sun porch.

Lettuce growing in front window.

Can't wait to eat this!

 Scraggly herbs that made it through the winter.

Sage, Cilantro and Parsley Overwintered

Mandevilla begging to go outside to play.

Mandevilla

"Visions"

Six Color Swirl Named "Visions"

   Salt bars. Boy, do they get hard fast! I had to cut them about an hour after molding.

 "Invigorate" Spa Bars

Packaging and Silliness

Here’s some photos of packaging soaps for sale.

 Below are pics of my newest creation: Cucumber Salad. It looks good enough to eat!