Bad blogger but Good soaps!!

I have been such a bad blogger lately and I am very sorry!  No really I am, life has been so hectic, we finally made it to Portugal in the plane as you know and then came back to lots of orders and full on work mayhem.

The gallery I manage the Thelma Hulbert Gallery in Honiton had its official opening on 29th May which was great, it went really well with over 200 people attending, Peter Randal-Page the brilliant international sculpture and Graham Liverton Chairman of East Devon District Council officially opened the newly refurbished building and it looked spectacular.
Since then its been all hands to the pump, working round the clock to keep up with everything and settle in to the new offices, shop and cafe. My team have been great, I am so lucky to have such a wonderful bunch and we have 35 new volunteers who have signed up too!

Soap is going well too, I have signed up with a company called "It's Cold Outside" who specialise in Google adwords and they have helped me to put together a new campaign which seems to be going well.  I will keep you all informed as to their/my progress regularly, if they are good I will be sure to let you know.  In the meantime, you can find out more about their work by following this link http://www.itscoldoutside.com/

And finally.... for the moment anyway, I have been working on a fantastic wedding cupcake commission, the theme of the wedding is the mad hatters tea party and I was asked to design 12 special guest soaps using the theme as inspiration.  These are the samples I sent off to the bride- tiny cupcakes on a plate with jam tarts, on a table cloth on a mini cupcake, all made out of soap!!

Dirty Dog saves the day!

This is why I invented Dirty Dog Soap!! 

Perdita (Perdy) my German Shepherd, who is normally quite clean showing me today just why she needs Dirty Dog soap and that she is about ready for a bath.  Picture number 3 shows my Springer in the background (Blue) who is about to get up totally black as always!  I love Woodbury Common, I always say Woodbury Common and Dogs go together like fish and chips but boy do they come back dirty!!

This is how she normally looks

A very special (clean) and beautiful GSD - well that is after using by lovely Citronella and Tea Tree oil Dirty Dog soap full of lovely good ingredients including olive oil which is why, I swear, she has such a lovely glossy coat. Go on give it a go, you know your pups deserve a real pamper!!

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?

FLY ME TO THE MOON - WELL PORTUGAL ACTUALLY!

Yes everyone the time has come, we are going to fly the newly completed Europa to Portugal and stay at our Quinta for 3 - 4 days, weather dependant, then fly back next week YESSS!!
This is what we have been waiting for, the build took Rik almost 5 years and a lot of stress but we now have a beautiful little plane to be proud of and we are so close to realising our dream of flying ourselves to Portugal.

G-CEIW passed all is flight testing with flying colours, we have already done quite a lot of time in her, we flew up to Suffolk a couple of weeks ago to have lunch with Riks Mum which was lovely.  A car journey would have taken us over 6 hours but we did it in an hour and forty minutes!

Above with Riks Mum in Suffolk ready for take off back to Devon

This trip is the biggie.  We will take off from Dunkeswell in East Devon and fly over the channel to the Cherbourg peninsula.  We then make for the west coast of France and fly down to Le Touquet where we will land, stretch our legs an clear customs.  Then on to Spain touching down again at San Sebastian to re-fuel.  The last leg is the longest from Spain to Viseu in Portugal, a high and often windy airfield 2000 ft above sea level.  Our lovely friends will come and pick us up and we should be home in our Quinta in an hour!  How great is that?  I will be reporting back with a couple of photos I promise.  This is all dependent on weather however, so please pray for good clear skies on Thursday.................Thanks

More New Cupcakes on the curing rack

The curing rack is groaning under the weight of soaps waiting for that special moment when they are ready for sale.  A lot of prodding, poking and close inspection goes on before that, the soaps are stacked on their ends with a small amount of space between them to allow the air to pass round every surface aiding the drying/curing process.  As its still cold and damp here in Devon the rack is up in Ryans room and it makes the house smell so good!
 

Those of you with eagle eyes may be able to tell what my rack was in its former life......... 
An old GPO, or post office for those of you a lot younger than me, set of sorting shelves!  It works a treat, I line the shelved with greaseproof paper and stack, the whole thing is made up of strong steel mesh covered in black plastic so the ventilation is fantastic and soaps cure nice and evenly.  Each shelf even has its own plastic label for me to add dates etc with a white board marker.  Ive just to find more though - these ones are full!

New cupcakes include my sweet butterfly cakes, sample mini lovespell cakes and some really gorgeous pink roses on white and white roses on pink (see the trays below the racks).  I cant wait to get them out on the stall.  They will be ready soon, watch this space.  Ive also got a lovely new gardening soap bar with Portuguese coffee, I used to make this a lot last year and a whole load of people have asked for it back so Ive made more!

Fab new cupcake slippers to make

Thanks to ohmygoodknits!  (I love this blog site)  http://goodknits.com/blog/ Ive found this lovely pattern for very simple little toddler slippers.  I feel another cupcake idea coming on guys!

NOTE: to complete each round, slst into top of the beginning ch3.

Using worsted weight yarn and a 5.00mm hook (H)–
CH 4, slst to make a circle
CH 3, 10 DC into circle (11 dc),
CH 3, DC into same st, 2 DC into each st around (22 dc)
next three rows (even rounds): CH 3, 1 DC into each st
CH 3, DC into next 18 st, leaving 4 unworked. CH 3, turn and work 18 DC back and forth until the sole is as long as the baby’s foot (~5 rows).

seam up the back, then work about 2 rounds of single crochet around the edge, decreasing at the corners.


That’s it! Easy peasy! You can make a complete pair in under and hour. The fun part is thinking of ways to decorate them using felt and thread. Lisa has even turned some into different slippers by crocheting up a little strap on the borders, see below.

Lisa has one suggestion to parents: watch your babies in these! They’re like socks, so if you have slippery floors, be extra vigilant. She used some puffy fabric paint to make them slightly more slip-resistant. You could also sew a sole to the bottom or at least some slip-resistant spots near the toe and heel.   Enjoy!  Let me see some pics if you do make some, I intend to.




WHY I AM NOT USING PALM OIL ANY MORE

Follow this link to a new page on my website where I try to explain.....

https://www.naturallymadesoaps.co.uk/SearchResults.asp?Cat=63

Im very pleased to be able to tell you that All my soaps are now palm oil free.

Let me know what you think, do you have any more facts that I can add to the page?