Ohhhhhhhhhhhh I won a Prize!!!!

I subscribe to a daily email from a website the bright side project and, a few weeks or more ago, I found I won something!!! It's a site that celebrates crafts of all kinds and everyone benefits - the craftmaker because they get publicity, the people reading because they get to find out about cool new things to buy and the winners... well, because they win!! There's a competition every day and I won one a while back.  Anyway, my prize/gift/pressie arrived today along with a lovely, handwritten note .... my own little pink Lulu!!!



I really want to thank the wonderful Catherine at Rikshaw Design and to everyone at the bright side project cos you've really made my day!!!!


If you love Lulu as much as I do, please leave me a comment!

New Creams

On Monday night, I made some new creams:

(On top of picture) Vintage Gardenia Body Butter - this was made from Cocoa Butter, Shea Butter & Brazil Nut Oil and is fragranced with Vintage Garden, a softly fragrant scent - very beautiful. It's very creamy and moisturises really well, the skin feels amazing afterwards. I also took 100mls of this and took it into work to use as my own handcream.

(On the right of picture) Plumberry Cream (made with the mature skin in mind) made from Plum Kernel Oil, Cranberry Oil, Blackcurrant Oil & Raspberry Oil; all these oils are particularly good for drier and more mature skin (and it feels really great and smells wonderful as Plum Kernel Oil has a lovely almond fragrance of it's own)

(At the bottom of the picture) My Simple Scrubber Cleansing Scrub made with Castor Oil, Golden Jojoba Oil & Rice Bran Oil - it has ground peach kernels for it's scrubbing effect. No scent in this one as it's used on the face.

(On the left of the picture) Coconut Leave-in Hair Conditioner made with 100% Coconut Oil and fragranced, of course, with Coconut!!! Hubby's feedback is excellent and he's really happy with it!

Big Blog Thanks!

I just wanted to say a huge thanks to my lovely lovely friend Alison Tinlin for her mention of my up and coming soap empire on her blog! Getting a business set up and running is a lot of hard work and she should know, having started her own this year - she's followed her dreams and set up as a Wedding Planner and a damn good one at that. If you're interested in her services for any event you have planned, please don't hesitate to contact her - her website is www.plansandpresents.co.uk.

Her blog post is here http://plansandpresents.blogspot.com/2009/08/promote-your-friends-day.html?showComment=1250615253565#c3825645846299230309 - thanks again Ali!!

The Soapy Drought is over! New Soaperstar soaps!

Well the Soaperstar soaping drought is over - I got to make soaps today, the first for almost a month. I really enjoyed it; I got to use the new moulds my Dad brought back from Brazil for me (and chosen by my sister in law to be, the wonderful Sandy Cook)and I got to do some experimentation for my new Soaperstar range which I hope to be able to bring to you in November.

Firstly my experimentation - this is called Hippy Hippy Shake Shake and it's a wonderful luxury soap that brings swirls of all the bright colours reminiscent of those easier going hippy days, all wonderfully scented with the heady aromas of Sandalwood, Patchouli and Jasmine Fragrance Oil. Added Golden Jojoba Oil and Lamesoft which is a green, Ecocert, natural skin moisturising agent, will make sure your skin will drink up the luxury skinfeel ingredients. I've also added some Sparkle Gold mica, a naturally occuring mineral which glitters beautifully and really accents the colours.

The next soap I made used a fantastic mould I purchased from Australia - who can resist cupcakes? No, me either, despite being on a diet at the moment! This one has added Golden Jojoba Oil and Lamesoft and is scented with Lime Chocolate & Coconut - it smells so great and doesn't it look wonderful? I really love the swirls of icing on this mould and I cannot wait to make more like this!

Then I made a really cute knobbly bobbly soap, this one is Lime and is really zingy in fragrance but kind on the skin as I've added Golden Jojoba Oil and Lamesoft to this one too - fresh and wonderful and the knobbles act as a massage bar in the shower.

Finally, these are trio of soaps I made by special request for my Dad - they are coloured with Gold mica and Lime cosmetic glitter to give a sheen; they are fragranced with Amazonian Flowers, a fragrance oil direct from Brazil and have added oil and moisturising factor to ensure they really are a luxury soap for everyday use!

I so enjoyed making all these soaps today and I hope you enjoy reading about them... leave me a comment if you like them!

Soap Queen Video - final one for now :(

I just wanted to say thank you so much to Anne Marie from Brambleberry who indeed is the Soap Queen - she posted her final (for now) video and I'm posting it here for those who may be interested. Really nice ideas! We'll miss you Anne Marie, come back soon!!!

Episode 15: Gradated Color Layers from Soap Queen on Vimeo.

Soap Cutter!

Well, the lovely and fragrant Kathleen, a good friend of mine, made me something lovely today! And here it is.... a loaf soap cutter! OK, if you don't make soap, you won't be excited but this is a great thing! It means when I make soap loaves, I can cut them all in identical sizes - makes it really easy for me for labelling purposes and weighing. Also, I don't seem to be able to cut a straight line to save my life so this is going to help me sooooooooooo much! So many thanks to Kathleen for all her help, she's a wonder!

PS she's fragrant because she uses my soap!!!

Web Site ... what to choose?

Well, plans are now afoot to start up Soaperstar as a business; I've done some planning on my holidays and still have a lot more work to do before I start selling (given cosmetic selling is legislation heavy and all products have to be safety assessed prior to sale) - I'm at the stage now where I'm thinking about my website. I already have the domain name (courtesy of my lovely brother) but I have no experience of HTML or any website language so I'm thinking I'll go with a website builder like Mr Site. I've heard good and bad things so still not sure. If anyone has any experience with Mr Site, please drop me a line.

I'm dying to get things up and running but things take time and I suppose that's a good thing - making sure that everything is right and done properly... that way my customers will get the best of my products which can only be a good thing!!!

Watch out folks, Soaperstar is on the way!!!

New Soaping Videos

I love Soap Queen's video - they really teach so much and are extremely useful. Ann Marie from Brambleberry does such a great job of explaining techniques and giving tips and hints. I'm embedding several video's in one go here, as I seem to have a backlog due to my holidays!!!

Packaging Ideas:

Soap Queen TV Episode 11: Packaging Ideas from Soap Queen on Vimeo.

Basic Layers:

Soap Queen TV Episode 12: Basic Layers from Soap Queen on Vimeo.

Embedding in Layers:

Soap Queen TV Episode 13: Embedding in layers from Soap Queen on Vimeo.

Geometric Soaps:

Episode 14: Geometric Soaps from Soap Queen on Vimeo.

I'm back and I've been recognised!!!

Well, I'm back!!! Did you miss me? I've really missed my soap making but have been doing a lot of work on my new soap range (work on holidays? Well, soaping isn't really work is it?!). I'm hoping to start my new online store on http://www.soaperstar.com/ so make sure you look out for Soaperstar!!!

When I got back, I found I've been credited on The Teach Soap Forum and Anne-Marie's blog (she is the CEO of Bramble Berry which is a very big, influential soaping company in the US) .. here's the link if you'd like to have a look. Those soaps are experimental and a work in progress but how wonderful to be recognised for my work!!!

http://soap-queen.blogspot.com/

Off on Hols!!!

Today we're off on holidays down to the most wonderful place on the Earth - we're going to West Cork (for those that don't know, it's on the South West coast of Ireland) which is the place we (hubby and I) feel most suits us; have you ever found a place where you feel you totally belong? Where you feel you can breathe properly for the first time in a long time? That's it for us! In fact, we love it so much our long term plans are to move there permanently. In due course though.. well, depends on if we win the Lottery of course!!!

I'll be back online sporadically and posting pictures (if I can - the net isn't so reliable there at times as we've to rely on the local pub's internet connection!).

See you soon!!!