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Tuesday, May 31, 2011

My New Website

I'm not very good with computers and know little about them, but i now have my own website which at the moment is a work in progress, anyway you can view my soaps and felt foods more easily this way and see what i make and what you can buy.
 By the way i didn't pick the name my hubby did, i wanted something better but he didn't.
 http://www.soapsensations.co.nz/

Soap, Soap, Soap !

Caramel/ Chocolate/ Vanilla Swirl



Unscented


Roses/Violets and Green Garden Mixed



Since i got my order of wonderful products from Brambleberry i haven't been able to stop myself from making soap, i probably wont stop till i have tried out all my lovely new scents.

I just love my new crinkle cutter too, it really seems to bring out all the fantastic new colours of my soaps, i am still getting used to the bright pinks and it will take a few batches till i get the amount of colour just right but for now i am happy with the way they have turned out

The scent of the chocolate,vanilla,caramel is the best yet, this would have to be my all time favourite, you have to smell it to believe it,i have made this soap before using scents that i brought locally and although it was nice it wasn't anything like the scents from Brambleberry, this bar smells just like a bar of caramel chocolate, its so yummy that i cant stop smelling it, i just want to take i huge bite that's how good it smells, i just know this updated version will be even more popular than the original.Plus i added a gold glitter to the caramel so when the light hits it you can see all the layers and swirls of gold , very pretty.

I really like the unscented soap too, the colours are amazing, it was supposed to be apple green and pink and scented but i got the colours wrong and forgot to add the scent, but when i unwrapped it this morning it was so beautiful that i am glad for the mistakes, don't know if you can see it in the photo or not but the top has a light coat of beautiful glitter.

At the moment i am creating my own website so that my customers can check out all my new soaps as soon as it is up and running i ll let you know.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Yummy Yummy Cheesecake Soaps

Chocolate Cheesecake Soap


Raspberry Cheesecake


Relaxing


Sleeping Angels


Last week i got my new order from Brambleberry, i got some lovely new fragrances and colours that i just had to try out here are the finished results.

The Chocolate cheesecake has a chocolate base and is scented with vanilla and has chunks of chocolate scented soap through it , it also has a drizzle of chocolate scented soap on the top, this is so edible smelling that you just want to take a bite out of it..

The  Raspberry cheesecake is scented with Raspberries and Violets the, the base is yummy caramel, this cheesecake smells good enough to eat!!!

The other soaps are a mix of my new colours, i just love the scent of the relaxing soap, it's a hard scent to describe, but i can't  wait to try it out.

The sleeping angels didn't come out exactly how i had imagined, the colours are extremely bright but the scent is heavenly...

Thursday, May 26, 2011

My Rustic Tallow Soaps, (and rebatched soaps too)



Love spell

Honey Oat


Honey Oat

Natural

Coffee

Lavender/Chamomile

Coffee

Rebatched Fuzzy Peach

Rebatched Chocolate/Buttercream Snickerdoodle
There are so many beautiful handmade soaps on the Internet, alot of them are made with tallow or lard, everyone who has made them says that they make a lovely hard yet creamy bar of soap, and there are many recipes out there that you can try for yourself, so far i hadn't used animal fats in my soap only oils and butters, mainly because i am a vegetarian and don't really like putting animal fats onto my skin, but i was curious as to what a soap made with animal fats was like so i decided to go ahead and make a batch.
Buying lard or any other animal fat is impossible in my town, i had to go to several butchers and supermarkets until i managed to find a small container of lard, when i opened the container i found the most disgusting stuff inside, it was a browish colour and slimy and runny in texture and stunk like bacon fat i knew that i couldn't use it in my soap making, so i had to try and think where else i could get lard from i started ringing around and i looked on the Internet but still i couldn't find any anywhere,in the end i decided I'd have to use beef fat. I buy all the meat that my non vegetarian family eats from our local farmers market, the butcher that we buy from is a really nice guy so i asked him if he had any suet for sale, he said he didn't sell it but could buy some in especially for me at no cost to me, he told me that when i came back the following week he would make sure that he had some suet for me.
The following week i went to the market as usual to do my shopping and the butcher asked us to come into the back of the van and grab the suet, i couldn't believe it, he handed me a huge plastic bag full of suet there would have easily been 25 kilos, that night we both spent 2 long hours cutting up the suet it was awful, i had lived on a diary farm for 8 odd years and seen some really awful stuff but for me this was horrible, having my hands touching yucky suet,( alot still had the kidneys attached), my hubby said it was top quality suet and i was very lucky to have it as it is worth alot of money and is a rare find, i felt very grateful to this kind man, but i could just imagine what it must have looked like had anyone looked in my kitchen widow that night and seen me and my hubby standing there with the sharpest of knives and my benches covered with piles and piles of cut up suet.
Next came the most revolting part cooking the suet, it took 8 solid hours to render it all down, the smell was overwhelming and i spent the whole time trying not to throw up, when it was over i was amazed i had loads of lovely solid fat, which really didn't smell at all,so doing what i love i made several batches of beautiful soap.
I made all my soap in the crock pot by hot process, the first batch was plain and didn't lather up very well at all but it was very hard and had a lovely texture and would make an ideal laundry soap,so with my next batches i added coconut oil, Castor oil, and a little Olive oil, they turned out to be the best soaps ever,they are lovely soaps they lather up so well and are beautiful and creamy with the most amazing texture, nobody except for me could smell the animal fat in them, (although you could hardly smell the fat at all) some i put coffee grounds and coffee fragrance in, others had oats and honey in plus fragrance of milk, oats and honey for an extra boost, i must say that i do love the way these soaps turned out but for me it just wasn't worth the hassle, but at least i can say that i have tried it and i still have loads of tallow in the freezer yet to use.
The next of my soaps are rebatched i had loads of end bits and odd shapen soaps that i don't use so i decided to rebatch them, the fuzzy peach i made in the crock pot which took ages so the chocolate/ buttercream snickerdoodle i made in the microwave it was fast and easy and the result was great so next time i rebatch my soaps i will use the convenience of the microwave instead.

Friday, May 13, 2011

Little felt booties







I decided to make a few little felt booties as i was sick of sewing felt cakes, i don't know what ill do with them yet, but i am really happy with the way they turned out.
I also got out the sewing machine and made a few things i am crap at sewing on the machine and prefer to hand sew, but i was quite surprised that my sewing wasn't to bad, i made sandwich wraps and reusable sandwich bags as i am the worst person i know for using glad wrap, so i guess this is a start to cutting down on my usage, they are all completely washable so it doesn't matter if they get dirty.
Don't know what I'll sew next as i have run out of ideas, i have another market this coming weekend at Tamahere so i am keeping my fingers crossed for some good weather, i have plenty of felt foods and soaps to sell so i hope that it will be a good day.

More Cake Soaps (pastries,cupcakes etc...)
















I have been busy again making more delicious smelling soap cakes,all my soaps are made using the cp method so they will take a few more weeks before they will be ready to sell, i am really pleased with the way my pastries turned out.