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.

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.