Coolah Creations

I’m dreading the long hot Summer…

On Nov 29, 2012 2 2 Comments

I’m a Winter girl. While I hate the wind it brings, and I get annoyed when it rains right as school pick up or drop off times roll around, the cold does not bother me. Not one bit. I am that freak you see walking around in a sleeveless top and thongs (flip flops) while others are wrapped up in scarves and worshipping the hot coffee that thaws out their hands. Cold? I just don’t feel it.

If you want to kill me however – crank up the earth’s furnace. I just don’t cope with heat!!

Looking back to my childhood, I have never coped with the heat. I remember a stinking hot day in primary school going out to get a drink from the water taps because I felt sick, only to completely scar the other girl doing the same when I looked at her, rolled my eyes back and proceeded to suicidally faint – hitting my head on the wall, the tap, the edge of the tap basin, and finally the concrete ground. And going that far back, ‘stinking hot’ would have been about 35 degrees then, not the 50 we can reach now…

Wasn’t the first time I had passed out from the heat, and it would not be the last. The heat and I just do not get along. Fast forward a few (quite a few!) years, pack on some post baby / drive thru loving weight and I hate the heat even more now. Especially if it produces anything liquid that runs down my body!! AKA sweat! ICK! A dry heat I can tolerate providing I can mumble and moan… but a humid day is my kryptonite.

These past two days have zapped all my super powers! The below picture pretty much sums up our current weather:

Dead Cat hanging. Poor Max. No, he’s not dead… he just felt it was too much effort to lift his head up after it slid off his sleeping spot. Poor Coolah seemed to be coping even worse, which is ironic as he has less fur…

Naaw, look at Max looking on with such concern… how much longer would he have to wait for Coolah to fall off so he could take the spot in front of the window?

Today hit a very unpleasant top of 39 degrees (celcius). The last weather check I did last night, it said it would be 31. Big difference. Especially when miss five asked if she could ride her new bike to kinder this morning and I said yes. I felt so proud of myself – walking the kids up instead of driving. Especially as I needed to grab some groceries, I had a bad night’s sleep due to being too hot, some muscle in my foot was making it’s presence very known, AND it was the first ride on her new, bigger bike.

Apart from one really awesome crash (down hill – freaked out child forgot to apply breaks – stopped at full speed by a chain rail!!!), it wasn’t too bad a walk. Except for the unpredicted overheating. I couldn’t get over how hot I was… blaming it all on being completely unfit and overweight. That was until I got home and realised at NINE AM it was FREAKING 30 DEGREES ALREADY!!! What the???

It was all downhill after that. With the waste of space evaporative cooling system this house has, it turned my wooden floors into ice-skating rinks and my poor soaps into crying masses of accumulated soap sweat. Even my CP soaps were sweating!! My poor M&P Rufus Soaps are going to have to be rehomed to my bathroom instead of the order they were created for.

Given it’s not even December yet – the official launch month of our Summer period, I’m scared for what’s ahead!! My plan to play with body butters has ground to a screeching halt and I’m considered not bothering with listing all the kids/specialty soaps I can do as if today was any prediction for what’s ahead, M&P will not even be a consideration. I mean my CP soaps were sweating man!! The ones IN their boxes, ON their shelves, stored in the room with THE most airflow in the entire house!!!!

Summer… I am dreading you!! I can’t soap at night – the coolest period of the day – because it wakes my kids. Damn you sound making stick blender!!

And I can’t soap during the day for fear of dying from heat exhaustion. Ooooh, geez imagine fainting while mixing the lye. EEEK! And even if I did manage to successfully create soap – how sub-par will it be if it’s constantly sweating. *panics at the thought of DOS*

My laundry is nice. It’s cool. It’s also about the size of a kitty litter tray. So unless I move my washing machine OUT (hey i’ve seen European TV shows where theirs is in their kitchen!!) and just move racks and racks of shelving IN to store everything… I’m kinda screwed right now!

Think I will wait until my brain isn’t being slow roasted inside my own head to decide any major moves. For now, it’s time to try and get some sleep… and not wake the kids with my rendition of the wicked witch “I’m melting…. I’m meeeelllting” as I walk down the hall. Oh, you know I would be doing that too!

ShareI’m a Winter girl. While I hate the wind it brings, and I get annoyed when it rains right as school pick up or drop off times roll around, the cold does not bother me. Not one bit. I am that freak you see walking around in a sleeveless top and thongs (flip flops) while others…

My First Market!!

On Apr 30, 2012 8 8 Comments

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I wake at 1am. I wake at 3am. I wake at 5am and mentally procrastinate getting up to allow myself even more time to get ready or stay in the comfort of my warm bed for another hour. My phone alarm goes off at 6am… I guess my tiredness levels made that choice for me.

Amazingly, yet not surprisingly, I am wide awake at the first noise of the alarm. Normally I don’t do 6am, that’s just not a decent time of day. But this wasn’t just any ordinary day – it was my FIRST MARKET DAY!! Woo Hoo.

I had allocated myself an hour, broken into segments of 15 minutes, before I had to leave the house.

6am till 6:15am – get out of bed, straighten my hair.
6:15 till 6:30am – get dressed, take my tablets, feed the cats etc
6:30am till 6:45am – Pack the car!
6:45am till 7:00am – wake poor Diesel, get him and myself into the car, lock the house, and head off.

I felt very ready for the day. Highly organised. Everything was packed and ready to just be loaded into the car. Clothes had already been pre-selected. Breakfast had been planned (Hash Browns and Ice Coffee Big M – yum!). Nothing could go wrong… right?

Eeeeeh! WRONG! Here is how the morning really went:

6am till 6:12am – look for flippin straightener!! Do so quietly so as not to wake the little man too early while simultaneously cursing at a whispers level at the cats who keep tripping me up, twice booting them by accident (really!) half way down the hall while wondering WHERE THE FLIP YOU PUT THE BLOODY STRAIGHTENER!!
6:12am – locate hair straighener at bottom of walk in robe, not hidden, in fact it’s just sitting on top of some clothes. Kick self mentally for being an idiot.
6:13 am – update facebook to inform everyone about hair straightener predicament.
6:14am – 6:19am – Straighten hair.
6:20am – 6:38am – Chase now scared cats into the bathroom to feed them, again cursing under breath as they run to the lounge room, to the kids bedroom, etc. Get one into the bathroom, but as you go to grab the other, the first escapes from the bathroom and takes off again. Spend a few seconds wondering why you got the flippin cats in the first place.
6:39 am – 6:648am – Get dressed. Realise I look fat in this top (what’s new), but by now I just don’t care.
6:50am – Hear Diesel wake on his own and think that he’s going to wake up happy now (he is always a sod if he is woken by someone else) and go in relieved that you are back on track.
6:50am – 7:07am – Try to settle a screaming toddler who is half asleep, confused and acts similar to putting a plank of wood that can wriggle into a car seat.

My poor bubby cried half the way to his dads and I was frazzled by the time I was on my way. But, I managed to make it on time (actually, with 5 minutes to spare!) and that’s when the nerves REALLY set in!! I had manic butterflies while bringing everything in from the car and setting up – I dare say I was almost shaking!

Ten minutes before the doors opened to the public, I was as ready as I was going to get!

Over all, I have to say, I was pretty darn proud of how it looked!! I do have to credit other people who have shared their ‘first market’ pictures and the ways in which they had improved them. It was through reading other people’s adventures and learning process that I was able to start off with levels instead of just a flat table, to group my soaps of the same kind together, to have a banner (even though it’s my old colour scheme), etc. I even remember seeing the soapsicles in a similar jar that I have I think from Soapylove’s website. I can’t remember, but I know I saw it somewhere.

Through reading, researching and learning, I was able to make my first table look respectable. I think anyway. I learnt a lot from the day though, and my next Market (already booked for May) will have some changes made. So it’s still far from perfect…

Over all, it was a good day. Quiet – felt like hardly any customers at all came through, but good. I made some sales (came in $12.50 in profit after stall fee!!) and it was good for a first time. I think I learned more because it was quiet as I was able to watch how people browsed the table, things they didn’t really notice like the cupcakes because they were wrapped in cellophane, and things that were instantly noticed by both kids and parents, such as the smurf soaps. I was surprised only one of the rainbow cake slices sold (to the Market host no less!) as they sell nearly instantly online, but the licorice all sort soaps were a hit with pretty much everyone!

I’m already formulating my plan of attack for the May market (run by the same people) which will include better signage as I noticed a few people looking a bit confused by what I was actually selling, and one lady even commented “oooh, lollies” as she passed. Um…

My market cherry is officially popped though, and I can’t wait for round two!! I now have four weeks to prepare, of which, I’ll be able to take some of the unsold stock from this round along. MUCH less stressful than the three weeks / no stock notice I had this time!

ShareI wake at 1am. I wake at 3am. I wake at 5am and mentally procrastinate getting up to allow myself even more time to get ready or stay in the comfort of my warm bed for another hour. My phone alarm goes off at 6am… I guess my tiredness levels made that choice for me….

Hi! Remember me?

On Apr 26, 2012 6 6 Comments

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Oh my goodness, I’m alive!! Just lol. The past two to three weeks saw my clutz gene (my own personal gremlin) rear it’s ugly head and saw me fracture my leg! It was the most dramatic thing to …. I walked into my own flippin bed!

It’s not the first time I have inflicted pain upon myself. I’ve rolled my ankle (which then ripped all my ligaments and tendons) getting out of bed, broken my little toe getting out of the shower, fell over walking to the couch and fractured my arm, etc, etc, etc. I’m like a life long blonde moment. Even as a child (7th grade I believe), I managed to break, fracture AND dislocate my little finger trying to give the dog a cuddle. I’m …. special.

On top of my bed attacking me, I came down with a bout of Mastitis (it’s a female / child thing … basically an infected boob for those that have no idea) which saw me spend one night so cold my chattering teeth kept waking my 4 year old. She was not pleased at all about that either. But I was so cold, the thought of uncurling from the fetal position and actually getting out of bed to turn the heater on was just too much. Plus, my fever was so bad I was awake for maybe 30 seconds at a time – just long enough to hear the end of the ‘muuuum, SHOOSH!”. The following night however, I sweated to the point of needing to change my bed sheets … twice!

So there went 48 hours of my life, plus a further five to six days curled up on the couch feeling very sorry for myself. April has been a month I will gladly see the end of!

Not before the 29th though! I have my first MARKET!! Eeeeeek!! I’m majorly freaking out right now! I’m not too sure why I agreed to do it – caught up in the moment talking to a friend who was egging me on perhaps? Thinking that I really need to start getting my name out there as I’m starting to drown in made soap? Who knows. I’m glad I’m doing it, don’t get me wrong, they’re good butterflies. But they’re butterflies all the same. And at the moment if feels like someone slipped them three cans of red bull and then pissed them off! Oi…

Giving myself only three weeks to get ready for my first market was a silly idea though. Especially when I was already low on funds AND low on M&P base! I’m only taking M&P soaps to this one as it’s a ‘baby and kids’ market so my CP ones don’t really fit the bill… although I have asked to take along my Energy soap as it smells like fruit tingles and is coloured with kiddy colours.

But it’s mostly Cupcakes, Soapsicles, Smurfs, Monkeys and toy embeds. Oh, and my new Batman soaps!

I’m not sure how many of the baby and kids Markets I will do, it’s turned something I do for fun into something that’s stressed me out a bit. I’m hoping to use it more as a way to start getting noticed, but at heart I’m a soaper who does it for the pure enjoyment of it. I love trying new technique’s, playing with my swirls and experimenting. I’ve discovered I’m not real good at the mass production thing.

Of course, the good thing is it’s gotten my thinking about where exactly I see my soaps going. There’s a fellow soaper I chat to that makes my jaw drop – she has an entire range of products (soap, balms, creams, etc) and an entire shop displaying her goods. I look at that and go “Oooh! I want to be her when I grow up!”

Problem with that is, I’ve already worked out I don’t want to keep the same range of stuff all the time – I much prefer doing different things constantly. Plus, if I had to try and duplicate a soap, I would likely fail and then get frustrated. I wonder if I could just have a shop that is constantly changing?

The good thing, I think, with constantly changing and trying new things, is I’m also hopefully constantly growing and improving. I figure as my business (hopefully!) grows, I will just expand in size. Instead of making a 1kg block of soap, I’ll start increasing it to 2kg, 5kg – dare I say 10kgs? That way I can still be different, but making/selling larger quantities. *nods convincingly*

For now, I’m concentrating on Sunday. Three sleeps to go. I figure if the shaking, trying not to vomit from nerves seller doesn’t get people’s attention, the scents will. I’ve read there are ‘food’ stalls there (cakes and cupcakes mostly I think), I plan on being the best smelling stall in the building! Wish my luck!!

ShareOh my goodness, I’m alive!! Just lol. The past two to three weeks saw my clutz gene (my own personal gremlin) rear it’s ugly head and saw me fracture my leg! It was the most dramatic thing to …. I walked into my own flippin bed! It’s not the first time I have inflicted pain…

Key Lime … SIGH!

On Apr 8, 2012 0 No Comments

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I lurve Key Lime Pie fragrance oil. To my nose, it’s a sickly sweet smell. The description calls it; “Bitter lime and green lemon zests on a dry down of vanilla cream”, but to me it’s just sweetness on sweetness.

Vanilla – like. Lemon – like. Bitter – how do you smell bitter? I know a bitter taste, I know bitter old ladies, but never a bitter smell.

Frustratingly, as much as I love the smell, it’s a PITA to soap with (CP anyway).

This was just cut – so you can see the colour I intended the soap to be. I thought with only 2% Vanillan content I could squeeze it through without any stabilizer. I was wrong. I would have used stabilizer except I didn’t have any at the time.

The batch also over heated on me – can you see the ring of frustration? I tested a bar in the shower last night as I always do before listing, and there were zero bubbles when used on the body. Now this is the exact same recipe I’ve been using for all my soaps for the past month, but this is the first major disappointment in the shower.

At first I thought it was me (no no, it’s not you, it’s meee) and perhaps I was just super dirty. Would have been odd given I had just laid around all day, but you never know. Have you ever washed your hair and the shampoo just didn’t seem to do much lathering, but if you rinse out and wash again, you are drowning in lathery goodness? I thought the soap might have worked the same. I was wrong.

Rubbing it between my hands produced bubbles, so I know they were hiding in there. But rubbing it straight against my body produced nothing. So, I’ve advised my friends and testers that they are hand soap only, because this scent is just way too good to bin.

Was it the scent? Was it the over heating? Was it just a bad day in the shower? Not 100% sure. I’m leaning towards the over heating…

Refusing to believe it was the scent, I did a second batch with my M&P base. Wanting to cover all bases and perhaps wondering if it was me *gasp*, I also enlisted my latest assistance – Miss four and a half. Please don’t forget that half, it’s very important!

Together we were able to produce this little masterpiece:

The soap has an oatmeal base which can help exfoliate, a sweet middle center and a whipped soap top. Miss 4 and a half loved making the whipped soap as it filled the kitchen with fairy size bubbles (they were really teeny tiny)…

Next I will try bath bombs!!

ShareI lurve Key Lime Pie fragrance oil. To my nose, it’s a sickly sweet smell. The description calls it; “Bitter lime and green lemon zests on a dry down of vanilla cream”, but to me it’s just sweetness on sweetness. Vanilla – like. Lemon – like. Bitter – how do you smell bitter? I know a…

Super Soap Show Off – A Sea Breeze and Twilight Woods

On Apr 7, 2012 6 6 Comments

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For the past month or two, I’ve been extremely frustrated with my M&P soaps. Pretty much anyone can make plain coloured soaps, some can do layers or details, but few can do truely outstanding creations. I want to be one of those few! I want to make soap that makes other soapers jaws drop.

I’ve been working hard to improve my M&P soaping, and I have been extremely pleased with the last two results.

A week ago was my first success. Having picked up a bottle of the scent Sea Breeze (OMG so nice!!) from Auroma down the road, I had made nearly everything in one weekend – bath bombs, bath salts, CP soap and… with just enough left for some MP soap, I wasn’t going to waste it. I was infatuated with the scent and the idea to create a ‘waves/ocean’ soap was a pretty obvious choice.

I had pondered making a beach soap – sand and water, but my gut feeling told me not attempt the sand as I would be disappointed. So instead, I sat down and worked out how to soap the ocean.

With my piece of paper and my daughters blue textas, I started working out my plan. Layers, would definitely need layers. A gradient affect would be best. Variations in blue to look like deep to shallow water, and some white frothy caps. I then started to play… and tweak… and try. Eventually, my first super soap show off was born!

This soap sat in it’s mold and taunted me for an entire week!! Having always disliked the wavy cutters, all of a sudden nothing else would do! And, of course, I didn’t have one did I? I looked everywhere local to pick one up – Bunnings, Spotlight, House, General Trader, etc. No where. In the end I bought one from the fantastic supplier in WA and paid express postage to get it to me quicker.

Result? Perfection! I was SO glad I waited.

Twilight Woods

Yesterday’s was the unveiling of another week long project. Twilight Woods made to (hopefully) look like, the woods! The scent has nothing to do with the movie Twilight… *bursts out* TEAM JACOB SQUEEE!!!! *composes self* sorry about that. However the scent is just as lovely as the moment when Jacob takes his shirt off after the motorbike fall. *drifts off and mumbles ‘You’re kind of beautiful’….*

Ok, ok, ok… enough about Jacob. (*writes note to go watch Twilight later*)

The soap Twilight Woods is really nice. I didn’t know it was actually know it was a re-creation of Bath & Body Works scent! Their description of the scent is:

A new distinctly feminine fragrance, an alluring blend of bright flowers, surprising spices and creamy woods – layers upon layers of youthful luxury with an elegant touch of cashmere, captures the singular pleasure of a twilight stroll.

Further researching for a fragrance description only confirmed why I like it:

This fragrance combines the scent of ripe forest berries and soft sensual musk, with middle notes of sweet mimosa flowers and apricots, along with subtle hints of oak and juniper.”

I love musk, and fell instantly in love with Juniper Breeze when I had it, as well as quickly discovering awesome mimosa (just not with mango!). I think I will have to track down more of this scent when it runs out…

I have CP soap curing, I have bath bombs sitting behind me and now, I have a MP batch to add to the trio!! And check… it… out!

The idea was to make it look like the deep forest – brown for the forest floor, tree trunks and then the green for the tree tops with blue for the sky. The soap worked out a smidge lighter than I had originally pictured – I had wanted more deep green colours, and a blacker night sky. BUT, I am still beyond thrilled how it turned out!

And once again, there’s that crinkle cutter making it even better!

Feeling slightly more positive about my MP soaping once again. Just have to work out what to do next…

ShareFor the past month or two, I’ve been extremely frustrated with my M&P soaps. Pretty much anyone can make plain coloured soaps, some can do layers or details, but few can do truely outstanding creations. I want to be one of those few! I want to make soap that makes other soapers jaws drop. I’ve been working hard…

Finally… Monday!

On Apr 2, 2012 2 2 Comments

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This weekend, totally sucked!! Nothing went according to plan and it wasn’t one long super funtastic soaping party as I had imagined. There was no booging down in the kitchen while I soaped up masterpiece after masterpiece.

But it’s Monday now. I never thought I would be so happy to see the start of a week! But the beginning of Monday officially marks the end of the weekend and I’m putting all that unpleasantness behind me. *shakes it all off*

Yesterday afternoon I had my first (and second!) go at HP Soaping. HP stands for hot process. Normally I do CP, cold process which, ironically, is making soap cold. Hot process, and this will shock you, is making soap hot! Hot process is more in lines with what our ancestors used to do – cooking the soap all the way through ~~over an open fire~~ in a crock pot.

This is actually my second batch photographed below. My first batch is still stuck in it’s mold!! Although, I don’t think I cooked the first batch completely as it still has a spongy like feel to it 12 hours later.

This second batch hardened up nicely (although still not rock hard as I expected it to be) and came out of the mold easier. I don’t like how ‘blended’ the details are. Having spent the past few weeks working on perfecting my defined swirls, this is just, well, ugly. I will work on it, see if I can get better definition, however I may have to leave the HP batches to single colours or layers. I definitely want to include it in my soap rotation however – there are fragrances that just don’t like CP, but I would still like to use.

Yesterday afternoon was my cupcake lesson. It was after making these that I realised why my weekend was so sucky – it was a learning weekend. I’ll never be one of those soapers who sticks to five or ten designated soaps or have a ‘line’ of any sort. I soap for the enjoyment, the fun, the experimenting, etc. I would liken it to a painter. Very rarely does a painter stick to the same five or ten pictures, they paint something different every time. That’s my soaps. Different every time.

I think it’s great that other’s have a designated line though, don’t get me wrong. But I would get bored. I LOVE trying new things, changing it up, etc. But, I have to remind myself when doing this, that it’s also going to bring frustrations. There are disappointments when it doesn’t work out, there is anger when I can’t get it to work, and there is the stress of the cost of ingredients (especially the fragrance oils and colours) that I have just wasted. If I can find a way to push those issues aside and remember it’s fun, I will be happy. (It’s mostly the cost, and those who know me (and my dipshit ex) will know why…)

My cupcakes were a good reminder. They completely flopped, and as the anger crept in, I stopped and reminded myself – this is my first attempt!! I had too hard an expectation on myself wanting them to come out perfect (or at least with height), and when they didn’t, I got angry. But then I stopped. Instead of cracking it and giving up in a huff, I studied them. I analysed what went wrong, and I LEARNED from them!

Problem #1 – My Batter. After spending weeks working on getting a thin and runny trace for my swirls, I now have to undo that and get back to a thicker trace for the cupcakes to stick.

Problem #2 – Being scared of the seize. This comes back to the money / waste factor. I’m petrified of having the batter sit there too long and become unusable. I hate waste, especially when it costs me money. And a full batch of ingredients binned because it took me 5 minutes to do the first cupcake is a stress factor.

Problem #3 – Not having the right tools. I used a $15 piping kit from Kmart yesterday, and broke it. In two places. It broke because it was cheap, no other reason. But it was also the wrong sort to be using for soap. I want to get one of those plastic squeeze bottles with the piping tips, but everything I find is too small.

So what I now need to do is A) find the right tools. B) I’m going to do two things to help with wasting batter – [1] I’m going to do a test batch with no colour or fragrance so I don’t feel I am wasting those. And [2] Once I feel confident making them, I’m going to start using that small portion from my normal soap batches that just never seems to fit in the mold.

In the mean time, I’ll cheat!

That’s a M&P cupcake

ShareThis weekend, totally sucked!! Nothing went according to plan and it wasn’t one long super funtastic soaping party as I had imagined. There was no booging down in the kitchen while I soaped up masterpiece after masterpiece. But it’s Monday now. I never thought I would be so happy to see the start of a week!…

Easter Frustrations!!

On Mar 7, 2012 1 1 Comment

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I had a plan. An Easter plan. AND IT’S NOT WORKING!!!

I wanted to put together little Easter ‘packs’ for kids – a cute little tub, some chocolate scented Easter egg shaped soaps, a bunny cupcake and a couple of real Easter eggs tucked away in these awesome plastic ones I found. I had the whole thing set out in my mind and it looked AWESOME!

But the Universe doesn’t like my idea! It doesn’t agree with the image in my head. It’s NOT playing fair!

The Bunny cupcakes are working out WAY better than I thought!

Originally I wasn’t happy with the shape of the bottom portion, but purposely shortening it (not pouring as much soap in) made it look one hundred times better! So that solved that. /triumph

The Googly eyes were way better than my painted attempt and the nose, well, it’s passable. It’s a bit odd how far it protrudes out from the face, but I swear I heard a whimper when I considered shaving it back.

The whiskers are still the bunny bane and are ticking me off. I don’t have a steady hand which makes painting them on straight nearly impossible, and because of the way the mold is, they are raised from the rest of the face, so the ‘too wet’ paint tries to run off if tilted 0.0001% the wrong way!

I wanted to go up to the craft store to get thin wire and do them that way, but then realised that kids + wire = not smart. Still thinking on that one…

The Soap Eggs however, are what’s really bringing an end to the ‘idea’. They are just not working!!

1st Attempt = Slowly pour the detail soap in.
Result: MASSIVE FAIL! The soap went everywhere, over-poured the details and generally made a huge mess of it all.

2nd Attempt = Use the Soap Syringe
Result: FAIL! Again, the soap over-poured the details and made a big mess. My second and a half (or technically 3rd) attempt saw me put even less soap in the details and try to swirl the mold around to spread it – that just ticked me off! I would get one part working, but in trying to get the other sections right, the first one would spill everywhere.

There was at least one moment where I swirled the mold around like it was caught in a hurricane while grunting and cursing. Gee, wonder why that didn’t work? /ponder I bet I looked like a complete dick head as well!

3rd Attempt = Soap Paint
Result: High hopes… but fail. I tried painting the details on after I poured the soap but it didn’t really work. If you want to experience my frustrations, grab some oil paint and try to recreate something by Van Gogh on your cleanest pane of glass. Grrr.

Then I had an idea! What if I painted the soap paint right into the mold (silicone has better ‘stick’ than fresh soap) and then poured the soap in. So I spent all day yesterday, straining the back and my eyesight to paint the fine details of my Easter egg mold. I had to let each layer dry before I could paint the next and it literally, took me all day!

After the painted sections had dried, I carefully poured in my soap and let it sit over night. I removed them this morning and although some of the paint had stained the soap with it’s colour and pattern, all the paint remained firmly in the mold. GRAH!!

It was right about then that I cracked it, big time! I twisted and turned the mold wanting to rip it in half. But the mold is silicone. If I thought I looked like an idiot yesterday, that was nothing compared to this morning. There I stood in my kitchen, still in PJs, trying to rip a RUBBER mold in half.

Twist… turn… scrunch… grunt… twist… puff… pant…. stop… sigh… put mold down… flick hair out of face triumphantly…. walk away. Mutter.

The frustrating part is I am seeing not only the exact same eggs as the mold I have out there, but other, more intricate eggs with detailing done. So I know it CAN be done, just not by me. Which is a huge blow to my confidence levels at the moment – not aided any by other soap failures I’ve experienced unrelated to the eggs.

I think it’s time to move on. I don’t have the patience levels at the moment to continue trying, and with the Easter time limit looming ever so close (having to also factor in postage time and such), I think it’s time to concentrate on something else.

It’s just SUCH a shame that I won’t get to use these guys, they are just too awesome! They’re the plastic eggs that I was going to put real Easter eggs inside.

ShareI had a plan. An Easter plan. AND IT’S NOT WORKING!!! I wanted to put together little Easter ‘packs’ for kids – a cute little tub, some chocolate scented Easter egg shaped soaps, a bunny cupcake and a couple of real Easter eggs tucked away in these awesome plastic ones I found. I had the whole thing…

I long for boredom!

On Feb 19, 2012 0 No Comments

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This weekend was by far my busiest … possibly of my life! Saturday was spent getting down and dirty and cleaning the house! And I mean really cleaning it! Not just tidying or shuffling stuff around like previous weeks, oh no no, this weekend the dust mites were afraid. And with good reason! Sick of Miss 4′s bedroom not having a visable floor, I decided that enough was enough!

And clean I did. Oh boy did I clean! The kids bedroom, the toy / spare room, the lounge room, my work space, the kitchen. You name it, it’s now clean. (Please don’t name the bathroom….)

Satisfied with my now presentable house, I spent Sunday messing it up! My workspace was cluttered with more clothes being cleared out from my main business of the past 18 months. The kitchen was well and truly de-cleaned with glorious soaping ‘stuff’ and the results of said stuff being whizzed and whirled around.

I. Am. Buggered!

I am so longing for the feeling of boredom right now. Those moments when you just look around realising that you kinda have nothing to do. I remember complaining when there was nothing on TV … now I’m lucky if I can remember to turn the damn thing on it’s been so long since I’ve watched.

All weekend I was doing ten different things at once! That said, it was productive. Apart from the clean rooms lasting more than two minutes (kids were with their dad), I started on the men’s soap samples, managing to finish off five already.

P.S. Single white female making the most amazingly scented men’s soaps all weekend is CRUEL!!!! I would have just about jumped any guy that knocked on my front door today! Course who knocked? My ex… /facepalm

I also managed to whip up these beauties:

The delectably edible Vanilla Oak with shredded loofah and ground Walnut exfoliating soap! Smells D I V I N E! Best Vanilla scent I have inhaled so far!

The Tea Tree loofah food scrubs. Apart from the fact Tea Tree scent makes me gag, I was a tad disappointed with how little they seemed to smooth out my dreaded feet. I hate my feet. It’s my own fault – I own two pairs of shoes: Thongs, and Thongs. (Or for the non-aussies: Flipflops and Flipflops). One pair at the front door, one pair at the back door. And everything in between is bare feet.

This was a simple recipe followed and it was a good learning experience. It involved sticking a full loofah into a cylinder container and then pouring the soap mixture over the top. What wasn’t explained was the half an hour of holding the bobbing loofah down!! And I do mean bobbing … as in up and up and down. I’m not just PG rating my swear words there.

I was tempted to just leave the last 1/4 of the loofah sticking out – it was coming up for air every three seconds! I ended up sticking a plastic spoon on it, popping the lid on the pringles container (my ‘cylinder container’) and walking away. Still working on that patience thing…

What little patience remained this weekend was spent on round two of the rainbow slice soap. I decided to change things around this time as the last ‘rainbow’ only had five colours. Oops. This time I aimed for more numerically correct layers but I’m not so sure I am happy with the results. I will reserve final judgement until it’s cut.

I also decided to pipe the top this time instead of whipped. My first time pipping – at all! Not just pipping soap, but pipping period! Mostly happy with it.

This is my ‘bit-o-everything’ soap.

I needed to make a batch of soap (CP) to pipe the top of the rainbow cake, but you can’t make just that small an amount, so I might as well do something with the rest of the batter…
I had melted too much white soap and later on too much pink for the rainbow soap. I had also looked at a photo just this morning of twirly whirlies in the top of a batch so naturally decided to give it a go.
My first go at embedding MP into CP!

The idea was for a red/pink bottom half and a white top half with the pink and white twists in it. Instead the red barely showed through the batter and the fragrance oil turned my ‘white’ into yellow. Doh!

Red/brown and yellow soap with pink and white twirls and glitter. This poor soap feels like it was made by a colour blind drug addict! I can’t even work out how I will cut it! I guess that’s what I get when instead of concentrating properly, I’m going “shit hurry up, hurry up, the piping bottle is going to set! Aaah frack it just shove them in!”

ShareThis weekend was by far my busiest … possibly of my life! Saturday was spent getting down and dirty and cleaning the house! And I mean really cleaning it! Not just tidying or shuffling stuff around like previous weeks, oh no no, this weekend the dust mites were afraid. And with good reason! Sick of Miss…

No pot of gold at the end of these Rainbows!

On Jan 26, 2012 0 No Comments

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A couple of weeks ago I had a request come through for some Rainbow soaps. I was excited! Not only a request for my soaps, but a challenge! Ideas started running wild, however I was instantly drawn to doing a rainbow butterfly. One that is vertically striped.

And I’ll do it. One day. Just not today. MUCH harder than I thought!!

I started trying horizontally striped butterflies, until I remembered that pink isn’t in the rainbow colour list and stuffed myself up. Doh!

I spent nearly an entire day continually going back to my mold storage draws looking for inspiration. I knew what I wanted to do, but I couldn’t figure it out. I looked at the different molds I had – butterflies, bugs, love hearts, etc, but nothing jumped out and said ‘yes, I am the one!’ Then, in the fourth draw, BINGO!!

My Popsicle mould!! I hunted everywhere for this mould, and now, finally, a reason to use it! It was a bit trickier than it looked, and the first colour pour saw me spending tripple the time cleaning up the runs down the edges than it did pouring. But I’m smart, and on the second colour pour, I did so through a funnel! Brilliant! No mess to clean up.

It took the better part of the afternoon getting them done – at least 4 hours that I counted. I also poured ‘by eye’, meaning my levels in each mold were eyeballed and not numerically measured out or guided by a line. That’s why one of them has a veeeeery thin line of yellow. Oopsie!

That said, I’m MEGA happy with the results!!

Getting these suckers OUT of the mould was the hardest part. So hard in fact that I broke my mould!! Only a little bit, and won’t affect it’s use, but still, there is a little tear where there wasn’t one before. Once I worked out the trick however (push from the bottom, don’t try and pull from the stick), they popped right out!

I think I will need to add an extra label to these soaps – DO NOT EAT! My patience got a wee bit tested when Miss 4 saw them the next morning and didn’t seem to understand that she couldn’t eat them. Scenting them with Jelly Beans probably didn’t help …

ShareA couple of weeks ago I had a request come through for some Rainbow soaps. I was excited! Not only a request for my soaps, but a challenge! Ideas started running wild, however I was instantly drawn to doing a rainbow butterfly. One that is vertically striped. And I’ll do it. One day. Just not…

The cleanest house in the world!

On Dec 23, 2011 0 No Comments

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So, this didn’t turn out as well as I had pictured in my head. I had some left over MP soap, was approaching the Xmas period, I had MORE than enough soap for everyone that wanted it, so didn’t really want the MP just sitting here over Xmas (which I had already allocated to CP leaning). The idea behind this is those Gingerbread houses that people make at Xmas. My mum used to make a chocolate version – she would melt the chocolate down and form it into ‘slabs’, then stick it all together and decorated it with smarties.

While the finished product is more ‘poverty level housing’ lol, I’m still very proud of it given I’ve only been soaping about a month, had NO instructions to go buy, and did everything on the fly! And either way, it smells nice lol! It’s scented with ‘Ginger Souffle’ from Bramble Berry that I got as a sampler. The ‘snow’ is Goat’s Milk, and the ‘decorations’ are candy covered chocolate sprinkles. The painting… well… let’s just ignore that LOL!

ShareSo, this didn’t turn out as well as I had pictured in my head. I had some left over MP soap, was approaching the Xmas period, I had MORE than enough soap for everyone that wanted it, so didn’t really want the MP just sitting here over Xmas (which I had already allocated to CP…

Posts Tagged ‘MP’

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I long for boredom!

No pot of gold at the end of these Rainbows!

The cleanest house in the world!

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