What's on my work table.. October

Want a little sneaky peek as to what is on my work table right now? Okay, admittedly it was from about 2 weeks ago, but you get the idea :-)

My work table is in fact our old kitchen table which I moved into our spare room (my soap room). For a few months after we bought our new dining table we actually had both tables occupying our dining room, one for eating at, the other for storing my soap and packaging supplies on.

Eventually enough was enough and I had to move the old table.

So what have we been working on here? As you can see at the back is my multibar soap cutter and sewing machine, which both live at my table at all times. Then the little Christmas trees, and cookie shaped items are my limited edition "Bath Cookie". Right in the middle are my latest batch of Green Tea Champagne" soaps, and at the front on the left is a batch of "White Tea & Ginger" waiting to be sliced.

 

These are one of my latest creation: Bath Cookies. They are very similar to my bath truffle melts but these ones bubble a little and contain Shea Butter. They are a little bigger than the regular bath truffles and you need to break these up under the running water.

 Here is my latest batch of Green Tea Champagne.

White Tea & Ginger waiting to be sliced.

 And just for a treat I thought I'd add a photo my curing soaps :-)

 

A few new items for my little store

I have been a busy little bee lately working on some new products for my online store and markets. I am especially excited to have finally fulfilled my packaging wish (which by the way I have been dreaming about for a year now) - brown tin tie bags with little windows! It might seem like a simple little idea, but it has taken me a while to bite the bullet and order some in. 

So what products have I added to my range then? Well... 

we have new look Bath Truffle Melts, now in a larger size (almost twice the size as our previous melts). 

Sugar Body Scrubs. These will be available in several summery scents but of course I can't seem to narrow it down!!!! Black Raspberry Vanilla, Buttercream, Cherry Blossom, Brown Sugar and Fig to name a few of my options.

 Lavender and Tangerine Bath Milks (plus I plan to make some Oatmeal, Milk and Honey Bath Milks too) and Lavender and Tangerine Bath Salts.

Body creams. Oh wow am I finding it hard to narrow down what fragrances to make these! I love so many scents. I am thinking "Buttercream", and "Japanese Cherry Blossom" but a little stuck as what else to include. "White Tea and Ginger" will smell lovely in a body cream. What is your favourite fragrance? Be sure to let me know :-) 

Stay tuned to my Facebook page and online stores as these delicious products will be making their way to my online "shelves" and markets stall :-) 

X Vicky

On the Curing Rack

My last market at Shellharbour Rotary Markets proved to be a success with all of my Goatsmilk soaps selling out, and a few others running low :-)

So this blog post is just to give you a quick update as to what is on the curing rack and what other products are coming up.

Firstly just to let you know I will be at the Made in Kiama Market nights on June 27th and 28th. I will keep you posted on this on my Facebook page.

OUT OF STOCK and on the curing rack are my two Goatsmilk soaps "Goatsmilk" with may chang and lavender essential oils, and "Simply Goatsmilk" which is fragrance free.

 LOW IN STOCK: "Black Raspberry & Vanilla" - my bestseller by far! I only have about 6 of these left at the moment, but more will be ready mid-June.


COMING SOON: Body Creams - Just in time for winter! I will be offering body creams in a number of fragrances very soon :-) with almond oil, cocoa butter and rice bran oil these will be a great addition to the Maylilly Soaps range this season.

Don't forget to regularly pop on over to my Facebook Page for regular updates and you can subscribe to this blog to receive my blog posts via email.

Happy Soaping!


 

Giveaway Time

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Hello my soap lovers!

I am having a giveaway over on my Facebook Page!

Up for grabs is a wintry gift set consisting of a "Mayan Gold" soap bar, "Chai Tea" sugar scrub and a 6 pack of bath truffle melts in "Mayan Gold" and "Warm Vanilla Sugar".

So what do you need to do to enter?

Just head on over to my Facebook Page, like my page, like the giveaway post, and then share the giveaway post.

Winner will be drawn at 9pm on 30 April 2014.

Good luck :-)

My Brand New Toy and Store Announcement

I am so excited about my latest soapy purchase. I have gone all out and bought a "tank" multi-bar soap cutter! Yippee! OK, so I purchased this from a lovely lady who has recently stopped making soap, so it isn't brand new. But who cares? It is awesome. It is quick. It cuts uniform, neat bars of soap. It is perfect :-)

 

Up until now I had been using a cheese cutter to slice my soaps (which when I bought it I was ecstatic), but over time, as I tweaked my recipe and started to make harder bars, by cutting started to get all wonky and uneven.

 The other thing I wanted to share with you is I will most likely be closing down my Etsy store. I have not made very many sales through the site, and to be honest it is really hard to keep track of my stock levels between it, my Madeit Store and at markets (especially just after a market and I need to go through and update).

Instead I am going to put all of my focus into my Madeit Store. Madeit (www.madeit.com.au) is an Australian online market where all of the stores are Australian owned and all items are handmade. There are so many great businesses on there. So much talent! I am hoping to do a post just about Madeit in the near future as it really is an amazing site :-)

If you would like to check out my online store please see the link at the top left handside of my blog.

 

Wild Rumpus Suitcase Market

On Sunday I attended an indoor market called the Wild Rumpus Market in the coastal town Thirroul (40 minutes north from where I live, and an hour south of Sydney).

The idea of the suitcase market is to simply bring your wares and some display props BUT NO TABLES. The stall space was 1.6cm square, so not a lot of room, but certainly not a problem.

There was a vintage festival in town on the same day called Rock n'Vintage Roll Festival which celebrated vintage cars and items and there was even a best dressed prize. So there were loads of women dressed in 1950's/Rockabilly style. 

Soap and Me: it was meant to be

As a soapmaker I get asked so many questions, from "Do you use lye?" to "What's a sugar scrub?". But what some people find hard to get their head around is "Why buy other people's soaps, when you make your own", or "Why are you so obsessed with watching people make soaps on internet?". 

If you LOVE cooking or baking and are passionate about it, you probably enjoy watching others cook too. You most likely enjoy watching cooking shows, MasterChef, My Kitchen Rules, The Great Bakeoff, and the like. I bet you even have a favourite chef (or even a few)! Even celebrity chefs have their idols too. And what about the reaction of contestants of cooking competition shows when a celebrity chef guest comes on the set to either judge or mentor them. They get so excited don't they? Imagine eating at the restaurant of your favourite chef? Wow!

Well that is a little bit what it is like for me and most other soapmakers when we see other soaps online, or videos on Youtube of our fave soapmakers at work, creating the things we love most. I am subscribed to quite a few Youtube channels of soapmakers, and I get such a thrill when I see a new video has been uploaded by any of them. I make myself a nice drink of coffee and sit down to watch.

Us soapmakers have our idols! Yes, in the soapmaking world there are "Celebrity Soapmakers". For me, I love "Edens Secret" from the UK, "Petals Bath Boutique" and "Royalty Soaps" from the US, and from Australia (where I live), we have "Platypus Dreams", "Beguile" and LOADS more!!! 

I do sometimes buy soap from other Soapmakers as well. Not all soap is the same, and each soapmaker has their own recipe and style, and is different to your own. You know that you are using something that has been made with love, and with something that will love your skin :-)

I love the dessert soaps, or the soaps that look like a big chunk of cheese. "But you can't eat soap?". That's what my Mum says to me. True, but I only get 5 minutes to have a shower (and in most cases there are small children coming in and out of the bathroom), but in that 5 minutes I have a gourmet soap to use and lather up and smell. It is great! And I can use as much as I want - they are calorie free!

Apparently I have loved soap since before I was born. I was meant to make it. My Mum has always told me about her one and only weird craving when she was pregnant with me. She used to lather up the sponge in the bath and eat the lather! And I remember as a child doing the same thing. I loved the creamy, silk texture. I can assure you I don't do that anymore, but I am thinking that it might have been the source of this soapy obsession.

My First Outdoor Market

Yesterday I attended my first outdoor market! It's been a long time coming as I have been making and selling soap for a while now. We finally bit the bullet and bought all the required equipment a few weeks ago. Gazebo, tables, chairs.

Here I am all set up

 My Mum cam over to our house at 6 am to look after our girls (Mum's are the best!) and we rolled up at 7am to the Shellharbour Rotary Markets by the seaside.


I got to use my new banner and the best thing was that the gazebo and my banner are both green and grey. It was by accident that they match and with my hessian table cover, I must say I was very happy with how it all looked.

I would like to thank all of those who came along and supported us, including a couple of our return customers. The kids absolutely love smelling soap. They would get so excited about it :-).

My sugar scrubs and bath treats

I am hoping to attend a few more markets as we have quite a few lovely ones in the Illawarra South Coast region  such as Coledale, Kiama and Berry.

So now I am back to choosing and ordering fragrances and I feel my procrastinating nature come out again. I must read my previous post and remind myself that I will not waste so much time thinking about it!

This was our view from the back of our stall at Shellhabour.

2014 A year of Determination NOT Procrastination

I am one of those people who procrastinate. I spend so much time thinking about which option I should take that I waste hours, days, no actually weeks. This is particularly evident in my soapmaking. I am so cautious about spending money on  supplies (after all money doesn't grow on trees) that I literally take two weeks to finalise an order. I would say to my husband "now are you sure I should get that?" and his reply would be "I thought you'd just ordered that a week ago".

 Or I would waste half a day trying to decide which fragrance to use, which soap to restock, which recipe? I am so worried about wasting supplies on a wrong decision that I end up not making an progress whatsoever!

I have so many ideas and want to do so much, but it is really difficult to prioritise them. With my soapmaking I want to start to make more essential oil soaps, goatsmilk, castille. I want to make body creams, lip balm. The list continues.

In my everyday life I want to find the time to exercise (without having my 1 year old stand there and cry the whole time). I want to be fit by the time I'm 30 (less than a year to go now). I want to be more fun for my children, cook better meals. Not snap at my husband and make our time together enjoyable.

I am truly lucky I have an amazing family who supports me. My husband helps me with the markets and is a sounding board for my ideas. My Mum helps me with my girls when I need to do my soaps and has even volunteered her time packaging hundreds of soaps for me. My two girls Lilly and Zoe know all about soaps even though they are 3 and 1 year old. They are the ones who give me the determination to keep going with my lil business as I love being home with them everyday.

I recently bought an ebook from Bramble Berry (soapmaking supplies) called Soap Queen Business Handbook. Over 100 pages of tips for those wanting to make a proper go at soapmaking (or any business really), and tips to have a work/life balance. I purchased the ebook as it was inexpensive, but I did have thoughts that it wouldn't be of much use to me. I was wrong. 

There is a section in the book that talks about goal setting. Anne-Marie (Soap Queen and founder of Bramble Berry) shares with us on how she creates goals. Towards the end of the year she creates her goals for the entire following year. Then  as the year begins and time passes she breaks those goals down into months, weeks and reassesses as she goes. 

I was given the determination to make goals for this year. Business goals, personal goals. I even sat down and made a schedule of everything I need to make, when to make it, when to package, cut off dates for making soap for markets. I now have my weeks planned until June this year. I am hoping that this new approach will help minimise my indecision. 

So for me 2014 is going to be a year of determination and persistence, both in my family life and soapmaking.

Oh Sugar Scrub How I'd Love to Eat You Up!

Some of you may know that I offer sugar scrubs on my online stores. I love them to bits, but today I just wanted to take a spoon and just eat it! Now let me back up a little bit.

 One of my best friends recently told me that she loves my "Kentish Rain" soap bar I gave her a while back and she was ecstatic to learn that I could make her one up in a sugar scrub. So today I went ahead and prepared it for her.

The fragrance description goes something like this:

"Rainy, salty mist green notes made up of basil, green leaf and ozone notes, with added notes of muguet lily, rose and jasmine bring out the touch of violet in the blend for sweetness".

The scrub came out looking so fluffy and scrumptious I almost wanted to keep it for myself.

Body Cream...Yum Yum Yum

Today I made some body cream. Much to my delight it was lovely, creamy, fluffy and thick all at once - fantastic for arms and legs. It absorbed into the skin really well too!

I have a few additional ingredients I would like to add to the recipe and planning to add it to my product range.

Now for the fragrance options dilemma.... What is your favourite fragrance for body creams? Leave your comments below, as I really need suggestions.

Getting to know a little site called Etsy

I am still very new to Etsy, and have been lucky enough to have been included in a couple of Treasuries :-). So I thought I would try my hand at creating my own.

When I was recently researching blog templates and logo designs I cam a cross a really cute pastel inspired Blog template by CakedDesigns.

This led me to having a little browse for more pastels, and viola - my first treasury titled

 "Pretty Pastels"

 Here are the treasuries I have been lucky to be included in. Both by Toya-Jade from Shop for Creations

"Soap That Looks Good Enough to Eat" alongside some other wonderful soapmakers. Featuring my "white tea and ginger" soap.

"Uplift Me Lime" Featuring my "secret agent man" soap.