My Week (a bit late!)

Sorry, I know I said I was going to be better but things just keep cropping up like they always do. It looks like we have decided to try selling our house again so we are madly trying to clean, sort out rooms and de-clutter.  As part of that Rik is having to move his office out of the conservatory, hes moving up to my office (a small 4th bedroom) and I am moving mine out to my workshop!  its been quite mad as you can imagine and we have only just started.

Beautiful Freya - RIP - Aug 2011

Very sadly this week my Mums beautiful German Shepherd Freya had to be put to sleep.  Her hips had got to the point where she just could not walk anymore.  She was a wonderful dog, bouncy, always up for a walk and swimming and was brilliant with kids.  Mum rescued her years ago so she was a lucky dog, getting a really loving, active home.  We will all miss her especially my poor Mum.

 

Happier things now - and as you all know, Lola is guaranteed to make me feel happy.  I discovered this photo while downloading a load of holiday photos onto my computer.  I forgot I had taken this, its on the ferry to Spain, back in June when Rik and I were privileged to be able to take Lola to Portugal on our own for a week.  Her parents were at Glastonbury and I jumped at the chance of taking her.  she was fantastic, 20 months old and slept through every night, ate everything put in front of her, generally smiled and laughed a lot and was the best of fun.  Grandchildren are so great.

AND LASTLY..... I have been working very hard on launching my new soap making classes.  its been great fun but lots of work.  My first class is scheduled for October 8th, just in time to make your own lovely soapy Christmas presents.  It will take place at Faringdon, a beautiful venue in East Devon, from 10am and will cover the basics of Cold Process soap making.  If you come along you will learn to make and take home 2lbs of soap with you, the soap will be fragranced and coloured to your liking and in your own molds that you can re-use again and again at home.  Packs of ingredients to carry on making will be available as well as comprehensive handouts to remind you what you have learnt.  If you are interested in getting priority booking forms please email me at soapchick@naturallymadesoaps.co.uk the course has not yet been publicised so get in quickly, I would love to see you there.  There will be a maximum of 8 people on each course.

All the best, sorry no soap photos this time, my camera has bust and I need a new one.  I have just turned out a lovely new Sandalwood and Rum Cream soap, its looking lovely.  I will take some photos soon.  One for the men this Christmas.

Georgous new products are almost ready...

I have been so very busy, yes I know, I always say that but it really is true.  The sales side of things is very quiet at the moment, well just starting to pick up at markets, so I have been making the most of the break from wrapping and packing, I've been playing in the lab!

After a long time fiddling around with different ingredients and measurements I have finally come up with, what I think is, the perfect Bubble Bath Crumble.  Its so easy to use, just pick it up, crumble in under running water and hey presto an unbelievably bubbly, sweet smelling bath treat with lovely extra oils and glycering of course.  It makes the bathroom smell fab and there is easily enough in each one for 3 big baths.  Heres a sneak preview.....

This one is scented with Patchouli, Ylang Ylang and Vanilla, very, very sexy!

And this one is a sweet floral mix of Frangipani and Linden Blossom

I still have to play with the colours and scents, it's quite hard to get the colour right when the mixture is dry but Im getting there.  They should be on sale soon.  I will definitely be doing some "give aways" so watch out for more info.

I have also redesigned my Chocolate Orange cupcakes to make them more natural, no more melt and pour now at all!!  I have used dried orange slices instead of the usual melt and pour orange, lemon and lime slices I used to make and I am very happy with the look.  To counter the slight lack of colour I have used Sweet Orange essential oil in the icing with a tiny bit of steeped tumeric and it looks beautiful,  I just hope the colour sticks.  I will let you know of course!!

One last thing I thought you might like to see, the latest pictures of my lovely Lola.  She came and stayed the weekend with me and decided that the best place to read her books was Blues bed!!  sorry the quality isnt great, I took them on the iphone but I did giggle when I found her.........

Do let me know what you think of the new crumbles and if you have any ideas for what to call them I'd love to hear.

Well it's goodbye and Happy Christmas from me!

Oh and Happy New Year too as we wont be back from our Portugal trip until January 13th - one whole month away - BLISS!!

What a build up its been two back to back 7 day weeks with 5 Christmas fairs/markets in the last 7 days - all outside in the freezing cold.

Exmouth Christmas Cracker was a fantastic event, we got there far to early really, 11am and nothing really started until 5pm but then, wow!  we were totally rushed off our feet, thank goodness I had my lovely 'Soap Slave' Dot helping or I would not have coped.  Mince pies and Christmas Spice Cake flew off the stall, I sold all the Christmas Tree Cupcakes and the cake slices all sold out too.

My lovely Soap Slave Dot

Canonteign Falls Christmas Fair - another exhibitor

Yummy

The beautiful frozen lake

and even more beautiful Black Swans

 It was the first time I had done Canonteign Falls Christmas Food and Craft Fair and it was lovely, very cold but very beautiful surroundings and some very nice people.

Quinta do Cobral

And so now we are Portugal bound, we have our new Royal Blue range cooker, our ESSE, in the van along with all the plumbing stuff and everything else, including both dogs and we are about to bid you all goodbye.  Ryan, my son, is staying on at the house to deal with all the internet orders for soap goodies that are still streaming in, he is a good little packer and will get everything to you in good time, I promise.  We will be working hard so don't think it is a real holiday but just to be away from phones etc. sounds like magic right now.

THANK YOU ALL for being such fantastic followers of my blog and for all of you who are customers too.  I am planning all kinds of new things for 2011, its going to be a fun year I hope.  I wish you and your family and friends the best of Christmasses this year, I know its going to be hard for lots of people and my heart goes out to anyone who has lost a job or home or who has suffered in any way this year.  I really do hope that your New Year brings better things.

My family are always in my heart and especially my beautiful little grandchild Lola, may you carry on growing, laughing and loving, I am going to miss you all so much.  I will bring you back lots of lovely Portuguese goodies though, promise!!  XXXXXX

Lola Christmas 2009

With her gorgeous Mum, My Aimee



One last little thing, I really wanted to share this lovely Blog post with you from 'How about Orange' blogspot.  Its so great, making 5 pointed cut out paper Christmas Stars.  We always made 6 or 8 pointed ones at school and I never liked them so much.  these are really beautiul.
I will leave you with this link, if you have any time before Christmas perhaps you could make some, it would be a really fun thing to do with the kids.
How about Orange 5 point paper star

HOME SWEET HOME - Well ......... manic work and madness

This is why I came home

My beautiful girls - Aimee and Lola May.............

Home is really Portugal (in my heart these days).  Anyway, we did it, flew there in our wonderful little Europa and it was totally fantastic!  I will be posting the photos soon and got some really good soap leads for Naturally Made Soaps while I was there.

Glad to be home, selling and working hard, got Exmouth Food Fest for the Bank Holiday weekend so will be putting in a full blog appearance after that.  But while Im here Im so enjoying being with these two nutters!!!  Can't you just see why?