Love in the 'Round'....

Ever done a victory dance in your kitchen? I have... last week in fact...

After spending, on average, up to 4 hours straight stirring soap batters, waiting for them to emulsify together enough to pour into a mould, I tweaked the recipe using different oils and voila!, I now have it down to 45 minutes total!!!! WAHOO!

Hubby walked in on me wiggling my way around the kitchen in soap maker joy, shook his head and walked out again. Some people just can't appreciate a good saponification when they see it...

So, armed with this new, improved recipe, I have been making more and more soap batches and playing with colours.

These are my Vanilla Rose soap balls, but instead of rolling them in rose petals, I swirled pink clay throughout the batter so you get patches of colour and plain white. I'm quite happy with these for my first try.

These ones are a new soap, but an old favourite fragrance - White Tea & Ginger. This time I used a yellow oxide (won't 'bleed') against the white - what I hope to happen, is that as the soap cures, it fades to a stronger white colour and the yellow areas will stand out more and more as times goes by.

On a completely random tangent, but still with the 'round' theme.. this is a dandelion (I think!) that's growing in our back garden. It just looked so perfect that I had to get a few piccies!

Morning Tea anyone?

Just wanted to show a rather lovely little spot we have found here in Launceston called 'Tranquility Gardens'. It's a bed and breakfast as well as a tea room. Gemma (of Loz & Dinny fame) put us onto it as we would never have driven in otherwise. Five minutes outside of the city, it is a beautiful place for morning tea or lunch. It's history is as a private residence for a Japanese businessman who created his own japanese style garden. Complete with fountains, a lake and stone sculptures throughout a garden just made for wandering around in. Well worth a drop in if you're in this neck of the woods. As I am writing this, we have a lovely gentleman installing a hand made Blackwood Timber screen door on our house. Now, seeing as it was something like minus 3 degrees this morning, I can't see it getting a whole lot of use until next summer! But this was the earliest that Michael had available to make and install for us. We didn't want to go the aluminium route, and were very pleased to stumble across Michael at the Deloraine Craft Fair last year.

We are really happy with it and are hoping the cats won't use it for climbing practice or claw sharpening! Michaels details are: Michael Thomson Design & Sculptural Furniture (03) 6369 5170 if anyone would like more information.

baby, it's cold outside.....

My name is Joseph. I was a little chilly this morning. Although I have my own custom-made fur coat, sometimes it's just not enough. My human grandma knitted this blanket and I find it comes in quite handy on a cold, Autumn morning.

YAAWWN!

I might not even move for the whole day......

rebatch...remill...reuse...revive....

I had made up a batch of Ylang Ylang, Bergamot and Lime olive oil soap a few weeks ago (ignore the pineapple people, it's got nothing to do with this!) - unfortunately I didn't think the aroma came across strongly enough to grab peoples attention.
So I decided to try my hand at 'remilling' the soap so I could add more essential oils.
This can be done to help 'salvage' poorly cured soaps or even on purpose (heard of triple milled soap?) to refine the texture of the soap to make it smoother and lusher.
The good news is it's pretty easy to do.... the bad news is you've got to get out the cheese grater and elbow grease!

The soap balls grated down really easily, and it was interesting to find that my right arm was a wimp compared to my left! I think I got through 3 balls with my right before it cried 'uncle' but 13 with my left and it was still raring to go! Must be my past life in hospitality coming back - all those plates I carried!

Will have to see how they turn out when I roll them (again!). For some more information about 'rebatching' check out Inner Earth Soaps blog entry here.

Wrapping things up....

Have been wanting to get around to this for awhile - especially since I started making the hand rolled Olive Oil soaps.

Thinking of the best way to present and package the soaps, I wanted to keep it in the 'rustic' theme - the soaps are not perfectly round or even, so I didn't think the packaging should be ultra 'glam' either.

Muslin..... how simple it that?!

It also means the soaps can continue to air out and customers can easily smell the fragrances as well.

Thanks goodness that muslin is really cheap to buy - the only fun is cutting out all the squares!!!

Still curing are the Orange and Sandalwood soaps and a second batch of the Ylang Ylang, Bergamot and Lime soaps.

I''ve been playing with the recipe as well and have also done up a batch using a portion of coconut oil in with the olive. That batch is another Lavender and Geranium too. Just rolled them today in lavender flowers - can't wait till I can start trying them all!

yummy, yummy, in my tummy....

Can you believe it?
Easter.... it's here...again!!!

It has come around quickly this year and hubby and I find ourselves caught out - no plans, no eggs, no sentimental easter cards with bunnies on them....

But I feel I may just have redeemed myself with these little beauties!

Called my Mum yesterday (as you do in situations like this) and asked for a recipe for some chocolate goodies - she came back with this.

Nice and easy, a one bowl recipe, my kind of cooking!

Chocolate Balls (of Joy)

375g Chocolate (I used Milk, but Dark would be yummy too!)

80g butter, cubed

1cp Fruit Mince (I'm not a fan of Fruit Mince, so I chopped up dried Apricots, Prunes and Cherries)

1/2cp Almonds, chopped (I used whole Almonds, but I think next time I will used slivered and maybe toast them too)

Coatings (I used cocoa, coconut and toasted sesame seeds)

Melt chocolate over a double boiler, add in butter one cube at a time and heat till smooth

Add in chopped nuts and fruit and mix well

Allow to cool for 1 hour

Roll into small balls and coat

Leave to cool and ENJOY!

The finished product.... I have been doing some quality testing and I can say from firsthand experience.... YUM!!!

Bubba-licious Orange Balls of Fun!

Yep.... these are my latest soap 'play', Orange and Sandalwood Olive Oil soap balls.

It's been quite therapeutic to sit down at the table and just roll away - I still need to wear gloves as the caustic hasn't yet cured out of the soap, but it's always exciting when you see the batch starting to come together.

Next time I might have a play with adding a dash of orange colour somehow, perhaps even using fresh orange juice in the base? It was a bit of a challenge to get the orange segments to stick securely, and I will wait and see if any 'pop off' as they dry out! Ahh.... live and learn.....

Who knows? It's all fun and I am happy to see how each batch I make up turns out.