A New Year!

Well, another year is behind us!  I hope everyone had a great Christmas.  We went home to Missouri where we met up with the rest of our family.  While we were there we even burned some brush over on our farm, because who can pass up a chance to burn things....certainly not me and my friend!

After we got back home, I decided to lick my soap that I made around Thanksgiving.  Yes, I said lick.  I know it sounds strange, but I read that you can tell if it's done by licking it.  It said it will "zap" you if it's not done...so I licked it. (I had to do it in secrecy, so that my husband wouldn't think that I'd gone crazy.)  Since it didn't zap me, I tried it.  It could stand to cure longer, but it produces a really creamy lather, and rinses off really clean feeling, I made small bars and they were light in color.  Since they are the first batch, they are No. 1.  Here's what the bars look like.

 
 
The color is pretty light and the brown flecks are oatmeal that I added before it went in the mold.  Since I liked the soap, but it needs to continue to cure a bit, I decided to wrap up some of the other bars to have people try it for me.  Here are my wrapping attempts.  The first one was a "pillow box"....too time consuming!
 
 
Then I tried to make a little box....again, too time consuming...
 
 
Finally, I decided to go with, what I call the "feed sack" design, I sewed, the soap into a little brown bag and put a little label on it.  What do you think?
 
 
Well, No. 1 is a wrap, so yesterday I made batch, "No. 2"  I actually used lard in this batch, that nearly grossed me out, but I got through it.  One thing about this batch was it looked a lot lighter when I poured it into the mold, but I just finished cutting it, and it's a lot darker than the first batch.  I did use more lavender seeds, but I was shocked when I popped it out of the mold.  It actually looks a little bit more like I'm used to seeing handmade soap look.
 
 
Other than soap, I'm back to making some scarves.  I found some awesome linen at JoAnn's and thought it would make some really good spring scarves....I loved the colors.
 
 


And...I've started sewing for the new Grandbaby!  Here's the first little blankie.
 
 
 

 Oh, and in case you're wondering about my soap labels....I didn't feel that Stephanie was a very good, "old lady" name, so a few years ago I decided my old lady name was going to be Essie. (My initials being S.S. and all.) 

What are your plans for the new year?  Get busy!

Until next time....

Steph

Comments

  1. TracyJanuary 18, 2013 at 8:47 AM

    Love your scarf! I just found your blog from FB! I knew you had one but I had never seen the link! Yay!

    ReplyDelete

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