This is one of our holiday soaps.  We call it Ginger & Spice.  It smells of cinnamon, spice and all sorts of warm and wonderful holiday scents.  Colored with Gold, Red, Green & White.  It' always fun to see how the cut turns out. 

This is a mini teardrop challenge that I entered.  This was such a fun technique to learn.   This turned out beautifully and I can't wait to try it.

Wow, this soap is so chocolaty smelling!  When even my husband asks me when the brownies will be done, you know it is going to be an awesome soap!  It is so smooth and creamy that I can't wait to try it in the shower. 

Halloween soap scented with Star Anise and Bay Rum.  Smells great and I'll see after the cut what to call it. 

Some of our clients have problems with fragrances or essential oils in their soap.  So this pretty bar is totally unscented.  This one is called Dreaming of Candy Canes.

The colors of this soap while they were in the bottles were shades of brown and gold.  Obviously they morphed into something more fall-like.  Still not a bad bar though.

It's time to start preparing for the holidays.  This is peppermint twist.  It is created using the in the pot swirl method.  This smells like a peppermint stick and it is a nice smooth bar.

This is a small order for a customer.   She got a great deal on these- half off due to a special we were running.  They turned out wonderful!  Love making these.

This was going to be a different technique than I ended up with.  But the fragrance that I used caused some acceleration in the soap, so when you get lemons, turn them into lemonade.   A multi-colored soap that reminds me of the ocean with the various colors.  It is scented with Baby Powder and it smells really nice!

We are working on adding our store to our web site.  This is taking a great deal of time and we are still knee deep in adding everything and trying to make shopping a good experience so please be patient with us.  You don't realize just how much you do until you begin to create your inventory!  But we do love our products.  

This is the first rough cut of our coffee soap.  It has coffee beans on top, and an impression mat on the bottom.  It has a fine mica line with coffee grounds dispersed throughout and it smells divine.  Coffee makes a great kitchen or mechanics soap for cleansing hard working hands.  This bar even has coffee butter in it and it is enriched with skin loving oils to cleanse your skin from any hard work.  

​Yes, coffee is not just for drinking; it makes a wonderful bar of soap!

With spring comes the cleanup of winter and the planing of new flowers, cleaning up the dead leaves, and basically beginning a new season of beauty.  Today, I purchased a couple of rose bushes for the front flower bed.  I love roses and I have none, so I purchased this pink one a yellow one with pink veins running through it.  Hopefully the thorns on the rose bushes will deter the deer that love to come calling.

I just re-vamped my best selling Lavender Goats Milk soap.  The recipe still has the same skin loving ingredients, I just changed the way it is created.  Instead of adding the milk at trace, I dissolved it at the beginning with the Sodium Hydroxide.  It stayed a nice white color, and when I mixed it in, it stayed nice and white.  I swirled it with purples and I think it turned out very nice.  It smells divine!  this will be ready in 6-8 weeks for selling.  This is the most awesome bar!

This is the last challenge for this group that I have been a member of.  It is called a straight lines challenge.  While it is my first attempt, it didn't turn out as well as I had hoped, and it didn't help that I was sick when I did it.  But I had some soap leftover for samples and other fun things.  It is scented with spiced Plum & Fig.  I can't complain about it.  For a first attempt, I think it did ok.  I did the bottom with an impression mat dusted with plum mica.  It turned out nice.

I have entered a few Soap Challenges the latter part of this year.  There is only one left, but this is my entry for the Dirty Pour technique.  It is taken from the dirty pour acrylic paint fluid method which turns out spectacular images, but when working with soap, it is entirely different.  This is scented with Alpine Frost Fragrance Oil, Red, Green, Gold and white colorants.  It smells a bit minty and the bars look quite festive. 

These make great holiday gifts for anyone.  On my list of those who I gift a handcrafted bar of soap to are:  my delivery people (UPS, USPS, FedEx), co-workers, neighbors, and anyone who looks like they could use a  little something to perk up their spirits.

I love the holidays.  I feel that overall, this time of year, I concentrate on being more thankful and less selfish and I try to look for the best in those that I associate with.  

It always makes me a little sad to say good-by to the warmth of summer, the enjoying of the mountains and being able to drive to beautiful places.  But the fall is one of my favorite times of year.  The foliage is beginning to turn and the colors are stunning, plus the crisp mornings where the fog hangs over the valley just makes me enjoy this time of year.  And then the fact that mowing the grass is over adds to that even more.  The fall means that winter is just around the corner and nature is putting plants to sleep for a season.  Life is beautiful, no matter what time of year it is.  Sometimes it can be difficult to find it, but beauty is all around us!

We recently went on a vacation for a few days - something that we have not had for nearly 3 years.  It was such a wonderful experience to get away and to enjoy the majesty of Yellowstone Park - my favorite place on earth.

Though we deliberately did not have an agenda, we found much to do and went several places just to enjoy nature and wildlife.

There is something therapeutic about spending time away from work and the normal day in out life that we become accustomed to.

Now, I believe I can get back to the tasks at hand now that my soul has been filled.

My we all enjoy the little things in life and realize that there is beauty all around.  You just have to realize it.

This is our signature soap.  It is called Phoenix Fire.  It is hand-crafted with the colors in our logo and the scent is just a hint of so many things - not too powerful, but just enough scent to make you feel happy in the shower.  This technique is called Cosmic Wave Swirl.  Let us know what you think of it.

This is a new technique that I am learning called Intaglio Soap.  It is my first, so even though it looks like a child did it, it is much more difficult to carve on a soft bar and keep the lines crisp and clean.  This was a challenge that I enjoyed.  I look forward to the next challenge.  What are your challenges that you are struggling with?

Sometimes as you go through life, it takes a major change or a move to help you to realize that you just need to declutter, not only your life, but your physical world as well. 

Such an event happened to me recently.  After transferring to a new position in my company, this required my husband and I to move to a new state.  I had no idea just how stressful this would be until we began to start packing up our former home and its contents. 

We were told that it would take 2 semi trucks to load all of our stuff.  I knew we were in trouble.  Needless to say after much pain and emotional suffering, we downsized to 3 - 26 foot U-hauls (which was still a huge amount of stuff!  But we got rid of so much stuff. 

When we moved into our new home, I began to get rid of even more stuff.  We took load after load to our local donation center.  I sold or gave away tons of stuff on our local facegroups, and after living in our new home slightly over a year, I have begun to de-clutter even more.

One of the areas that I am working on is my recipes.  When I began my journey of learning to make personal care products, I searched for and kept every recipe that I could get my hands on.  Now, after nearly 20 years later, I am getting rid of literally thousands of recipes.  I am keeping ones that hold value or ones that I have made that I know to have beneficial properties to them or ones that we enjoy. 

I started this journey a week ago, and I have already trashed 4- 3" binders full of recipes.  I am getting rid of paper, and saving valuable recipes to my computer with backups of them on a regular basis.    I can't begin to explain what a good feeling this is to get rid of the "crap" and have room for a more open and clean life.  Decluttering - it's not just for everyone, just for those who want to be happier in life!

Wow, that makes me want to declutter!

Freeze drying is quite an adventure!  I have completed a multitude of batches and each one is like opening a present.  It's exciting to see how the freeze dried food turns out and how it will taste.  Then there are things to think about; will I reconstitute it or eat it as a snack?  Should I package it in Mylar for long term storage or put it in glass jars for shorter term storage.?  So many decisions to make!

Some of the fun things I have freeze dried are Fat Boy Ice Cream Sandwiches.  Yes, Ice cream!  They turn out to be a delightful snack.  I cut them into 9 bite sized pieces and then freeze dry them.  My family and friends really like them this way. 

Another fun item is Watermelon.  It was more of a novelty thing.  The sweetness is intensified and the texture is sort of like Styrofoam, but it is definitely something unique. 

Grapes are another nice snack.  Any kind fruit is really good and veggies are so easy to rehydrate in meals.  I am still working with meats, and I really like the way that they turn out.  Hamburger, chicken, and beef are all that I have tried thus far, and I am pleased with how they are turning out. 

As I progress, I will post pictures of some of the things that I am freeze drying.  Until next time, I can't wait to see what I will freeze dry next!