Tag: cinnamon

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Things are hopping here

It’s been quite a few crazy weeks around here again. You too? We had a great time at Donna’ Market last Saturday and met some more great people. Thanks to everyone who stopped by, the funny jokes, and also to those who gave me some new projects to play with! I’m hoping to start on two of those next week. Tonight we will be at the Klein Oak High School Spring Fling Carnival to help them with a school fundraiser so we hope to see more of you again. My ankle is still healing though so hubby probably won’t let me play on the giant inflatables. Sigh. That’s life though. I’m sure this thing will be back to 100% percent before too much longer and I’ll be back to zooming around at top speed- yay!

As I double checked the checklist to make sure I had everything loaded for tonight, I realized that I hadn’t updated the website. Bad, bad Dorothy! So I am uploading a few pictures of the recent soapy fun I’ve had in the kitchen and praying they show here for your enjoyment too. Someone really should get going on that smell-o-vision already because these soaps smell heavenly! The only way you’re going to get to breathe in this awesomeness is to come see us in person.

Cut oversized bars of Cinnamon Swirl Soap
Cut oversized bars of Cinnamon Swirl Soap

Another picture of cut oversized bars of Cinnamon Swirl Soap
Another picture of cut oversized bars of Cinnamon Swirl Soap

The green and white this time is our Sage and Citrus while the cool rock-looking one is the revamped Cinnamon Swirl Soap. (Remember not to put that one on your face or “tender bits” unless you want one extra spicy wash!) You’ll also find below the new Peppermint confetti soap that has been a BLAST! I called this run of it a “split decision” set because I had started topping it with the panels embedded flat as had been requested. I just couldn’t help making a few stand up like shark fins towards the end- and they loved that look even more. So awesome and fun- I will definitely be keeping more of this around!
Freshly cut Sage and Citrus Soap from March 2013
Freshly cut Sage and Citrus Soap from March 2013

Top view of freshly cut Sage and Citrus Soap from March 2013
Top view of freshly cut Sage and Citrus Soap from March 2013
Cut Peppermint Confetti Soaps and scraps March 2013
Cut Peppermint Confetti Soaps and scraps March 2013

Uncut log of the Peppermint Confetti Soap showing "split decision" top March 2013
Uncut log of the Peppermint Confetti Soap showing “split decision” top March 2013

Come by and see us tonight at the carnival too. The street address is 22603 Northcrest Lane, Spring, TX 77389 and even my GPS directions thing can find it- hooray! Over the next few weeks we’ll be updating everyone on where to find us for April and May along with more soaping fun. See you around, have lots of fun this weekend, and keep smiling everybody. It confuses people 😉

Happy Washing!

Dorothy

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Pumpkin Soap

One of our favorite things about fall and winter are pumpkins.  I know you can grow and/or purchase them year round but Halloween really gets our celebrating in gear.  We love the color and shape of the whole pumpkins, use them for decorating, but our favorite part is to eat them, admittedly.  This year, I decided to harness some of pumpkin’s power in soap before we baked it all away!  You didn’t know it was good for your skin?  Let’s explore this together…

Pumpkin has been known for years to be good for our bodies.  It provides fiber, magnesium, potassium, antioxidants, and iron just for starters.  It is overflowing with alpha- and beta-carotenes which help support skin health.  It also has many vitamins including C, E, and B5, which help revive and restore your skin’s health.  This is one awesome fruit and tastes great too, in my opinion.  But why would I put it in soap instead of my stomach?  It has a comforting smell, pretty color, and also leaves your skin smooth and soft – perfect for dry winter months.  Why not?

Pumpkin Soap Cooking
Pumpkin Soap Cooking

I started with one of our creamier soap recipes and added pureed pumpkin to the mix.  As you can see in the picture, it created a gorgeous orange color as it cooked in the crock.  (I had a request to make this soap with the hot process method so it cooks for a few hours in a crockpot in that method of soaping.)  When it passed the test & was done, I mixed in a wonderful fragrance that includes a touch of cinnamon, clove, slight sweetness of carrot, nuts, pumpkin (of course), and a hint of rum in the background.  It created a marvelous harvest scent in one of my favorite soaps of the season.  They were cut into large hand bars and average about 5 oz each.  We made enough of this batch to share but this soap will probably remain in our fall/winter lines so grab it before it goes away!

Uncut Hot Process Pumpkin Soap & Wavy Soap Cutter
Uncut Hot Process Pumpkin Soap & Wavy Soap Cutter

As you can see in the pictures, pumpkin soap provided another chance for us to enjoy color morphing that is so common in natural soap making.  No colors were added at all to this batch, for those who find that an issue.  The soap started with this pretty burnt orange color while cooking, muted to a tan-orange by the time it finished cooking, and then started a gradual browning from the little bit of vanilla in the fragrancing.  As you can see, at 24 hours its colors resembled banana nut bread.  By four days later, I had mostly brown bars with beautiful dark chocolate-colored swirls throughout it.   The entire soap is dark caramel swirl color now and it hasn’t darkened anymore at this point. What fun!

 

Cut Hot Process Pumpkin Soap
Cut Hot Process Pumpkin Soap

As of posting time, I’m still fighting to get these pictures loaded for you to see. If you can’t see the pictures, please check back again later!  Have another soapy idea or challenge for us?  Contact us and let’s brainstorm!  I must now get back to the kitchen and wash a few molds before I start these other soaps this week.  Ready to cook this week will be Peppermint and another batch of our beer soap, Texas Suds.  Check back in with us later this week to see the update on our Honeysuckle Soap and don’t  forget to sign up to follow our blog here or like us on Facebook for the latest updates!

Happy Washing!

Dorothy

 

Finished updating on Dec 11, 2012 at 10:29am CST with all pictures loaded and better description of final color.  -Dorothy

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Making Soap and Crashing Computers

(Cross posted on our WordPress.com site also.  Please be sure to sign up as a follower here so you won’t miss out on the fun!)

It’s been pretty busy around here for us these past few weeks.  We’re making sure everything is ready for Donna’s Market this Saturday so that means I have soap, packaging materials, and scratch paper with my soapy brainstorm ideas all over the kitchen!   If you are in our area, please stop by and say hi this Saturday. The address for the market is 18315 Kenmark Lane, Cypress, TX, and we’ll be there from 8-2. Looks to be a beautiful weekend so we hope to see you there and share a joke or two!  We will be bringing a variety of stock with us so you should be able find to everything from unscented, castile, sand soap, teakwood, chocolate, oatmeal, and even vanilla with shea butter.  We will also be taking preorders for the beer, honeysuckle, peppermint, cinnamon, and pumpkin soaps while we are there.  Another scent on your mind?  Want to create the perfect holiday gift?  Just let us know!

I can’t wait to cook up some more this weekend after Donna’s.  There’s a brand new mold and cutter sitting on my table just begging to be tried out.  The cooler weather and the fall scents we have lined up have me playing with pumpkins, dreaming of walks in the woods, hot cider to sip afterwards, and the aroma of fresh baked holiday treats.  Cross your fingers- I might even have gotten the trick of swirling finally!

As you may have caught, we’ve migrated our blog from WordPress.com to our site at texaspioneercreations.com over the past few weeks.  It has been quite an adventure for me as I learn more of the nuts and bolts of how a website really works- and how well I can crash it!  Thank heavens I’ve got a computer geek hubby and decent tech support when I break the computer.  One of the things I’ve learned in this migration- I’m sooo much better at soap math and design than websites!  To those who are the computer geeks out there, thanks a million times for creating these wonderful machines and beautiful websites.  And thanks for not pointing as you laugh when I do something stupid with them.

Our email based followers were successfully moved over but we are still working with tech support to bring over our WordPress.com followers.  If you are currently one of our .com followers, please take a moment to resubscribe to our blog at texaspioneercreations.com so you won’t miss out on our new posts, updates, and the ongoing insanity that is my soapy life!  The online ordering section of the site should be live soon also so that those not in our local area can enjoy some of our soaps in a more streamlined process.  Sign up so you won’t miss out!

I must now sign off so that I can get back to wrapping and brainstorming.  Hope your day is a good one, your tech support friendly, and you find the time for a little fun in it all.  I will see you again soon!

Happy Washing!

Dorothy