I’ve had a ton of fun lately in the kitchen playing with some new recipes and scents. Santa brought me some new smellies to play with so I’ve been more than happy to experiment 🙂 It has kept me busy and now almost everything is ready to come off the drying racks. If all comes out as well as it has tested so far, there will be plenty of new fun scents for the spring! I might even finally have gotten the hang of colors- hooray! We’ve had great progress on a men’s scent and honeysuckle and we hope to have both of those out by spring so keep fingers crossed.
Well, that also means the regular racks are almost all cleared too and everything smells great! I’m happy to report that some requested scents, like chocolate, are back. I’m working on getting everything wrapped up but will continue to answer emails so just drop me a line. If you were one of those hoping to get some of the chocolate soap, please contact me soon as there is only a limited supply. This batch is so true smelling that the kids and neighbor came in looking for brownies again! In all, we have these varieties available both as individual bars and gift sets: plain, vanilla, olive oil, chocolate, cedar, and a few ginger peach tea. Most bars are bath soap sized but there a few hand soaps available.
Promise to post pictures before week ends but now I have to run- it’s the princess’ birthday and I’ve got to get busy!! Happy Birthday Princess!!
Last week, my children & I got the chance to enjoy a great evening put together by the teen librarians at our local library. Elsie Elise & Patsy had set up an event for their teens that included a great potluck dinner celebrating each participant’s family heritages. It was immediately followed by a session of soap making and handmade labeling- it was great fun! Their goal was to create soaps to donate as Christmas presents to a local children’s home and they did an outstanding job.
I heard about the event thru Donna (Neighborhood Holiday Market last month) and had agreed to both donate some of my store’s soaps and come help them at the teen event. I am so glad that I did! They had done a wonderful job cutting out a variety of decorations for the bags & gift tags for the kids to label and getting everyone to bring a great dish (except yours truly who had a brain fart and forgot to bring one- still sorry about that!!) My kids are still talking about me needing to make some of the dishes here at home for them too. The librarians were extremely nice and let me little ones join in the dinner and festivities even though they were way out of the age range. You made their night, guys! They had a wonderful time and still talk about how much they enjoyed it.
Melt and pour at the library
After a delicious meal, we all went into their kitchen and made a variety of beautiful melt & pour soaps. The library had provided everything they would need, from the base to the colors to the scents and molds. The kids had fun mixing and matching their own scents & colors. It was great to see some of the combinations they would imagine and how quickly they picked it up! There were layered soaps created, beautiful simple designs that smelt wonderful, and some that were just plain fun. All in all, I would say the teen librarians deserved a huge pat on the back putting together a wonderful evening. I’m including some of the pictures of the soaps in this post for all to enjoy.
Melt and pour at the library
But where was the worthwhile part? All but one soap per child were made to be donated to the Krause Children’s Center here in town. Donna had found out about the library’s plan to create these soaps for a donation to the center and spread the word, collecting donations for the kids and promoting the center. I was honored to both donate to and help others create presents for these kids; it was a wonderful opportunity for the kids also to take a moment, have a little fun, and make someone else happy. Thank you so much to the teen librarians at CyFair’s LoneStar College and Donna for bringing this center to my attention and for giving so much of yourselves for their cause. If you happen to be in my area and looking for a charity to support for the new year, please consider this one.
Happy Washing!
Dorothy
Updated on 1/5/2012 to correct the spelling of a name. -Dorothy
I had completely forgotten to mention it until I was asked offline if I had any gift bags available for the holidays. In answer, yes! I had made a few for the holiday market this week and am working on some others. Here is a picture of the three bar bags I had done for that event; I only have two left of these. I am also working on some guy bags since they don’t like to smell “girly” (just kidding guys!) and should finish those as soon as the cinnamon soap is ready. I will post more pictures of the others as I get them completed. Most of the gift sets are a combination of scents and/or unscented but I have no problem customizing it if you just ask. I’m also looking for input from the guys about more scents, if any are willing to speak up. I have the cedar & spice, cinnamon, and a beer soap (doesn’t smell like beer when wet- kind of a nutty baked bread smell). Thoughts guys?
