General updates Archives

Posted on February 18, 2018 by Vicki — 4 Comments

The Week in Soap: 18th Feb ’18

Last year, at the end of October, my day job came to an end and my soapmaking business became my full-time concern, and sole source of income. If I’m honest, that last point is still sinking in – during the run up to Christmas I was so busy that the bank balance was never a concern, but now – eeek!! Anyway, Christmas came and went, and it soon became very apparent that I needed to get back to soapmaking pdq. Stock levels were low, and while I was expecting a quiet period during January & February, I knew that I had to fill my curing racks ready for when things picked up again. As soon as the children went back to school after the Christmas holidays, Monday became my regular soaping day, and I’ve been making 8 loaves of soap ( 2 each of 4 varieties) every Monday since.

So, back to this week. I didn’t choose the ideal time to get back into the swing of things as far as the blog goes, as it’s been a very atypical week. The kids have been home from school for half-term, and to compound matters my husband was working away. I didn’t have the luxury of a full day’s soaping on Monday (I won’t contemplate soaping while the kids are around) so once I’d got them both to bed, I made four loaves of Clarity (Lemongrass & Clary Sage EOs with activated charcoal):

This was a bit of an experiment. I didn’t have an awful lot of time (if I wanted to get to bed before midnight!) and I wondered just how much time I would save if I made four loaves of the same variety, as opposed to 2 loaves each of 2 different varieties. Turns out it saves a significant amount of time, but no real surprise there. I could do it even faster if I had larger mixing buckets, but more on that in a future post…

On Tuesday I decided to repeat the process and once the kids were asleep again I made 4 loaves of Eryri (the landscape bar). I’ve been putting off making this one as I perceive it to be fairly time consuming, but I really need to stock up on it as it’s perfect for the local market, and it was hugely popular at the pre-Christmas fairs. Actually, I was pleased at how quickly I was able to make this lot:

So even with the kids home and husband away, I was able to make my (now) regular 120 bars this week. And I’ve a feeling that I’ll be making 4 loaves of 2 varieties every Monday from now on, rather than the 2 loaves of 4 varieties that I’ve been making up to now.

Wednesday was Valentine’s day, and with my other half still away, I treated myself to some beautiful red tulips:

On Wednesday I cut the Clarity, but was rushing and didn’t get a photograph. I did get a quick snap of the freshly cut Eryri on Thursday though:

This one is fragranced with a blend of rosemary, lime, patchouli, peppermint and a touch of eucalyptus – a fresh, outdoorsy fragrance.

On Friday my husband was home, and took the day off to look after the children while I spent time in the office bevelling and wrapping. That’s the problem with upping production – there’s more of all the other stuff to do too!!

Otherwise it’s been a fairly quiet week as far as The Soap Mine goes. I’ve had a few small wholesale orders, and a couple of wholesale enquiries for which I’ve sent out some info and samples, but I can’t wait to get back to a proper routine again on Tuesday when the kids start back to school. Hopefully next week will give a more accurate picture of what I do as a (nearly) full-time soapmaker 😉

Thanks for reading, back soon,

Vicki

Posted on February 13, 2018 by Vicki — 9 Comments

In case you were wondering…

… where I’ve been.

I posted in mid Jan with great intentions to get back on the writing horse, and then found myself paralysed with indecision about WHAT I should write. I felt that I should recap everything that I’ve been up to since the end of October, but that felt like too big a job. It would never be complete (and would probably not be 100% accurate either – I don’t have the best memory these days!) and I wouldn’t be satisfied with half hearted attempt. Anyway, THAT is only reason I haven’t written anything for the last month. Crazy really.

I’m jumping back onto it tonight, and from now on I’ll be doing my weekly roundups and any other stuff in between, just like before. I’m not going to try to backtrack, but if you have any specific questions about what’s been going on over the last few months, please just ask (my memory’s not that bad ;-D) but I may well naturally fill in the blanks as I go along anyway.

The run up to the Christmas period was amazing, business-wise. I was busier than I had anticipated, and for that reason I’m still playing catch-up as far as stock levels go. My current goal is to get to 1000 bars in stock over the whole range, and I every time I think I’m getting close, another big order comes in. Mind you, I’m DEFINITELY not complaining.

I’m making a minimum of 120 bars a week now, and if you follow me on Instagram (www.instagram.com/thesoapmine) you’ll know that Monday is my big ‘making’ day. I’ll make four double batches every Monday (that’s my 120 bar minimum) and occasionally try to fit in another session later on in the week.

I’ve retired a couple of fragrances that weren’t selling so well – Delicious (a dupe of DKNY Be Delicious) and Boho Baby (Patchouli & Orange essential oils) have both gone. I don’t have any plans to replace them with anything permanent just yet, but if I come across a fragrance that I just ‘have to have’, I have the capacity.

This was the result of last week’s Monday session:

From left to right are Serenity, Welsh Rose, Tutti Frutti and Blodau (Flowers), and here are a couple of them cut:

and

I used slightly different colours for the Welsh Rose this time, and there’s a more subtle different between the pinks that I usually have (I’ve also just realised that this is such a fresh photo that I’ve not bevelled this one yet!) Anyway, I can’t decide whether I really like it, or I really don’t… Hmm… what do you think?

I’m going to leave things there for now, and not try to get too ahead of myself. I’ve already had some thoughts ping into my head for the next post, so I THINK I’m back on a roll. I’ll be doing my best anyway. I’ll be back next Sunday for a full weekly round up, if not before…

Thanks for reading!

Vickx

Posted on January 17, 2018 by Vicki — 7 Comments

A (very) Belated Happy New Year

Well hello 2018! I’d like to say you snuck up on me there, but nope, I knew you were coming, and. while I planned to welcome you much sooner than this, it just wasn’t to be…

Happy New Year everyone! Yes, I know it’s late, and most of you are so over it, but I wasn’t sure how else to start this post, it’s been so long! During the run up to Christmas I was seriously busy with soap selling, rather than soap making, and then Christmas came, and I more or less stopped all things soap related for a couple of weeks and had a proper break with the family. I’m a little ashamed at how long it’s been since I last posted (almost two and a half months) – this blog is supposed to be all about building a business, and I failed to post anything at all about what I was doing during my busiest time of the year. Oops! Ah well, a learning curve, and I plan to be more organised next time. In hindsight perhaps trying (and succeeding, to be fair) to complete Blogtober wasn’t the best idea in the run up to such a busy period 😀

So anyway, I’m back! I’m into the swing of things, have lots of plans, and will be sharing more of the business side of things on the blog in future too (selling at craft fairs, gaining more wholesale accounts, demos & classes, and generally more facts and figures about what I make / sell and the time I spend doing various things) If there’s anything you’d like me to cover, please don’t hesitate to ask and I’ll share what I’ve learnt. Just remember that I’m no expert, I’m learning a lot as I go along, and winging it a lot of the time!!

There’ll be some more posts very soon covering how I got on with last year’s goals and those for this coming year (both business and personal) and also what I’ve been up to since the beginning of 2018.

I did get to make some soap during that quiet week between Christmas and New Year. I realised that my stock levels were seriously depleted and I would need to crack on with making more sooner rather than later, so I made four double batches of (clockwise from top left) Oatmeal Milk & Honey, Welsh Rose, Scrubby Peppermint and Bewitched:

Thank you so much for staying with me even during my period of absence – I’ll be back again very soon

Vickx

Posted on November 5, 2017 by Vicki — 6 Comments

The Week in Soap: 5th November, 2017

Sometimes a week goes completely differently to expectation. This last week the kids have been home from school for the half-term break (already! Yikes…) and I honestly thought it was going to be a toughie. I’m right in the middle of the pre-Christmas rush and I knew Dean was crazy busy with his work and not able to take any time off, so was resigned to night time working. I was able to arrange one reciprocal playdate with a friend who has similar aged children, so i had a houseful of children on Tuesday, and Thursday was to be my one and only ‘work’ day.

Still, on Monday and Tuesday I managed to escape over to the office at 4pm when Dean finished work to pack up a few orders. When I got back, I found out that he’d managed to take the following day off as a holiday so that I could work. He’s a good ‘un.

So of course on Wednesday I took full advantage of an unexpected work day and made a load of bathbombs, as well as making a serious dent in the orders that needed to be packed and dispatched.

Thursday was my kind of day. Once the kids had been safely delivered to their friends’ house, I made over 16kg of soap – the first time I’ve ever used all my moulds at once:

I think I may need more moulds! Clockwise from top left these are Serenity (Patch, Ylang Ylang, Lemon & Sweet Orange EOs), Botanica (Lavender, Lemon & Lime EOs). Blodau (Lavender & Ylang Ylang EOs) and Luscious Lavender.

Later on Thursday Dean said he’d managed to get the Friday off too – result! I managed to get another few batches of bath bombs made, and then I indulged in a little experimentation I made another test batch of lip balm – this time in packaged in a tin:

This one was made with beeswax, cocoa butter and rice bran oil, and turned out harder than the last test – this one would probably have been better in a tube rather than a tin. I didn’t flavour or fragrance, and I think I prefer it that way…

I also tried making whipped body butter – two separate batches, both made with unrefined shea butter and coconut oil, with a touch of evening primrose oil. I added lavender and rosemary essential oils to the first batch, and ylang ylang and benzoin essential oils PLUS 1tblsp of arrowroot powder to the second batch.

Amazing how much final product came from a relatively small amount of oils – these are far from dainty containers (I popped a pound coin in the photo to give some idea of scale):

I used unrefined shea butter, and I’m definitely not a fan of the fragrance – I’ll use refined next time, which is what I usually use in my soap. I also didn’t add enough fragrance, although it might be that the shea was overpowering the essential oils.

On first trying it I found the body butter to have quite a greasy texture. Being used to commercial body butters, this version does feel oily on the skin, but having used it for a few days now I find I’m liking it more and more – it sinks into my skin quite nicely. The arrowroot is supposed to reduce the greasiness of the body butter but I can’t discern much difference between the one with, and the one without.

On Saturday I took over family duties while Dean did some work on the house – the children and I visited the library and went swimming, then had fish and chips at the beach.

On Sunday Dean and the children went to visit friends for the afternoon while I went to the office and unmoulded, then cut, the soap from Thursday’s soaping session. I’m conscious that I often share photos of freshly poured soap and then forget to share the cut pictures, so I made a special effort to get a snap of the freshly cut soap – do bear in mind that they’re still soft here and haven’t been tidied up yet. Clockwise from top left – Luscious Lavender, Blodau, Botanica & Serenity:

Finally, some exciting news on the home front. Since moving into this house over three years ago now we’ve lived with a really grotty bathroom while we upgraded other parts of the house and it’s meant that I haven’t been able to share the kind of in-use product photos I would have liked. This week work begins on our new bathroom – woop! I can’t wait to share pictures, just as soon as it’s done.

Thanks for reading, back soon!

Vicki

Posted on October 31, 2017 by Vicki — 8 Comments

Made it! (Blogtober 31)

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween

I hope you’ve all had a spooktastic evening (or managed to avoid one, whichever you prefer!) But there’s another reason to celebrate tonight – Happy End of Blogtober!

Having completed Blogtober in 2016 without too much trauma, I was a little blasé about doing it this year. What I failed to take into account is how much busier I am this year. I have more customers, more retail outlets, and I needed to make (and wrap & label) far more Christmas specials too. I won’t lie, it’s been a squeeze some days to get my posts written and posted by the midnight deadline.

I’ve been trying to work out exactly WHY I wanted to do it again this year. I know blogging is good for SEO, but given that I don’t have a live website yet, that’s kind of immaterial. I like writing, and blogging every day has given me an excuse to do that, and of course, I LOVE a challenge. I like goals, lists and challenges. Hmmm…

Have there been any benefits? I’ve picked up 10 new followers during October, which is a few more than the monthly average. I’ve had 2.5k views during this month (the next highest monthly views was LAST October, at 1.7k, and I’ve also seen my highest number of views in a single day this month, on the 12th October when I posted my top tips for giving a soapmaking demo.

There were some downsides though. I didn’t complete a single other of my October goals NOT ONE! I didn’t do ANY work on my website. I didn’t make a lotion or a cream and I ran a grand total of 3.5km – a far cry from the 50km I wanted to complete. I struggled sometimes with finding something I wanted to write about. I had plenty of ideas, but it wasn’t always the right time to tackle that subject, or I didn’t feel I had the time to do a particular subject justice. That was another concern to be honest, lack of time led to some superficial posts that I probably wouldn’t have been posted had I not had the pressure of daily deadlines.

So would I do it again? Probably, yes. Maybe not Blogtober though. This October has been my busiest month EVER in the business. I’m rushed off my feet, and I think the challenge of daily blogging for a month is better suited to sometime during the first half of the month – Bloguary anyone?? 😀

So that’s me done for Blogtober 2017. If you stuck with me thus far, thank you SO much! I can’t close before giving a shout-out to my partner in crime Sarah of Sas-Oki Soaps, one of only two others who started the challenge with me, and the only other one who completed it. A special mention too has to go to Hayley of The Pamper Kingdom who got to day 17 before family had to take priority. If you enjoy soaping blogs and haven’t yet checked out theirs, please do!

Thanks for reading, back… *ahem*… sometime soon 😀

Vicki

Posted on October 30, 2017 by Vicki — 3 Comments

The Week in Soap: 29th Oct ’17 (Blogtober 30)

This week is half term here in in Wales, a week later than the rest of the United Kingdom it seems. This means, of course, that there’s no school all week, and I’m left wondering how I’m going to fit in everything I have to do while entertaining two energetic children. It also means that this is going to be a whistle-stop post as every minute counts this week!

On Monday I made two double batches of Candy Cane and Frosted Christmas Tree. I’ve been caught by surprise somewhat at how well (and quickly) these soaps are selling, and seeing as I still have time, I made some more…

Tuesday was a write-off, work-wise, thanks to that power cut.

Wednesday was my last-but-one day at the day job, followed by kickboxing and then my last Wednesday night soapmaking demo of the season. I have been asked back for next year (yey!) but that won’t be until the hotel opens to guests again at the end of March.

Thursday was bittersweet. My last day at the pre-school was lovely – we took the children for pizza and ice-cream, and then to the park and everyone had a wonderful time. It was sad to think that I won’t be working closely with them again BUT I can’t wait to be able to focus properly on this business from now on (well, after this week anyway!!) As soon as Dean finished work at 4pm I headed over to the office to put together orders for the following day’s deliveries and ended up feeling elated and just a little bit in awe at how quickly the Christmas soaps are heading out the door!

Friday morning was spent making soap deliveries, including to a brand new stockist – always exciting! The sky was clear and it was a joy to drive around beautiful Snowdonia in the sunshine, delivering soap and chatting to the stockists. I had a load of wrapping and labelling to do in the afternoon, in preparation for the Porthmadog Craft Fair the following day but by 7pm I’d had enough and took the evening off.

Up and out early the next day for the end of month craft fair in Porthmadog. Honestly, I think it was the quietest day I’ve ever had there in all the years I’ve attended. I suppose it’s that lull between the end of the summer season and the start of the Christmas shopping, but given that I’m busier than ever with wholesale and online orders I really didn’t mind. While I was there I managed to put together a long list of places I want to approach in the new year with a view to becoming stockists, and also worked on plans for new projects, so it wasn’t wasted time.

I spent most of Sunday with Dean and the children on a Halloween themed day out. The plan was to have a completely work-free day but during the drive home I started getting anxious about my low stocks of bathbombs. Arrghhh! I couldn’t help myself, I made 5 different varieties – 75 in total. Ho hum… the life of a business owner 😀

Back tomorrow for the last Blogtober post of 2017 – woo hoo!!

Vicki

Posted on October 25, 2017 by Vicki — 5 Comments

A Spanner in the Works (Blogtober 25)

I had plans for today. Big plans. Important plans.

Today was the day for finishing off the wrapping and labelling of the first batches of Christmas soaps which had emerged, at the weekend, from their curing confinement

Today was also the day for delivering/dispatching said soaps to all the lovely people, both wholesale and retail clients, who had pre-ordered them.

I got up, and started making breakfast for the kids (pancakes, from scratch, in case you cared). I made my husband a coffee and took it up to the bedroom. He works from home and I take him a coffee in bed every. Sodding. Morning. Mind you, I can’t complain. I get a cup of tea in bed at the weekends. If I nag enough…

I digress. I should have known it was going to be a strange day. Most days my kids are awake before me – they were both utterly rubbish sleepers as babies (my eldest was over 18 months old before he slept more than 2 hours at a time) and have always been early risers. Today, for the first time in our family history, I had to go in to each of their bedrooms and WAKE THEM UP!! (*Ahem* capitals are for effect – I didn’t actually shout – how mean would that be?!!) Seriously though, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve ever had to wake one, or the other, up in the morning. Never, ever have I had to wake them both.

So, they were up a bit later than usual, and I was hurrying them along to eat their pancakes and get ready for school. At 7.45 the electricity went off. Complete power outage throughout the village. Never mind, teeth still got done, faces still got wiped, hair was still brushed and we put on layers of waterproofs to brave the howling wind & rain for the arduous 45 second walk to school (have I mentioned how close we live to the school?)

Did you see it coming? We arrived at the school door and were turned away. No school today – ‘Health and Safety’. Can’t do school without electricity. “Arrrrgggghhhhhhhhhhh!!!” (I might have said, under my breath)

So home we go. I couldn’t go to work, and I couldn’t even take the car to make deliveries as my husband, at a crucial point in his current project, needed to use the car to go hunt for the to nearest reliable wifi connection (which, it turns out, is to be found parked up outside our nearest Tesco (8 miles away), laptop balanced on knees – who’d have thought??!!)

So I spent an hour trying valiantly to do ‘housework’ (but mostly boiling a pan of water to make cups of tea). The kids spent an hour not knowing what on earth to do with themselves until I remind them that they have some toys that don’t have screens…

Mum turned up at about 10.30am, saw the wild look in my eyes and took the kids for a couple of hours. I ran (literally, the rain was still an issue) over to the office and wrapped and labelled as much as I could in the gloom. These are about half of the orders that were supposed to go out today:

It was dark, really dark, and although I had so much to do my eyes did get sore and I was glad when 12.30 came around – time to collect the kids.

The electricity finally came back on at about 5.30, just in time to illuminate our meal of fish and chip suppers that Dean brought home, in full-on hunter-gatherer mode. The family was fed.

I’m back at the day job tomorrow, so I have a lot of soapy catching up to do somehow but one thing’s for sure – I’ll be back with Blogtober 26 😀 #blogtobersoapers

Posted on October 23, 2017 by Vicki — 2 Comments

The Week in Soap: 22nd Oct 17 (Blogtober 23)

Blimey it’s been a busy week! It started on Monday with two double batches of Luscious Lavender and Warm Gingerbread:

and continued on Tuesday with two double batches Welsh Rose and Clarity:

I was so SO pleased that the Clarity turned out ok:

The two previous batches failed (I wrote about that trauma here) and I still need to try my hand at rectifying the failed batches with the oven method. Soon, soon…

Wednesday was my regular weekly soaping presentation. I only have one more to go this season before the hotel closes for winter, but I’ve been asked to go back in the spring which I’m really happy about. That’ll be my fourth year so I must be doing something right!

On Thursday (after the day job) I spent the late afternoon / most of the evening wrapping and labelling soap for the Beddgelert Craft Fair the following Saturday. I spent all day (and evening) on Friday doing the same.

Saturday was the fair itself and, being the organiser, I needed to be there before anyone else to set up, and was the last to leave after the clear up. Despite the (relatively) poor turnout, which was entirely down to the rubbish weather, it really was a good day. The stallholders and customers left happy, and I breathed a sigh of relief – it’s definitely going ahead again next year 🙂

Sunday, yesterday, was a family day. I needed a breather, away from work, so the kids and I baked and generally spent the day relaxing. Well, as much as one can relax when one’s dear husband is taking apart the bathroom… Yep, the next phase of home renovation has started, the reno-rollercoaster has begun again and we should have a shiny new bathroom by Christmas. I’ll share pictures when I can.

Thanks for reading, back tomorrow!

Vick.

Posted on October 22, 2017 by Vicki — 3 Comments

Beddgelert Craft Fair (Blogtober 22)

This time last year I wrote a post called 10 Tips for Organising a Craft Fair which was a response to organising one in Beddgelert, my home village, for the very first time. For the last month or so I’ve been working hard putting together this year’s event, which was held yesterday.

Yesterday! Those of you in the UK will know that yesterday was pig of a day, weatherwise. Storm Brian came to visit, and the weather was shocking. Strong winds and torrential rain. Ho hum. This resulted in two stall holders cancelling on me last minute, which was a disappointment, but we managed to spread out the other tables and I don’t think they were missed by customers. The other issue with the awful weather was, of course, that people clearly didn’t want to leave the warmth (and safety!) of their homes. Footfall was down from last year, and I can only put that down to the weather. Nothing we could have done about that, and so I was really grateful to those people who did brave the elements and came out to support us. I thought I’d share some pictures of the day with you here.

Kevin & Kay collect driftwood and other ‘recyclables’ from the coast locally and turn them into gorgeous items to decorate the home. The Christmas tree with incorporated fairly lights are a special favourite of mine… Kevin & Kay aren’t on any social media at all, they can’t keep up with production as it is so have no need to advertise – what an great situation to be in!!!

The stall next to Kevin & Kay was taken by Pauline of Jewellery by Pauline. Practically all my earrings these days have been made by Pauline, and as well as other jewellery she also makes adorable embroidered lavender bags.

Next up was Vanessa of Vanessa’s Papercuts. Vanessa has an amazing talent creating art with paper – either intricately cutting it so that it’s almost lace-like, or using lots of cleverly cut layers of paper to create an image:

The came me. This was the very first outing for my step risers, so I haven’t necessarily worked out the best configuration for the display yet…

Next was my next-door-but-one neighbour Cadi. She makes the most lovely Christmas wreaths and had a small table in order to take orders for this Christmas. I always have a wreath of hers on our front door during the festive season.

Next up was a group of three local ladies who are INCREDIBLY talented with yarn and fabric. I wish I’d taken some close-ups of their work, so intricate and finely done:

The next table was taken by the ladies of our village Craft Club. They meet once a week in this hall, and had lots of knitted/crochet items for sale (along with a few jars of homemade preserves which went down a treat too).

The Craft Club's Table — The Craft Club’s Table

There was one more table, next to the one above (you can just see a corner of it in the photo) but it was a stall being run for a children’s club, and there were children manning the table. I failed to get a photo without any of the kids in it, so I can’t share any, but they had Christmas stockings, greetings cards, purses, bunting and lots of other lovely stuff for sale.

We should also have had a wood turner and a lady who makes mosaics, but they were the two who were sadly unable to come at the last minute. I think there was plenty to interest the lovely folk who came in to support us though.

At the other side of the hall we also had a lucky dip for the children, a tombola and a fabulous refreshments table manned by the local club for *ahem* ‘people of advanced years’. I suppose you could call them Golden Oldies 😀 They did us proud, serving up teas and coffees and SO many homemade cakes.

All in all it was a great day, and could only have been improved by having more people come through the door, but there’s no predicting the weather around here!!

Thanks for reading, and my apologies if this post seems a little rushed – and for the quality of the photos!! Up until now I’ve managed to get posts written at least one day before, and schedule them to go live on the morning of deadline day. By the time I got home last night after clearing up the hall I had absolutely no inclination to write, and today I’ve been busy with the kids, so it’s now 7.30pm on deadline day – eek! No matter, as long as it’s live before midnight I’m still in the game lol 😀

Back tomorrow!

Vickx

Posted on October 17, 2017 by Vicki — 7 Comments

Reader Questions #2 (Blogtober 17)

I’m back to those questions that were posed on my appeal for post ideas back in September.

Today’s four questions are courtesy of Barb of Scrub Me Down – Happy Skin. There was going to be a fifth from Lisa of Aquarian Soap (see link below), about time management, but I’m going to give that subject a post all of its own!!

Question 1 is ‘What are my favourite blogs to follow?’ Well that’s an easy one – go to my homepage and down the right hand side you’ll see a list of some of blogs that I follow (I don’t know how it chooses which ones to display – Lisa’s Aquarian Soap blog doesn’t show up but I LOVE her posts, and Sarah of Sas-Oki Soaps too. Oh, and Danica’s Seife und Anderes) I went through and did a bit of a cull just recently as I realised that many of them hadn’t been updated for the longest time. Are there any glaring omissions there that I really should be following? What are your favourite blogs (not necessarily soapy ones!)

Question 2 – If you could carve out half a day and make something other than soap, what would you make? A cake. Always, a cake. I might not be the best cook in the world, but my baking usually goes down quite well. I’m going to post another couple of recipes before the end of Blogtober I think! I also really REALLY want to learn how to crochet, and if I had any regular free time I think I’d give that a go…

Question 3 – What’s your favourite fragrance for soap? My favourite fragrance oil of all time is a Pink Sugar dupe from Gracefruit called Pink Kisses (used in ‘Sugar Drops’), but I’m also in love with their Warm Gingerbread at the moment – it’s all ginger, cinnamon and vanilla and is mouthwateringly delicious. I’ve recently received a little sample of a fragrance called Tabac Vanille which I think is a dupe of a Tom Ford fragrance which is really intriguing me and can’t wait to try in a test batch. My favourite EO blend at the moment is the one I use in Botanica – lavender, lemon & lime. I could stand and sniff a bar all day…

Botanica (Lavender, Lemon & Lime) — Botanica

Question 4 What was your worst batch of soap? Hahahaha there have been loads of them over the years. I’ve forgotten to add fragrance, or added to much. I’ve miscalculated and made lye heavy soap, and made soap that never set up. Luckily these days ‘bad’ batches are few and far between, but I did have that one a month or two ago – when I tried to make ‘Snowdon’ with a new FO that I hadn’t tested – rookie mistake!! I’ve still got it carefully stored in the hope I can use it to experiment with rebatching – and report back my thoughts of course!!

Unfortunately I had another couple of disasters just this last fortnight. I mentioned it in yesterday’s post so I won’t go on about it now but Clarity, with activated charcoal has been proving problematic too:

Thanks for reading – back tomorrow!! If you have any questions please comment below and I’ll do my very best to answer them.

Posted on October 16, 2017 by Vicki — 10 Comments

The Week in Soap: 15th Oct ’17 (Blogtober 16)

So, Blogtober rolls on and, to be totally honest, here at the halfway point, I’m suffering from a bit of blogging apathy. I’m certain it’s temporary, and I’m absolutely not giving up (are you cheering or groaning?? 😀 ) but I am glad that today is my usual weekly update day and I don’t have to come up with something new!

Despite only having a few more weeks in which to squeeze in Christmas soap making, I only managed to make two double batches this week – Clarity & Tutti Frutti:

You probably won’t remember that I made two batches of Clarity the week before too. Unfortunately they proved, shall we say, problematic – the first one I cut had developed soda ash throughout the bar (or is it a partial gel?) which in a black bar is really ugly. How bad does this look?!

I’ve seen photos of this before, but never experienced it, and I was absolutely gutted – it’s throughout BOTH loaves. I had read that it could be because the oils & butters weren’t completely transparent when I added the lye (ie too cold) – which is perfectly possible as I soap at room temperature, so for my second lot this week I made sure that the oil mixture was completely, utterly, thoroughly, melted… And the same thing happened again. 6kg of soap spoilt… Gahh!! I’ve ALWAYS made this the same way – nothing has changed. Anyway, I’ll be upping the temps for the next batch and hope that that does the trick.

I released the Christmas soaps (Candy Cane, Frosted Christmas Tree & Warm Gingerbread) for pre-orders this week – they’ll be ready by the 21st October and orders, both wholesale and retail, have started coming in…I KNOW it probably feels early to many of you but I got caught out last year – retail outlets wanted to stock Christmas items immediately after Halloween, so really, I’m only just ready…

The rest of my time has been spent wrapping and labelling LOADS of bars for the *crosses fingers* Christmas rush.

Oh, and I think I have redesigned my labels. I’ve not been totally happy with mine for the longest time, and I’m quite excited about the new look, but all will be revealed in due course.

Thanks for reading – I’ll be back tomorrow, hopefully reinvigorated and ready for another fortnight of daily blogging!

Vickx

Posted on October 9, 2017 by Vicki — 8 Comments

The Week in Soap: 8th Oct ’17 (Blogtober 9)

It’s been a quieter week on the soaping front. I was grateful for that to be honest – we had family visiting for the first half of the week, and I’ve been getting into the swing of Blogtober. Day 9 today, almost a third of the way through the month already!!

On Monday I made two double batches, both restocks, of Welsh Rose and Blodau:

Welsh Rose & Blodau (Flowers) in the mould

The Welsh Rose wasn’t my best – it accelerated a little and the colours weren’t as bright as they usually are, but it’ll be fine. The Blodau on the other hand, turned out great – this is a closeup of it in the mould which proved to be really popular on Instagram:

On Tuesday I made more restocks – double batches of Clarity and Traeth Craig Du (Black Rock Sands):

The new wire for my cutter arrived on Tuesday, and it would appear I ordered the wrong one again. AARRGGHHH It was a coiled string (?) and slightly thicker than I expected it to be. Well, we fitted it onto the cutter anyway (taking a bit of a risk but by Wednesday morning I had 12kg of soap to cut and I couldn’t risk it getting too hard) and although it IS a little too thick, it did the trick. I did a bit of research and discovered that I probably need 20 gauge wire, so I’ve ordered some and it should be here soon. What a flippin’ palaver!

On Wednesday evening I gave my regular weekly soapmaking presentation. I can’t tell you how much I enjoy giving these. It often turns into a bit of a conversation rather than a ‘talk’ and I get to indulge in waffling on about my favourite subject to a captive audience. AND then I get to sell them soap too! I’ve only got another two or three weeks to go before they stop for the winter, but the manager has already asked me to go back next season – hurrah!

Thursday was another completely soap free day, and Friday was spent in the office, cutting soap, labelling soap, wrapping soap, photographing soap etc etc….

I took some better pictures of my Christmas specials, which I’ll be sharing with you this week, and of the mountain soap (from yesterday’s post) and this one – the Blodau from earlier this week:

I realised that the reason I don’t get round to sharing cut pictures as much as the ones in the mould is that I don’t usually tidy them up until they’ve been curing for a couple of weeks, so I made and effort to try to tidy up the freshly cut bar and take a picture, and it worked ok I think:

Towards Friday evening I started to develop a sore throat which worsened as the evening went on and meant I got very little sleep on Friday night. Saturday was spent feeling ill, lethargic, weak and sorry for myself generally, and Sunday was mostly spent in bed, trying desperately to kick whatever it was that was making me feel so rubbish…

I’ll be back tomorrow, come what may, hopefully with a clearer head and body that’s more willing to co-operate!!

Vickx

Posted on October 2, 2017 by Vicki — 12 Comments

The Week in Soap: 1st Oct ’17 (Blogtober 2)

This last week has been incredibly tiring, if I’m honest. I’ve had busy days and evenings, and I’ve really seen the effect on my energy levels. I’m hoping that adding Blogtober into the mix for the next month isn’t the crazy idea that I’m currently thinking it might be…

Monday has been become my regular soaping day (as I need to have a loaf ready to cut on Wednesday evenings for my Soapmaking presentation) and last Monday was no exception. I made three double batches of Bewitched, Lemon Verbena Confetti & Christmas tree:

Bewitched, Lemon Verbena & Frosted Christmas Tree

And a close up of the Bewitched, because I can’t resist those swirls…

On Tuesday I was out and about delivering stock to local shops and doing a bank run, then spent the rest of the day wrapping and labelling bars. I’ve recently bought some shrink wrap bags to try, as I’m still not happy with my packaging, so I had a bit of a play with them too. During the evening I was out at a meeting of the local Village Hall Committee meeting (of which I’m the Secretary)

Wednesday saw me at the day job in a local Pre-School, and in the evening I was out giving my weekly soapmaking presentation at a local hotel, and then on Thursday I was back at the day job again, and in the evening I had another meeting, this time for the Annual General Meeting of the Pre-School committee (of which I’m Treasurer)

Friday was again spent wrapping and labelling soaps and bathbombs, as I had the monthly Porthmadog Craft Fair the following day, and I’d realised that I didn’t have nearly enough stock ready to take. I also needed to cut all the soap which I made on Monday (which I really should have cut on Wednesday!) but I got halfway through and the wire snapped on my cutter. Arrgghhh… Never mind, I was well prepared and had some replacement E strings ready for precisely this eventuality. Except I’d bought E 1st strings, instead of E 6th strings. Who knew that there are two DIFFERENT E strings on a guitar? Double arrgghhh… . I swiftly ordered some of the correct ones, but they won’t be delivered until next week, and I have soap to cut, so I asked Dean to fit one of the thin ones with the idea of giving it a try the next day when I could get back to the office.

I did manage to get the Lemon Verbena Confetti cut before the wire snapped:

THEN I remembered that I needed to print some new name/price cards for the fair, so Friday evening was spent wrestling with my printer. I have an intense love / hate relationship with my super-duper wireless printer. When it works, I absolutely flippin’ love it, but I’m essentially a hardware technophobe and when it doesn’t work, I’m screwed. On Friday night it didn’t work, I was tired and frustrated and about to have a meltdown when my other half stepped in and sorted it out. Meltdown averted….

Saturday was the craft fair. A fairly early start which didn’t help my tired state, and not a particularly busy day, but hey ho, you win some you lose some… I don’t think the weather helped:

My view from inside the Craft Fair – look at that rain!!

While I was there I took some photographs of all the other crafters’ stalls – there’ll be a post coming up about this local monthly event as part of Blogtober but for now here’s a little peek at my stall:

I got home around 3pm, and spent the rest of the day preparing for a visit from Dean’s parents who were coming the following morning and staying a few days.

Those six days were the busiest I’ve been in a long time, and I can’t even blame the business! Sunday, by comparison, was a joy. A lovely family day – breakfast out with the in-laws, a bit of biscuit making (Viennese fingers – recipe to follow) a relaxed afternoon in front of the fire, rounded off with a roast chicken dinner. Even the pounding rain couldn’t put a damper on it. Bliss.

I’ll be back tomorrow with a roundup of September’s goals…

Vickx

Posted on September 18, 2017 by Vicki — 9 Comments

The Week in Soap: 17th Sept ’17

It would appear that Autumn is well and truly here. There’s a chill in the air in the mornings, and we’re lighting the fire every evening. It’s also a reminder that Christmas is coming, and with it that big, three day Christmas Fair I’ve committed myself to at the beginning of December – eek! To that end, this week’s soapmaking was all holiday based: Double batches of Candy Cane, Frosted Christmas Tree and Warm Gingerbread:

Frosted Christmas Tree, Candy Cane & Warm Gingerbread in the mould

I’ve not taken ‘proper’ photographs of the cuts yet, but here’s a sneaky peek at the Frosted Christmas Tree:

And a quick (and rather rubbish – sorry!!) snap of the Warm Gingerbread (this is the previous weeks batch – this week’s moved even more quickly and I didn’t even attempt the drop!)

I had a bit of a mishap with the Candy Cane – there was a knock on the door mid-pour, and instead of ignoring it I went to answer it, thinking that the soap batter was nice and fluid and I could leave it a moment or two… There’s a lesson learnt – I was away from the soap just that little bit too long and when I came back it had thickened up too much to finish off the drop swirl, arrghhhhh….

Bath bombs are a relatively new thing for me and I’ve always found them a little tedious to make to be honest. Last Friday I made 90 of them, and I seemed to be quicker this time. I guess practice does make perfect (still need a LOT of practice though :-D) They were pretty trouble free, except for one variety, but that’s a story for another day…

I also packaged up another 100 guest soaps, and bevelled a load more – there’s confetti soap on the horizon I reckon:

On a personal note, the highlight of the week was earning my green belt in kickboxing on Monday night:

Unfortunately I didn’t feel quite so kickass when I got to training on Wednesday night and discovered exactly what I’m going to have to do to earn my blue belt – there’s some hard work ahead of me!!

If you have a soap (or bath & body) blog, please do join our Soapmaking Bloggers facebook page (and maybe even consider taking part in Blogtober Soapers? ;-D)

Have a great week everyone, I’ll be back soon.

Posted on September 3, 2017 by Vicki — 7 Comments

A Soapy Disaster – The Week in Soap: 3rd Sept, 2017

The last week of the school holidays didn’t give me much time to devote to the business. I made some soap, wrapped a few bars and uploaded a few items to the pending website and had one, massive, disaster. But more of that later.

I didn’t make a lot of soap this week but I did make a double batch of Tutti Frutti. Here it’s in the mould, before and after the top swirl:

And the cut. I think I tried to be a bit too clever this time. I wanted the colours to more strictly follow the order of the colours of the rainbow (so how did I get red next to green lol?) but to do that I had to be a little more ordered in the pouring. I think I prefer the more randomly poured swirl so. Apologies for the rubbish photograph…

I also learnt my lesson and made a TEST batch using a new fragrance. Warm Gingerbread FO is one I’m hoping to use for Christmas, and I planned small batch with a simple design just to see how it handles. I’m glad I did – the website testing notes said it would accelerate, and accelerate it did. This pic is immediately after the cut – the two bottom layers should turn a lot darker over the next few weeks because of the vanilla in the fragrance oil. I left the top layer fragrance free:

It smells delicious, and I really want to use this FO to make a drop swirl bar for Christmas, so I’m going to have to use all the acceleration-reducing tools in my arsenal – and keep my fingers crossed!!

As I’d already made a start on the Christmas bars during the previous week, Candy Cane, Star embeds for the Christmas Tree bars, and a couple of batches of Dinosoaps, I’m confident that I’m on track time-wise.

And that disaster. Urgh… I was making more of the Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) soap. The last version was ok, but the bars weren’t uniform enough and the mountain itself didn’t really reflect reality. I intended to use the sculping soap technique (I was recently reminded of it by the incredibly creative Danica of Seife und anderes – if you like soap blogs you really should check it out), but the soap batter riced on me in seconds. I’ve used this fragrance before (and besides, the testing notes say no acceleration) so I REALLY wasn’t being reckless.

Anyway, just for the giggles :-/ I decided to try to squish it into the mould anyway. I actually had to get my hands in there to mix in the colours and colour squishing IS now a technical term. Was there the slightest possibility that it would come out acceptably rustic looking? NO. No, no no NOPE!! The soapy gremlins were well and truly esconced in my kitchen that day lol:

No, I didn’t rebatch it. Yes, I trashed it. I know, I know, one of these days I’ll have to give rebatching a go but I don’t currently have spare a slow cooker that I could do it in, and, really, I just don’t feel the rebatching love…

Thanks for reading, back very soon!

Posted on August 31, 2017 by Vicki — 9 Comments

I seem to have lost a month…

I had an inkling August would be busy. I hadn’t planned on posting often on the blog, but abandoning it for a whole month really wasn’t on the agenda either. The kids have been on holiday of course, but the soap business doesn’t stop for the summer (if anything it is busier than any other time, bar Christmas) and I’ve been frantically juggling childcare and keeping on top of the business for the last month.

I won’t dwell on it here, but the weather during August was utter pants. Seriously, it was rubbish. I had so many plans for picnics by the river, and lazy days on the beach, but it just wasn’t going to happen. We took walks in the rain, visited castles in the drizzle, and went geocaching under stormy clouds. The kids even climbed their first (small!) mountain, and loved it. Ha! Take that, weather! We had fun anyway…

As well as keeping retailers stocked up, I’ve made 330 bars of soap during August. Not as many as I would have liked, but with BOTH (finally!!) kids back at school all day as of next Tuesday, I’ll able to get back on track fairly quickly. I’m not making any Halloween bars, so it’s restocks and Christmas soaps all the way… Candy Cane proved very popular last year, so that’s what I started with:

I’ve also started on the star embeds for the Christmas Tree bars:

And Dinosoaps are back!

It really doesn’t seem right thinking about Christmas in August but last year I got caught out when retailers wanted Christmas stock in store right after Halloween (eek!) so this year I’ll be better prepared.

Oh, and do you remember that marmalade I made back in January? I entered it into our village show a couple of weeks ago, and it only went and won first prize! I knew it tasted good but absolutely didn’t expect to win anything. These aren’t the best photos but I also won firsts for my Viennese fingers, Melting Moments and Swiss Roll plus second prizes for my Victoria Sponge and Coconut & Lime Loaf:

Village Show Successes — Village Show fun!

These are the Viennese Fingers, which get their own photo because, frankly, they were bloomin’ delicious. Excuse the wonky one – only three were entered – that wasn’t one of them! If anyone wants the recipe let me know and I’ll post it – it’ll give me a great excuse to make more!!

It’s been a great month, but things will be getting back to normal here over the next few days and I’ll be glad to get back into a routine – the blogging schedule will be back on track – I promise!

Thanks for reading – all being well I’ll be back tomorrow with my goals for September.

Posted on July 30, 2017 by Vicki — 4 Comments

The Fortnight in Soap: 30th July, ’17

Well, you can’t say I didn’t warn you – school holidays have totally messed with my blogging schedule (never mind my soaping schedule!!). This time last week I was most likely in the middle of a field playing swingball, or sitting on the beach in blazing sunshine, watching the kids building sandcastles, or eating fish & chips – the specifics don’t matter. The point is we spent a long weekend camping on the coast, in the most glorious sunshine, with no phone signal and certainly no wifi, and blogging was quite far from my mind. Our tent and the view from the front of it:

We were SO lucky with the weather – the cloud you see here is just early morning cloud (took the photo just after 7am) and it soon cleared and we had three glorious days of sunshine.

I didn’t manage to make any soap during the week before we went, and I suddenly realised when we got home on the Tuesday that I had nothing to cut during my regular Wednesday night demo the following evening. So I quickly whipped up a double batch of Serenity – too quickly as it turned out…

Once again I soaped at too high a temperature (the lye is usually at room temp) and it set up too quickly. It’s not awful, but it’s not as I would like it.

Remember the Clarity & Welsh Rose batches I made the previous week? I did actually take some photos as promised:

and

The rest of any child-free time I managed to wangle last week was spent wrapping soaps and bath bombs for my monthly craft fair in Porthmadog yesterday (Saturday):

This summer special proved to be the best seller by a country mile – Traeth Craig Du (Black Rock Sands) named after our nearest beach, about 20 minutes away:

It has ground apricot stone in the bottom portion to represent sand, and has a gorgeous beachy / ozoney scent.

Finally I made a couple of purchases this week that I’m very excited about. Firstly, I actually bought a stand thingummy and some lenses for my iphone so that I can think about making soaping videos soon AND I also bought and downloaded Jo Haslauer’s book on colouring soap naturally.

Jo has been a real inspiration recently (check out here IG feed here) the colours she manages to achieve from infusing botanicals are incredible, and I’m really keen to give them a go. Don’t ask me when though 😀

Thanks for reading. Bear with me during these school holidays, but I’ll be back soon!!

Posted on July 18, 2017 by Vicki — 2 Comments

The Week in Soap: 16th July, ’17

Erm… these weekly updates are getting later and later! The idea is to get these posted on the Sunday evening, but here I am tapping away at my keyboard late on Tuesday. Never mind, I suppose as long as I get it done before I forget what the heck I did last week it doesn’t really matter. Anyhow, last week was blessedly quiet – there was a bit of a lull between wholesale orders and I actually took a few evenings off, so in all honesty this is going to be a fairly quick update.

On Monday night I made a couple of double batches – one of ‘Delicious’ and one of ‘Oatmeal, Milk & Honey’

The ‘Delicious’ moved way too quickly. Entirely my fault – I had two batches of lye water – one cool, which I should have used, one still cooling, which I used in error, while it was still a bit too warm. A really silly and frustrating mistake – I wouldn’t say the whole batch is ruined but I don’t think I’ll be able to sell it at full price, which is an annoyance. I didn’t even have the heart to photograph it when I cut it, so I don’t have an image of it to share here. Maybe I’ll do a post dedicated to bloopers at some point!! I did photograph the Oatmeal, Milk & Honey though. I’ve given it a little colour make-over and swapped out the dark brown for gold – I think it better reflects the fragrance this way:

I spent some time during the week wrapping etc, but in all honesty nothing of any note happened soapy-wise until Sunday evening, when I made soap again, this time two double batches of Welsh Rose and Clarity:

I had thought to cut these today but things have picked up again and I’ve had a few wholesale orders to put together, so hopefully I’ll get some time tomorrow morning to cut and photograph them.

This is the last week of school before the summer holidays start, and I’m really looking forward to having six weeks of fun in the sun (fingers crossed!) with my two little monkeys. It shouldn’t affect my soapmaking capacity too much, as I’ve always soaped in the evenings, but we’ve got a few extended camping weekends planned which might put a spanner in the works (and will definitely affect my blogging routine) but hey ho, I’ll try to keep on top of things 😀

Don’t forget, if you have a soap related blog, or you just like reading them, why not join our Soapmaking Bloggers Facebook Group to share your posts or find new bloggers to follow.

Thanks for reading – back soon!

Posted on July 11, 2017 by Vicki — 8 Comments

The Week in Soap: 9th July ’17

The highlight of this last week was a Soapmaking Demonstration that I did for the lovely ladies of the Tremadog branch of the Women’s Institute last Tuesday. I made a batch of Botanica (fragranced with Lavender, Lemon & Lime essential oils) and totally forgot to take a snap of it in the mould, but did take a pic immediately post-cut:

I get so excited when I get the opportunity to do a demo – it’s such a pleasure to be able to witter on (in an informed manner of course 😀 ) about soap to a captive audience! I’m actually in the middle of writing a post made up of tips for giving a soapmaking demonstration, and I hope to be able to share it soon.

The next evening was spent giving my regular Wednesday soapy talk at a local hotel. It usually starts around 8.45 / 9pm, after the guests have finished diner, and I’m usually home by 10.15 (it’s less than 5 minutes drive away) I’m never sure how big an audience I’ll have – sometimes there can be up to 20, and occasionally as few as 6, but I always get interesting questions which keep me on my toes!!

On Friday I found out that I’ve been accepted as a stall holder at a huge Christmas Fair that’s held locally over three days in early December. I got quite giddy – it’s the first time I’ve applied and I’m really excited to be ‘in’. I’ll have to be so organised over the summer and early autumn to make sure I have enough stock.

I had big plans for a Friday night soaping session, but after I’d done all my prep (melting oils, mixing the lye) I dropped a rather heavy dining chair onto my left foot, and thought I’d broken a toe. The pain was excruciating, and my toe quickly swelled up to more than twice it’s size. I’d already mixed the colours for a double batch of Tutti Frutti, so I decided to take a deep breath and carry on through gritted teeth:

That was enough. By this point my toe was throbbing painfully and I could barely walk so my soaping session came to an end and I was persuaded to sit down and rest.

I usually spend a large chunk of Saturday in the office, wrapping and labelling, but this week I just did a few hour in the afternoon so that Dean could go off and start dismantling a greenhouse that we’ve been lucky enough to get our hands on for free (yippee!!) The owners just want it out of their way and didn’t want anything for it. We’re so very grateful – I will certainly be taking them soap as a thank you gift. This was it before it was dissembled by the way, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we can reassemble it without too much difficulty!!

I didn’t break my toe – by Sunday I could walk fairly easily, and by today (Tues) it feels almost back to normal albeit still pretty black and blue.

Oh I nearly forgot – here’s a cut pic of the Luscious Lavender that I made last week (with apologies for the rubbish lighting):

Hope you all had a great week, thanks for reading, back soon!

Posted on July 3, 2017 by Vicki — 2 Comments

The Week in Soap: 2nd July, ’17

I need to start keeping a diary of all the business related things I’ve got up to during the week. It’s Monday today, and can I remember what I did last Monday? Erm, nope…

I do of course keep a track of each soap I make for the Product Information File (PIF) so I can tell you that last Tuesday I made two double batches of soap – Bewitched and Traeth Craig Du (Black Rock Sands)…

And I even got round to photographing one of them. It traced faster than normal (or perhaps I was less careful with the stick blender, who knows?!) so it’s more a camo pour than a drop swirl, but it’s still pretty:

Bewitched, freshly cut — Bewitched freshly cut

I had two wholesale orders go out, as well as a load of mini’s for a local guest house:

On Thursday evening I made a load of bath bombs:

Saturday was a frenzy of making… My (have I mentioned how long suffering he is??!) husband took the kids out for the day, and I made soap, yet more bath bombs, another batch of facial soap AND made my first ever batch of lip balm. The soap was a couple of double batches – Luscious Lavender and Super Scrubby Peppermint:

Super Scrubby Peppermint in the Mould — Super Scrubby Peppermint

The lip balm was incredibly quick and easy – beeswax, shea butter and avocado oil with a little honey cosmetic flavour. To be honest I think I’ll leave out the flavour next time. I deliberately added very little, but it still had a bit of a synthetic tang to me. I made six tubes worth – one for me, one for Dean, and four to go out to testers. Make sure you follow my FB page if you want to be in with a chance of being a tester in the future – I have LOADS of ideas for things I want to make, as and when I have time, and they’ll all need human testers 🙂

I posted a question on Facebook and Instagram to try to find out whether people prefer tubes or tins and surprisingly it’s fairly equal between the two – if and when I do finally offer these for sale it looks like I’ll have to offer both options!

I’ve got a busy week coming up – all those bath bombs I made? All but six have gone – gone! So, there’s more bath bomb making in my near future. I’m also giving a soap making demonstration to a local branch of the Women’s Institute on Tuesday, giving my regular soaping presentation on Wednesday night, and Thursday will HAVE to be spent making more core range soap. I also need to find the time somewhere to bevel, wrap and label a load of bars. Roll on September when I’ll finally be able to work on the business during the days!

Thanks for reading, back soon!