A word of Encouragement to my fellow Artists

So this morning I log into my Etsy shop and this message was waiting in my inbox:

Hi,

I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoy your soap. I bought about 4 or 5 bars in April and I put them aside in a basket by my tub. Fast forward to about 3 days ago and I was feeling a little blue while getting ready for my day and I spied your soap. I opened it and placed it in my shower. I know it is a little thing, but it was such a nice start to my day and I did feel better using such a lovely bar of soap.

Have a great weekend.

Susan

How cool is that!! Sometimes slow sales, creative dry spells, etc. can really get me down. To know that something I created could bring a little bit of joy to someone else, totally makes the ups and downs worth while. I hope that this can be encouraging to all my fellow artists as well. Keep your chin up :D

Sunripened Raspberries & Honey Soap Unmolded

Here are the pictures of the soap unmolded. I poured these in, went to the theater to see Twilight Saga: Eclipse (woohoo!!), came back home and they were ready to unmold. How fast was that!? I'm considering adding salt to all of my recipes now.

Sunripend Raspberries & Honey Soap

Don't ask me what made me combine these two fragrances. I can't stand the smell of raspberry bath & body products. But, the two bottles were sitting there and I thought, hey, why not?

The combo really does work. If you're a fan of raspberries, you should like this. 

As you can see, I'm really having fun with this whole swirling thing. I most likely will keep it up until my lye runs out and then move on to something else. But for now, I'm really diggin' this. It's a lot of fun!

Using Old Soap as Laundry Detergent

When we were younger, my sister and I and some of our cousins used to go with our grandmothers down to the family house in Virginia. It is out in the middle of nowhere. Back then it even had an out house. We had to do the laundry with a wash board and brick hard bar of lye soap.

That got me thinking of a batch of soap that I made back in November scented with Cool Water. I forgot to superfat with Cocoa Butter. It's rock solid and just doesn't look like anything that I would want to use on my skin. I was feeling adventurous, so I pulled out the cheese grater and shredded it up and also threw in some lavender essential oil scented soap; also lye heavy...I forgot to add the Palm Oil :0(  Combined they sort of remind me of Gain's Spring Lavender detergent.

I know that there is a proper way to make laundry detergent that includes borax and washing soda and I know that this isn't it. But, it's my laundry and I'm allowed to experiment, lol. The shredded soap dissolved completely in the water and made lots of bubbles. Pretty cool. I did a load of bath towels and then a load of clothes (although I did add some baking soda to the 2nd load). Both smell and feel like any other load that I wash with store bought detergent. I'm definitely going to try this again, but,with the borax and washing soda added.

Dreams for Riley

This is a beautiful Treasury curated by Julie of Julieslittlebits on Etsy.  She made this collection with prayerful thoughts of her young nephew who is in ICU right now battling for his life. He's been fighting leukemia since he was 5 years old and the family can really use lots of prayer and support right now. You read about Riley on her blog: http://juliesbits.blogspot.com/ .

More fun making Bath Bombs

Now this is what I call a Bath Bomb! Granted my hands are on the small side, but this thing is huge (and heavy)!! My Mondo mold arrived a few days ago along with my Kaolin Clay. I used my last bit of Citric Acid to make this as soon as I had it out of the box. It's scented with Juniper Breeze and weighs just under 8 ounces (a tad larger than a tennis ball).

It was super easy to make and popped right out of the mold without a hitch.

Soap (name still unknown) Unmolded

This was my first time using Dead Sea Salt in my soap making process. Dead Sea Salt is known to be great for the skin but it is a killer of bubbles when it comes to making bar soap. So, I chose to use Coconut Oil as the first of my oil ingredients because of it's bubble making properties. Unfortunately, it can also be drying when used in higher quantities. To offset that, I superfatted by 10% and added Lanolin & Goat's Milk to the recipe. The salt caused the bars to get hard really fast so I was able to unmold within a few hours of pouring. Which was a really good thing for me since I'm so impatient.  At any rate, I have dry skin and eczema, so I'll be my own guinea pig this time. My family can take a break, lol. If my skin can handle it, then: Mission Accomplished!