Musings and My First Giveaway!!!

It's early for me to be up and functional.  And by functional I mean on the computer "working".  It was prompted by Miss Kimberly's (of chezsucrechez fame) morning email praising a photo and correcting an awful spelling error on my etsy site.  Thank goodness she caught it!  I HATE spelling errors.  Particularly glaring ones that are so right in your face you really should have seen it!  This was one of those by the way.  I had spelled Mojito-Mohito.  My sister Jessie will read that with shock I'm sure.  Well, anyway, that prompted this lovely burst of productivity and I'm riding the wave with some level of joy.  It will be interesting to see if I can keep it up AFTER Oliver has woken up.

Mohito is now spelled Mojito and speaking of etsy, zip on over and check out all the new soaps.  They are finally all listed! Hooray!!  And in honor of me reaching a goal this week (listing them and writing a blog post, and it's only Tuesday) I will be sending two bars of their choice to one of my sweet followers.  If you are already following the blog, do NOTHING!!  If you are one of the silent stalkers here and would like to perchance receive some soap then you just have to follow the blog! EDIT: If you are a silent stalker and enjoy silently stalking and do not want to follow a blog but would like to receive some soap...by all means leave some lovely comment below and I'll include ya...kind of along the lines of no-purchase-necessary and all that!   I'll do the random drawing on....randomly picked....Tuesday of next week.  Tuesday being the first anniversary of me putting this up.    Get following people!  Oh, and while I love fawning and empty praise, this is not necessary for winning as it will all be random.  Sorry siblings, I know this shameless pandering has worked in the past, but this time, forget it!!

Rub a Dub Dub It's TIme for the TUB!!!

I love making soap.  Lots and lots of soap.  I haven't bought soap in three years.  I love that too.  The best part of making soap is that I get to do it with my friend Lelayna.  She is sooooo amazing!  She raises her own lovely sheep, spins their wool and makes up the funkiest little items with her handspun yarns.  She is also a wonderful doula and is training to be a midwife.  Best of all, she is my friend!  Truly a blessing in my life.

SO, back in April, we decided it was time to make more soap!  I hired a babysitter this time since I wanted the chance to make LOTS, and we got to work.

Oliver wanted to help while he waited for his babysitter so we gave him  the non-soapmaking gloves so he could "work".

Then we got the oils, and the scale, and water, and the bowls, and the pots and the essential oils, and the molds together...

...and mixed and smelled, and talked, and laughed, and documented, and experimented...

pouring into the molds.  I line each with waxed paper so the soap don't stick.  Lala hates this part so I always do the lining:)

mixing until trace (kind of like making whipped cream) and you can see more oils melting in the other pot

...and wrapped up our baby soaps in their lovely pile of blankets to set...

cold process soap sits in its molds wrapped up like this to "incubate" overnight

...and then cut, and cut, and cut, until we had piles and piles of soap!

"Rose in Bloom" soap with added almond oil this time

From left to right: Mohito soap, Lavender, lemongrass and ginger, and rose all ready to cure for 30 days

All in all, over two days we made about 25 different soaps.  Hooray!!!

and now, today, I've finally started listing my concoctions on etsy to make them available to the world!