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Posted on March 5, 2017 by Vicki — Leave a comment

The Week in Soap: 5th March ’17

I got back into the swing of making soap this week. Having realised that I need to be making far more to keep up with demand, a new process was required. Previously I would usually make three different batches during an evening’s soaping, once a week, but the new routine is four batches a night, twice a week. By doubling up the batches – ie making two lots of two fragrances, rather than three lots of one, I find I can make the four batches as quickly as three, if not faster.

Wednesday was the first day of the new regime – two lots of Welsh Rose and two lots of Bewitched on the cards. But, wouldn’t you know it, I ran out of lye. Arghhhh – I felt sure I had a second tub but nope… Nevermind, I had enough for three batches: two Bewitched and one Welsh Rose:

2 Bewitched, 1 Welsh Rose — Two Bewitched, One Welsh Rose

More lye was ordered and arrived within 48 hours, so I was able to make more today – two lots of Oatmeal, Milk & Honey and two of Blodau (Flowers):

2 OMH & 2 Blodau — Two OMH & Two Blodau (Flowers)

I clearly need to have a better handle on inventory. I do have have the Soapmaker 3 program, which comes highly recommended, but haven’t got round to using it yet. :-/ Maybe that should be one of April’s goals.

This week I also delivered another couple of batches of ‘Ar Lan y Mor’ (By the Sea) and Potters’ Soap – exclusive fragrances/designs for Glosters in Porthmadog:

Ar Lan y Mor / Potters' Soap — Ar Lan y Mor / Potters’ Soap

I also finished off wrapping and packaging the mini guest bars for Plas Colwyn Guest House right here in the village – these are just a small selection of them:

We celebrated St David’s Day on Wednesday, and as is traditional, I made up a big batch of Teisen Gri (Welsh Cakes) for the village school show.

I’ve been asked again to share the recipe, so I’m planning on getting that written up this week and posted here on the blog.

This is my little three year old in her traditional ‘welsh lady’ costume, singing her heart out at the front of the stage. She’s normally pretty shy, so it was wonderful to see her enjoying her moment in the limelight…

I also managed to get out for ONE run this week – 5km on Friday morning. If you saw the post about my goals for March, you’ll know that I want to run at least 30km this month. Easily doable, IF I can get my running mojo back where it was in January. Throw some motivation my way?

Posted on February 19, 2017 by Vicki — 1 Comment

The Week in Soap: 19th Feb ’17

I have at least 6 draft posts half written, but somehow it’s got round to Sunday again and I’ve not managed to even think about finishing any of them…

It has, however, been a busy week… I’ve been busy wrapping and labelling the bars for the shop in Didsbury, all 150 of them. It’s a big order for me, but I’ve got a week or two to get it all together.

On Thursday I agreed to supply a local guest house with soap on an ongoing basis. It’s self catering accommodation, and they want to leave both full sized and mini bars for their guests. The first lot of regular bars has been delivered, and this coming week will see me cutting and wrapping the mini sized bars for delivery before the weekend.

I’ve made another five batches this week, three on Monday – First Kiss, Love Spell & Peace:

That little heart was added for Instagram as a nod to Valentine’s Day, as I didn’t get around to making any Valentine’s specials this year.

And two batches of Tutti Frutti on Friday – I’ve been waiting on more fragrance oil for this one for quite a while, and I’m nearly sold out, so I got a couple of batches done at once.

The colours on the top of the finished batches look a little muddy, but I’m hopeful it’ll be fine inside *crosses fingers*

And tonight I made more bathbombs – I literally finished cleaning up 10 minutes ago, so these are very rough and ready photos, but you get the first peek:

Bewitched:

I’ve not managed to take many soapy photos this week, but here’s the Blodau (Flowers) bar from last week:

The kids are off school for half term this coming week, so it’ll be interesting to see how much I get done (especially as we go away on Friday for a couple of nights) but hopefully I’ll get an update out on Sunday at the very least :-/

Posted on September 20, 2016 by Vicki — Leave a comment

Getting back on the horse

I’ve done a lot of soapy things over the last couple of weeks, but they didn’t include writing a blog post. I’ve thought about it, aware of the passing days and the realisation that my plan to post at least once a week wasn’t panning out. But you know what? It’s only been 16 days. I’m improving 😀

During the last couple of weeks I’ve given a soaping demonstration to a local ladies craft group, given two soaping presentations, had a stall at a (late) summer craft fair and, of course, made loads of of soap.

The soaping demonstration was for a local ladies crafting group. There were some 16 ladies there, and I made a batch of Luscious Lavender soap from scratch. They were fascinated by the process, and asked a lot of questions as we went along. Luckily I had taken plenty of fully cured and wrapped soap with me, as once the demo was over they were keen to treat themselves and their loved ones to a bar or two of handmade soap. The whole demonstration was done through the medium of Welsh, and I’ve made a note to look up some of the more technical words and phrases before my next one (oops!)

The soaping presentations were in a local guest house, Craflwyn Hall, where visitors come to stay and walk the mountains that surround us here. I go every Thursday evening during the holiday season (usually April through October) and I absolutely love having a captive audience to talk to about my soaping obsession. I’ll write a more detailed post about it another time.

The summer fair I attended last Saturday wasn’t particularly well attended, but I was lucky in that almost everyone who visited my stall bought something. It was a beautiful day – just look at the views from my stall!

I’ve also been making a lot of soap but you know what? I’m going to save that for the next post, which will come all the sooner if I already know what it’s going to be about. Oh I’m definitely getting back into blogging mode 😀