Friday Spotlight: Halloween Soap Trio

It's getting more and more spooky around here, with Halloween coming in just over a month! Halloween is one of my favorite holidays, and I started making my Halloween soaps months ago, so they would be ready to go. These three spooky little soaps were just too cute to split into different listings, so I kept them together and my Halloween Soap Trio was born!

The soap trio features three different soaps: an orange Jack-o-Lantern soap, a white ghostie soap, and a black bat soap!

My Jack-o-Lantern soap is scented with pumpkin cheesecake, which is a sweet, delicious scent filled with pumpkin notes, cream cheese notes, and notes of graham cracker crust. The little pumpkins are colored orange with black eyes.

The little ghostie soaps are scented with Oak Barrel Cider, which has lovely notes of oak, cinnamon, cider, and just a hint of apple. The soap is dyed with titanium dioxide, making the soap white.

And last, there's my spooky bat soap. My bat soap is scented with Tibetan Black Tea, which is a rich, deep scent with lots of musk notes. The bat is a dark gray, with black for the eyes and spooky smile. 

My Halloween soap trio is only around for a limited time, and as of this blog post, there are only 4 sets left! Pick up these sweet soaps quickly, because once they are gone, they will not be back until next year! Wanna know more about them? Click here to go to my Etsy shop!

In regards to milk soap...

A few weeks ago, I posted this post about making soap with milk. In that tutorial, I talked about making milk soap using the rebatch method, which allows you to make soap without using lye.

I thought that I would post again on milk soap, but this time, instead of rebatching, we are making soap using the hot process method.

Hot process is a different way to make soap, and it is quite similar to cold process in the beginning. Instead of pouring your cold process soap into the mold to let it saponify, you introduce heat using a crock pot or double boiler. The heat essentially "cooks" the soap, making saponification happen quicker.

I like to use the hot process method when making milk soaps because I do not have to worry about accidentally cooking the milk, since I am deliberately cooking the milk! It takes some of the worry out of making milk soap.

Here's a video I made the last time I made goat's milk soap:

If you are interested in my milk soaps, you can find the Goat's Milk and Oatmeal soap HERE and the rest of my milk soaps HERE.

Friday Spotlight: Halloween Spider Bath Bombs

Halloween is right around the corner... just a little over a month away... and I thought I would share with you my spooky Halloween bath bomb fizzies with fun spider rings on top!

I love these bath bombs! They are made with baking soda and citric acid, which combine together to make the fun, fizzing action in your tub. I also include epsom salts and sweet almond oil. The salts help you relax and soothe any aching muscles, and the sweet almond oil softens your skin as you soak!

I made four different colored bath bombs this year for All Hallow's Eve...

First up, I have my purple bath bomb with purple spider ring topper, scented with Lavender!

Second is my orange bath bomb and spider ring, scented with Candy Corn!

Third in green is my green bath fizzie and spider buddy, scented with Green Apple!

And last but not least, it's my no-dye bath bomb in white with black spider ring, scented with Wild Grape!

 These bath bombs will be around for Halloween, but after that, you wont be able to catch them again until next year! They make great gifts, fun party favors, or great treats for your neighborhood trick-or-treaters.

Want to see more of my Halloween goodies? Click here to head to my shop!

Tutorial: Making Silicone Molds

I love to decorate the tops of my soap with swirls, curls, and textures. Some of my favorite bars of soap are topped with soap embeds, like my Lemonade soap and my Green Grass soap. I've had loads of great ideas for embeds, and I've finally perfected my silicone mold-making technique, and I have started making new designs for my soaps!

To make your mold, you will need:

• One package of polymer clay (to make your own designs) OR any hard object you want to make a mold out of
• One bottle of silicone caulking (try to find the outdoor kind)
• One caulking gun
• Corn Starch

1. Start off by making your objects in clay. 

2. Once you are satisfied with your clay objects, bake them in an oven or toaster oven using the directions on the packaging. The clay I used called for 275 degrees in the oven for 20 minutes. Bake your clay and let it cool fully.

3. Pour about 2 cups of corn starch into a separate bowl.

4. Open your silicone caulk and load the caulk into the caulking gun carefully. Squeeze out some silicone caulk into your corn starch, then fold the silicone into the corn starch until it is no longer sticky and has the consistency of clay. You may want to wear gloves!
5. Now, gently press your object (in my example: my clay owl!) into the silicone and set it aside to allow the silicone to dry out.

6. Once the silicone has dried (I gave mine a few hours to be sure), remove your object! 

Keep a couple of things in mind:

-- These molds are not suitable for edibles, like chocolate or candy. 

-- You can also buy silicone putty in craft stores under the Sculpey brand if you are not interested in using the caulk. Make sure to follow their instructions!

-- Store your new mold in a cool, dry place. After each use, wash your mold with soap and warm water, then dry thoroughly. 

Friday Spotlight: Wild Grape Witch Hat Soaps

Halloween is getting closer and closer, and what better way to celebrate the spooky holiday than to decorate your bathroom with some fun witch hat-shaped soaps scented with wild grape!

These witch hat soaps are perfect to give out to trick-or-treaters, use as hand soaps by the sink, or give to guests as guest soaps! The fun shape makes them great for the Halloween season.

The scent of these soaps is a sweet and fun wild grape scent. The aroma is filled with notes of juicy, sweet grape, with just a hint of musk for a low note to round off the blend.

You can find these awesome little soaps on my Etsy shop. Click here to check them out!

Art in the Park/Dragon Boat Races in Johnson City, TN

I had a blast this Saturday at the Dragon Boat festival/Art in the park at Winged Deer park in Johnson City! I got to hang out with some of my best friends, I enjoyed meeting new folks and selling some soap, and all of it was to raise money for the oncology department for Mountain States Health Alliance, our local hospital collective! 

Watching the dragon boats race was so much fun! I've never been to a dragon boat race before, and it was amazing watching those teams pull together and pull out amazing times. The fastest team of the day went 200 yards in 53 seconds! Whoa! 

My soaps were a big hit! I brought out a few fall scents to this show, and people loved them!! I'm thinking of making a fall scented section of my booth at the next show. The most popular scent of the day was a tie between Monkey Farts and Bacon! 

It was a beautiful day for a craft show, and I loved being out in the warm sun for a good cause... Next craft show is on Sept 28 and I can't wait!! 

Friday Spotlight: Sweet Pea Bath Salts

For the first Friday in September, let's take a look at my sweet pea bath salts! I've been featuring my bath salts in craft shows, and they are finally making their way onto my etsy shop.

My bath salts are made from a mixture of epsom salts (or magnesium sulfate) and coarse sea salts. Salt baths are wonderful for pulling toxins out of the skin, softening it as you soak. Epsom salts have been praised for years for helping to soothe aching muscles by pulling excess lactic acid from muscles. I add sweet almond oil, which soften skin even further!

These salts are dyed a sweet pink color and scented with the classic sweet pea fragrance. I package the salts in a squat 8 ounce mason jar, making them a cute addition to any bathroom.

Wanna know more about my bath salts? Click here!

Summer Round Up (picture heavy!)

With Labor Day, summer is officially over, and it is back to the grind.
I wanted to recap the summer, looking at what all I accomplished with my time off from studying...

After some thought and consideration, I entered a few soaps in the local county fairs to be judged. I was so excited to place at both fairs this year!
At the Appalachian Fair, my Pomegranate Vanilla soap placed third in the Valentine's Day category, and my Jack-o-lantern soap placed third in the Halloween category! I was so excited and honored because they competition was fierce. Too bad they did not have a soap category, because...
At the Greene County Fair, my Green Grass soap placed first in the soap category! Wow! What a huge achievement!

I spent a lot of time this summer making new soaps and trying out different swirls... I'm pretty proud of the results, and they inspire me to try new color combinations and patterns. Here's some of my favorites:

My Applejack and Peel soap with the peacock swirl turned out amazing! 

Blackberry sage was my first try at the peacock swirl, and it turned out rather well!! 

(I also waited all summer for the blackberries to ripen so I could get these photos!!)

This is my chamomile soap with embedded loofahs! Love it!

New facial soap: tea tree and peppermint with activated charcoal and shea butter!

A lot of my time was also spent on editing a book that I am writing... It is a how-to book that I hope to share with you all very soon. I've also been researching crowdsourcing options as well, so keep a lookout for some big announcements coming from me after the Christmas season!

Both coffees were not mine... but I would have
drank them both if I could have!

And... of course... I spent most of my time with my sweet son, who turned three years old in July. We went on many adventures together, we played and learned together, we potty trained and weaned together, and now he is my big guy, heading off to his first year in Headstart! Of everything that I accomplished this summer, spending my days with him was the most fun and most rewarding.

So now, we head back to school and off to some new adventures!