Last Minute Birthday Gift

Hello Everyone! I know it's been awhile...almost four months since I last posted here, but that doesn't mean I haven't been soaping. Because, well, how can you abstain from soaping for four  months really? I've made seven batches of cold process soap since my last post and I've been reading and watching videos on how to make liquid soap. I must say that my friend Darinka from DI Prirodni Sapuni was instrumental in braking my resistance to spending four hours or so cooking soap, but more about that when I buy KOH and get to business.

For now I just thought to say hello and post some pics of this DIY box I made following this Soaping 101 video and tweaking it a bit to fit my needs.

The thing is, my kids had, not one, not two, but four (what is it with the number 4 in this post anyway...) birthdays to go to last week and while they did shop for some gifts earlier, they didn't find gifts for everyone and I had to save the day with soaps. So I took a large sheet from my daughter's aquarelle block, folded it so that one side is about half a centimeter larger than the other and cut it where it was folded.

New Soaps and lots of New Ideas...

The swirl in this soap is made by taking some of the soap and
 adding Vanilla fragrance to it. The rest is colored with Titanium Dioxide

I'm back, with some new soaps and lots of new ideas. I hope I'll manage to give life to those ideas and share some of my enthusiasm for handmade soaps and soapmaking with you.

These are two new soaps I made couple of days ago. I've changed the dimensions of soap so it would fit better in hand. New dimensions range from 5cm x 2.5cm x 6cm to 6cm x2.5cm x 7cm, and they weigh 90-100 gramms each. These soaps need to cure for at least 4 weeks, but I was pleased that someone couldn't wait to get their hands on it, so I've already sold some of them.

Hello again...

Wooden setting carved with knife by Giannis and earrings by Stella

Hello again. It's been so long since I wrote anything here...I don't know quite where to begin. In the summer it gets so hot here in Halkidiki that I really didn't feel like making soap that often. I made a couple of batches of soap that were intended, as usual, for our personal use and as gifts to friends and there were even some soaps left for the local arts & crafts fair.

I took part in it for the first time last year, with my friend an fellow crafter Stella and her mom who is a painter and a crafter too. Since my last post, I was more involved with my other hobbies - crochet, tatting and jewellery making, so it was my handmade, crochetted jewellery that I took with me to the fair, allong with some castille soap which has cured in time for the show.

Lemon and basil soap with white clay

Hi there, it's been a while since my last post, I've been away from home for more than a month, then I rediscovered crochetting and got a bit addicted to it, but we eventually ran out of my homemade soaps so I ordered some lovely oils and decided to make a couple of batches before it got really hot here in Greece.

I've found some lemon essential oil and white (kaolin) clay in a new local store and wanted to add some grounded dry herbs into it so I came up with basil, since I think lemon and basil are a true love match. 

Olive oil soap with Cinnamon and Cocoa

Olive oil soap with cinnamon and cocoa

Once you are 'hooked' on soap making you will always be in the process of planning your next recipe, thinking about different things you could use to give them fragrance or color. You will want to try all those exotic oils, butters or essential oils you've read about or seen while browsing your supplier's catalogue. Those ingredients don't come cheap however, so more often than not, when you feel the need to spend some creative fun time making soap, you will have to work with simple ingredients, those you can find in your kitchen any time. Sometimes simple is better, so take that Olive oil and whatever spices or dried herbs you have in your kitchen and have some fun.