Yesterday was full of beauty, warmth. The birds were chirping, lunch happened in the still naked treetop garden, the babies spent the day basking in the warmth of the sun. All of that was the backdrop to a day filled with soaping.
My friend and I managed to make a total of six batches of soap in one day. It only looks like five because two of them were the same, but they were just simply gorgeous, so of course they had to happen twice.
We only made one batch of melt and pour, I wanted her to experience it, because even if you never get brave enough to try a lye based soap, it is a quick and easy way to create and enjoy homemade soap. Not my favorite process, but definitely quick and easy. I prefer the slight challenge that comes with making cold process, I find a greater sense of accomplishment from unmolding and cutting into a loaf of soap. I also find the sense of defeat is greater when it doesn't behave as expected. Although when you screw up melt and pour, that is simply a sense of failure. It's so easy that messing it up is probably a sign that it is not a good day to soap.
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| Lavender and Cotton |
My house smells heavenly, absolutely wonderful! The Eucalyptus and Cotton is so fresh and clean and ready to go, another benefit of melt and pour. All of the cold process soaps will need to cure for 4 -6 weeks - although in all truthfulness I always wait 6 weeks, patience is sometimes a virtue.
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| Citrus and Shea |
The Citrus and Shea is vibrant with the scent of fresh orange. We ended up making two batches of it, as it. I'm excited to get to try this one - it's a new oil blend made with raw shea.
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| Lavender |
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| look at the beauty of the mica mixed into the oils |
There is a loaf of Lavender - in a mica based lavender color and it smells like a garden of lavender, it's dusted along the top with lavender buds that one of my other girlfriends gifted me. I just checked it and it might be ready to cut today.
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| Lush Succulent |
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| The mica sliding through the heated oils |
The other loaf that we made is Lush Succulent, and if you have followed for any length of time or have been gifted one of the candles or soaps that I have made with it before you know it is my absolute favorite scent. There is no way to fully describe the clean and refreshing smell that fills the air around you. We colored it with a beautiful aquamarine mica and sprinkled jasmine flowers all over the top. I think it's going to be ready to cut today also. I will pull the edges of both of them a bit later this afternoon and see how they turn out.
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| Brine and Sea Clay scented with Sea Salt and Lilies |
The final batch might get a repeat today, it is my absolute favorite soap style. I don't know why I don't make it more often it truly isn't any more difficult than any of the others. It's a Brine and Rose Clay - better known as a soleseife soap. It is such a creamy bar of soap, it isn't going to make massive bubbles, it is going to be rich and creamy, the addition of the rose clay along with the salt water is a combination that is hard to beat.
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| Soaping closet of supplies |
Waiting six weeks for those 5 bars is going to be tough. Even tougher will be deciding which one to use first.
I'm not sure if my friend will be coming over today to make more soap, but I have a few bars that I want to get made up today, as I like to spend a couple of days making a bunch and then I tend to not work on soaps for a bit. I haven't really indulged in soaping for quite awhile. The standing time was a bit prohibitive for my new knee. Yesterday we spent almost 7 hours making soaps. I would have said closer to 8 1/2, but ya know we needed breaks to enjoy the sunshine, have lunch, and walk puppies.
I have another friend that has said she would like to learn to make soap. I will schedule a day in April before all of the craziness of camping season starts, to invite her over to play in my soaping insanity. It will give me time to pick new recipes and make sure I have all the fixings for our creating.
My girl is coming over to help me out today with painting all of my white doors and door frames. We've lived here almost 8 years now, and that was the last time they were painted. I am perfectly capable of painting my own doors and door frames, but I'll be honest she paints incredible and quickly. I am going to take her up on the offer.
I can't tell you how much I am loving the daily routine of taking care of the homestead. Making sure there are meals made and things are taken care of. Now that I am here so much, there are so many things that have been neglected. I wonder if I will ever get caught up. It's strange how those things were missed before. I guess it was because of the fact that I was always at work, I simply didn't see what was right in front of me.
It's also time to fertilize the planter boxes and start cleaning up the yard. The stray piles of leaves that remain from the neighborhood trees need to be tidied and I might need a bit more soil in the front beds. Those beds are still in the process of recovering from the decades that they were filled with boxwoods, but I don't think I will get started on the clean up today.
My day didn't start out great, I have a swollen sore on my right hand front getting a treated wood splinter from the deck yesterday - can't wait for that to work it's way out - OUCH! And then I didn't realize that I dropped a piece of a broken mirror on that stupid bathroom carpet, I didn't realize it until I planted it about 1/8 of an inch deep in my heel this morning! WOWZERS! I startled poor Hubs as I let out a yelp! Unfortunately it was on my left heel and I still do not have complete range of motion in that leg, good thing he was home to help me. It's not quite so painful now, but the last two hours have involved a lot of limping to avoid putting pressure on it. UGH!
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| Belle relaxing on the deck |
With that kind of start I think it's probably a good idea to work on things less likely to injure myself... soaps and puppy treats feel like they could be fairly safe. I might even help a bit with painting - although if it involves a ladder it is probably questionable...
I guess I'd better get with it and start scrubbing the doors so that my sweet girl doesn't have anything slowing her down....
love and peace...
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