The market, my mouth, and why I don't do "Live People"....

Let me just say, I am a hermit.  Yes, a bonafide, stay at home as much as I can, avoid the world hermit.  "Live, in person, for real human beings" often frustrate me.  The end.  Well, not really....Some days I have to leave though, it is a need.  Now, what does this have to do with soap?  Follow along...

Yesterday I decided to go to the flea market and clear out a BUNCH of the left over holiday stuff, and some newer stuff from late February/early March...I need more room on my shelves (or perhaps more shelves - just depends on if you ask my husband or me which it is).  Anyways...so I had a decent little bit of stuff at an insanely reasonable price for what it is.  But odds and ends - like ONE bar of pumpkin soap.  What am I going to do with ONE bar of pumpkin soap?  Sell it for $2 and have no bars of pumpkin until next fall that's what!  So away I went..

I got up EARLY - I don't do "early", neither do my goats.  But up I got, and away I went and THEN the "people" happened....UGH!

First of all, the 2 ladies next to me were selling toys.  Keep in mind here I don't have human kids and I have not built a tolerance to blinky light up noisey singing toys.  Anyways, yes TOYS - toys that sang, and made noise and it was like the Grinch!  The part where he complains "Oh, the noise, noise NOISE NOISE!!!!"  Yup...NOISE!  They also had a boat load of kids - running around, throwing things, shooting darts at my truck, SPILLING SODAS!  Oh yeah...I was still smiling through my teeth as I ground them together.  It was all fun and games until the sugary spilled drinks attracted BEES!!!!  Oh my goodness...the bees! I had to carefully dash through the swarm to get to the truck because there was a puddle of soda and every bee for 3 counties sitting next to my truck door...AND THEN...

These 2 ladies also had some stanky nasty perfumes...oh joy, guess what the bad kids did?  Oh yes, they knocked a perfume off of a table and it busted ALL OVER UNDER MINE!!!  For real???  I spent a few hours telling people what the smell was and that it was NOT my soaps!  But I kept my mouth shut...UNTIL...

Enter the redneck!  Have you seen Joe Dirt???  Oh yes, Joe Dirt times five.  Mullet, tattoos, cut off Larry the Cable guy type shirt...and he thinks he's being cute.  No really, if you have never dealt with this type, you haven't lived.  He says: "Glitter on soap????  Who wants to take a bath and come out covered in GLITTER unless you are a STRIPPER!!! hahahahaha.." Laughing so hard was Mr Redneck, UNTIL I opened my mouth - filter off mind you and said, "Glitter is just like dirt - it WASHES OFF - not that you would know judging by your body odor sir, but ask your first wife, wasn't she a stripper?"

I know...I KNOW ya'll!!!! I am mean, but I SWEAR it just FLEW out of my mouth!  I couldn't stop the words from vomitting forth...:(  It turned out okay though - apparently he had been heckling vendors AND customers down the row, because about 4 people began to applaud and next thing you know I did a nice little chunk of sales right behind him walking off.  He had nothing to say back to me...but still...

I KNOW I should be nicer, but I just couldn't stop myself!  I had already been completely frazzled by the people next to me for half of the day, and out it came...This though is why I like "online internet people" - when they get all snarky smart mouthed I can walk away from the computer and be the better person.  I really don't like being a meany pants mcgee at all :(

It's also what I love about soap - I can quietly sell most of it online, to friends and family really is where the bulk of it goes, and I don't have to see many morons in my day....

I guess I needed to share this morning - I wasn't proud of my actions - but it's why I don't do many "market" type settings and NO farmers markets are not ANY better than flea markets...but that, my friends, is another post!

My new colors came!

And I totally forgot about them!  Well...not really...but as I was having a cry baby poor me moment (due to crazy happenings 'round the homestead) they got overlooked!

Until recently, I have been pleased to work with just a few basic colors for my soaps.  You know, the old stand by type stuff.  Ultramarine blue and purple, titanium dioxide (lovingly called "TD" by many a soaper), black oxide....nothing fancy really.  I've been content to work with just a few basic colors - until I started really paying attention to what other soapers were up to that is...

When Madame Great Cakes (Amy at Greatcakes Soap Works...she's another great one too) anyways, when she posted the next soap challenge I decided after looking around I really needed to start investing in some more exciting colors!  I admit this also:  I have a hang up/fetish for purples, blues and greens!  Yellow, orange, red....ehh....not so much my favorite things! It's part of why I have been content to work in more basic colors - all the fancy, pretty, bright stuff has never really held my attention that long, I had plenty of purple and blue stuff to keep me content. I also have a few greens and some white that do fall under the "mica" category...but no fancy reds or yellows.  Hmmm.... I finally had to admit it was time for me to round things out a bit, play with some more interesting micas and what not...

Upon hearing the call for another soap challenge, I FINALLY ordered some more colors!  Not much, just a pink, and 3 micas that have caught my eye several times at Brambleberry.  I had always passed on them until the other day, and I finally committed and placed the order.  When they arrived I stared at their beauty in their jars for easily 30 minutes - afraid to open them for fear my butterfingers would spill them or a sneeze would send the contents floating into the air! I was then tempted to open then and poke at them a bit...like a kid, I wanted to rub them all over the house like little bright spots of color on the walls! How silly right?  But I was all "ooh and aahhh" about it - color has not really been my thing right?

There are my new little soapy soldiers, all lined up in a row while I stare at them - you can't see it, but the goats are staring back (probably wondering if they are edible...).

After making a few batches of soap now, well, I AM HOOKED!!!! I think I need more of these "micas" lol!  Not only is it really nice to be broadening my own little horizons - but it's fun to have the rainbow in my soap room! I didn't realize what I had been missing! I need more MORE MORE I tell you! Especially pinks and reds - I have been missing out on pinks and reds.  Notice, I am still not really excited about yellow/orange...nope, they are the neglected color choice around here :(

Then once again BAM!  It me like a freight train!  As I was reading the link up/blog for Amathia Soapworks version of the tiger stripes challenge (and bear in mind she was "The One" who inspired it - another VERY clever and amazing soaper indeed!)  I thought to myself "Ok!  I NEED these colors!"  Not just one soaper, but several have mentioned the same colors from the same company - The Conservatorie - in several blogs and videos.  Yup, ruby red, tangerine, magic yellow, apple green, blue kamikaze, and cosmo martini are all on the shopping list.  I have also challenged myself to find one more each of:  red/pink, yellow/orange.  Yes, I consider red/pink one category and yellow/orange another...I know, it's kinda sorta like cheating a bit.  But the budget (and my soap room) can only hold so much at one time haha!

 I am giving myself the weekend to decide on things, and placing my order Monday.  I think I need to go buy some new organizing stuff - perhaps that shelving I had mentioned a month or 2 ago???  That's the only issue I have so far with a new obsession - housing it!  This place is tiny and the soap room is the smallest room of all....

So, now that I have developed a new "habit" to feed - the only problem I see - is where am I going to keep all of this stuff?

Rosemary ROCKS!

No, really, that's what I shall call this one :)  Happy dance, happy dance! Actually, last time I made rosemary mint, I did a hot process castile soap with just a green swirl in.  I used a fo from Rustic Escentuals and it was a hit with everyone, even me! (And I don't really like herbal-ish things much...though they are growing on me).  Everyone loved it and I initially just wanted to make another batch...HOWEVER....

My luck this last week or 2 with "remakes and round twos" has been poor to say the least.  Flat out pitiful and bad to be honest.  I also had a decent bit of less than lovely, crooked, odd sized bars that needed to be dealt with.  Mostly my version of castile, mostly plain with no real color...I did have a box of scraps and shavings kicked aside too....hmmmm.....

Since I have been playing around and reading more and more blogs, I came across this one in particular over, again, at Greatcakes Soap Works.   Now, when I rebatch I don't usually go adding stuff in, I just melt it down, add fragrance and plop it in the mold.  Heck, most times I just melt it down and mold it up, cutting it into bars of stuff I can use around here to bath critters and wash my hands! But sometimes I get a tad creative and scent it pretty like...

BAM!!!  That's when it hit me!  Since I had so much mostly plain soap, and since rosemary mint is a mostly natural kind of smell (I still use a fragrance oil - not really big into natural stuff beyond the goat milk, just not my thing) anyways, BAM I said!

In light of the current trend of multiple rounds of soap turning out to be doomed...I decided to do something different and THIS is what I got:

I shall call it "Rosemary ROCKS!" A) Because it looks like rocks and B) Because it does!  LOVE that smell too!  So, I suppose I have had 2 wins in one day and I have a third one to share, but I am saving it for another evening... I am in love with how it looks like my kitchen counters (even though they are formica and not granite lol)...To me, this one says "herbal" when you see it!

Moving on, the Elemental Swirl: Third try = the charm?

OR...is it just that the FIRST try of each technique is the charm???  Who knows right?  All I know is now I can't wait until the weekend comes to share this one - heck, if you are reading this it might already BE the weekend :) It seems for me, with the challenge, I should leave "well enough alone" and stick to one attempt on things...ok universe, I get it, can do!

So...I went on into the soap room bout, eh, 6ish this evening (Actually yesterday evening now...Wednesday night that is).  I got EVERYTHING prepped to do my version of the "Elemental Swirl".  Then, I walked away.  Oh yes, it was time to milk, then dinner and so on...I figured there was no storm blowing through tonight and odds would be in my favor if I waited until after ALL the critters were fed! Plus, I really didn't know if I had it in me to get back in there...but then while I was waiting on the chicken to finish roasting for dinner, I came across a blog post by another soap challenge taker and I was really and truly inspired to stop pouting and get back in that soap room.  Sometimes, I must admit, the farming thing can kinda drive you nuts...this has been one of those weeks!  But I put on my big girl panties and in I went...

'Bout 10p.m. I headed in - ready to do battle!  Flashlight always handy, just in case, everyone on lock down, gloves and goggles on, here I come to tackle a batch of soap with NO INTERRUPTIONS! See now, I was (and still am) VERY excited about this one!  I had some Cucumber Melon fragrance oil from Nature's Garden that I had been meaning to soap - and when I heard about the soap challenge BAM! It hit me!  THAT was the one for the elemental swirl!!!

Milk and lye, all mixed up and ready (oils not pictured ready too :) )

A hot mess of colors and cups, ready to mix away - see my oils off to the left there? Also - please note the splash of purple on the wall above the single red cup...see it?  Oh yes, that would be a splash from the spill in my great Leopard attack the night before!  I still don't know how I came away from that one unscathed....no back to the soap at hand...

The greens and the yellows needed no stick blending - I choose those three on a plain soap base because they reminded me of how both cucumbers and watermelons often have a bit of yellow in the rind portion...The black hadn't been blended yet when I paused to snap this, but I was going for watermelon-y reds/pinks with a bit of black like the seeds ya know?

I didn't get any pics of me mixing it all in the pots...i was way too excited to slow down for the camera!  First...in goes the red bit....I kinda over did it with the swirling thing, it's a little curfuddled and more muddy than I was going for, but hey...I'll take it!  At least a tree limb hadn't come through the roof yet and no goats had strolled through the kitchen either!  Gotta take what you can get in terms of perfection LOL :)

It's more red/pink than white closer to the bottom - funny how you can over stir part of it and not the rest right?  Okay...so then I choose the pearly white mica for my pencil line.  Sticking with the whole "melon slice" theme I was going for, I wanted the white line to be there like that ucky white part only chickens and pigs eat on a melon...

I'm just ITCHING to see how that white line comes out...a little scared it WON'T come out!  Looks silvery a bit in this lighting doesn't it?  Oh well...I must admit here - when I have done "pencil lines" until now I have used a strainer thing-a-ma-jig that I have.  But this time I tried Madame GreatCakes herselfs hint and used an old pair of panty hose over a little jar and YES!  Hausfrau farm wife me did have a pair in the closet still (of course I have never worn them LOL, pulled 'em fresh outta the package! Thank goodness I'm not froo froo anymore!) LOVED that little trick!

Then, ever so gently, on with the green layer....

I ended up with the coolest ever ribbons of green down the middle! I ALMOST left it like that too!  But, alas, I had pink/red bits left and couldn't resist swirling the top a bit....

On with the melon colored madness...annnnnnddd....then we swirls it all :)

Now, here's where I had a VERY tough moment - to glitter or not to glitter - that is the question????  After staring at it VERY hard for a moment, I went with "or not".  A little tidly wee bit of shine from the mica is coming through in that darker red and I decided I liked that.  No, not a ton like melt and pour soap would give it...but enough...A nice little pop of "look real close to see how special this soap is" if you will.

The best part?  The VERY best part?  I only had enough fragrance to do this one ONCE right now at least LOL....I won't be going back for a round 2 on this soap for a while!  So...knock on wood...long as the rest of that oak tree stays put and doesn't fall into my soap room we are safe for a while!  

****************************************************************

And....drum roll ya'll............

 

Sorry, it's a tid bit out of focus - my shaky hands would not cooperate tonight.  But...Me likey :) :) :)

The pencil line in white = bad idea - you can BARELY see it there (of course maybe if I went with darker colors it would be better...but I like the lighter pastely look for this scent).  IF you look reeaaallllly close, it looks more like tiger stripes than swirls LOL!!!  I suppose that is a big "cosmic laugh at me" kinda thing though - I asked for tiger stripes last week danggit and NOW I get them!  Oh my...I'm still laughing at my reaction when I cut it!  "WHAT?  Stripes now??" It took my 2 slices in to catch on too - at first I was all "ooh, ahh" and THEN a very loud WHAT was heard all across the county - sorry ya'll, it was me (my husband seriously came in to check on me as I was talking very loudly to myself as I cut this one haha!) I still love it though!  

Note to self for next time:  more red, no white, in the bottom part...maybe a thin white SOAP middle layer...and no pink stuff on top, perhaps a mica swirl on top and insulate and gel it - usually my soaps do well on their own once I put the lid on them, but it got colder in here last night than I thought! I shoulda wrapped it in a towel or 2, eh, next time I will watch the temp in the house better (I don't recall inviting winter to return either - it's been crazy cold for APRIL the last few days!) Oh well, no big deal right? Ya know, for a cucumber melon scent, I really like the way it came out! It has melon colors, it has cucumber colors, and a little bit of sparkly from the micas I used.  Tres nice :)

Now I need to make a decision for the next challenge - mica swirl tops and such....hmmm...I made a really neat one last month and I know it will go fast among the friends and family.  DO I TAKE A CHANCE ON ROUND 2???  Or do I do something totally different????  We shall see.....

 

Spots Round 2, not that great, but not that bad....

Ok, so FIRST of all...the destruction from Tiger Stripes Day:

Do you see where they knocked down not one but TWO of the boards that form a "fence"...yup...I know, I SUCK at construction work!  But still - this little lean too I built was BUCK proof! See the guilty party looking at me like I was hampering HER fun? MMMmhhhhmmm...names Pomegranate but it SHOULD be trouble!

So...anyways...I went out this morning to take a look at the reason for my heart attack last night in the dark.  First off, you GOTTA see this tree:

This is the tree that gives me my "theme" for what I call "Rustic" (a vanilla oak scent by Brambleberry) - since it is one BIG, GIANT, OLD oak tree I figure it is perfect.  BUT, it does hand over the house, and when there is the combo of a major storm rolling through, a giant crashy noise AND the lights blink out you can see why I jumped and spilled my soap right?  First thought, much like that old t.v. show Sanford & Son was "Lord, Here I come!"  But then I was still alive a few moments later right?  So, okay, here's what I found this morning:

A nice, large, HUGE actually, dent in the roofing over the back porch...caused by:

A limb the size of a young tree!!!!  Yup, I was trying to soap and mother nature was throwing curve balls at me - literally!

So...I did all my hausfrau farmer stuff for the day and lastly I headed in to clean up the mess from the prior evening.  I scraped my now saponified soapy mess off of the floor and weighed it - almost 9ounces of wasted soap, nearly 2 bars worth if you will.  Alright, I guess it's not as bad as I thought. I initially was guessing I had about a pound of Love Spell scented floor cleaner down there - because once it hits the floor that's what it becomes right?

Then...to make myself feel better...I re-batched some scraps and such I had kicking around.  Scented it with rosemary mint and went for the "marbeled natural herbal look" with it.  While I was cooking that down, I did the dishes from the prior evening and started dinner and fiddle with the laundry...we shall see how it came out, but I feel pretty good about it.  Just waiting for it to cool now....anyways..so I held my breath and I cut into "Leopard Spots Round 2"...ok...remember how Round 1 came out???

Not too bad right?  I was kinda dreading round 2 because I had given up after the spill....but....

It's not too bad :)  Still has a bit of the "leopard look" to it...really pretty swirl that's for sure...I guess I am on the same crappy fence I built with this one eh?  Hmmmm....haven't finished cutting it yet - it's still kinda soft and not even 24 hours old yet!  We'll see...still smells good, as far as the 'soap' part it's still soap...just not exactly what I was going for, but kinda nifty in it's own right ain't it?

I suppose the moral here is this:  Even when you nearly wet your pants in fear and make a royal mess of things, it can still turn out sudsy :)

And Leopards Suck too!

Ok, well, only sometimes.  Basically, I should have known better :(

See now, how THIS one goes is:  I went in on Monday, after a VERY patience trying last few days to soap and unwind....I wanted to go ahead and knock out the leopard spots I had been meaning to do anyways PLUS then I would be all ready to blog and post later on in the soap challenge right?  The picture above was my outcome on Tuesday - VERY respectable I do think :)  I was pleased and dammit all I SHOULD have left well enough alone...but no...

So, tonight, I figure I wanted to do a second batch.  I wanted to gt my spots a little more evenly spread out...

I wanted to get step by step pictures of the process.  But...BUT....BUT!!!! I should have known better!

See, here's the thing.  We live waaaayyyy out in the woods in the boonies - past the boonies actually - and every time a squirrel farts on a light pole the power blinks.  Every time a storm blows through the power blinks.  Tonight it was storming BAD too...and I KNEW better, I really did.  But heck, sometimes you HAVE to live dangerous you know? So into the soap room I go....

Once again, I manage to get ALMOST everything mixed.  My lye and oils have been combined, my base and my yellow have been mixed up and JUST as I go to incorporate the purple color with the soap batter BOOM!!!! The lights flicker, the power tries to go out AND something BIG just hit the roof!!!!  OH NO!!! Something little hit the floor! What you ask?

Oh, you know, nothing major...just a pound of on it;s way to purple love spell scented soap batter!  We have a GIANT oak over the house and when I heard the loud crash I thought the tree was coming down, I saw my life flash before my eyes, and I jumped and knocked my purple-to-be batter off of the counter top and onto the floor.  I froze, in the dark, not knowing where the soap had gone and not wearing shoes!  Socks, yes, shoes, no...I didn't want lye filled soap batter squishing between my toes!

Thankfully, the lights came back on FAST!  And low and behold:

There was my purple-to-be soap batter :(  Always a trooper, I grabbed another plastic jug thing, mixed up a tad more purple out of the white, and swirled it all together...just a plain old swirly mess I think...I dunno...we will see when I cut it.

The moral of the story is:  I can get away with the big cat themes once, but try for twice in the same week they will bite me - HARD!!!!

I'm a little scared to try the next method in the challenge - the house might really fall on me next time!  At least it's not a panther or a lion them...I should be safe right? And, no more soaping in storms...I really did know better when I went in there though :(

See, what had happened was....

I started out to make "Tiger Stripes" and ended up with "gloppy forgotten hot ass mess" - seems if tiger stripes are the intended goal, then I am gonna need some better fencing!  Fencing you ask?  YES, FENCING!

So...the other day...I go in to make my rendition of tiger stripes in soap.  I have some red and yellow clays from Brambleberry I want to use and this "Little Black Dress" fo from Rustic Escentuals I have used before...I figure since I already made a tiger stripe in "Black Tie" from Nature's Garden (which I refer to as "City Slicker") I will do a "City Slicker for her version....

My goats however disagreed with THAT plan! As I was saying..........

It was a GORGEOUS DAY outside and I had the front door open to catch a little of that in the house.  Nice breeze, lovely weather, just enjoying the day.  I go in, I set up everything, get my lye and oils going like a team of soapy goodness, split the batch, mix in the yellow clay and JUST as I finish mixing in the red I hear CLOMP CLOMP clompclompclompclomp!!!!!!!  Now wait a minute, there should be NO clomping of hooves!!! Here's where it gets good, I ALMOST wish I had been doing a video, except the amount of bleeps needed would be excessive to say the least!

I spin around, and what do I see?  The faces of 3 goats staring back at me - IN MY KITCHEN!!!  Initially, I freak, I shut the door to the soap room and just pause.  What do I do?  Do I soap on?  NOOOOO!!!!  The bedroom door is open too!  From the window in my soap room door, there go 3 of the goats - ON MY BED!!!  NOOOO!!!!And where are the other 2 goats from that pen????

So, in a fit of super pissed off, the gloves and goggles come off and out I go...seems that somehow the girls have managed to DESTROY the pen the bucks never could!  There's a board cracked in half and the chance for escape was taken!!!  I stood there - livid - for just a second.  Well, actually closer to 5 minutes, while the offenders clamored around me for attention.  I had soap waiting to be poured after all...and so I shuffled the does onto the back porch (which is also a goat maternity ward and such at times and currently houses my spoiled "in milk does".  Yeah, sure, Willow the Mean is out there - I didn't care.  I let her whoop on the yearlings while I returned to my soap...my sad, gloppy, now been sitting there for probably half an hour at least soap.  Because for some reason, once you want to catch a goat THEY KNOW IT!  Took me a bit to round them up - they KNEW I was hot!

As I was saying - I returned to my now nearly solidified and saponified soap batter. I proceeded to glop it into the mold.  Let me add here - I LIKE my tiger stripes a bit thicker, but not that thick!  The only photo I got of the process was the end...take a closer look:

Not all the glitter in the world can make it better....

Not all the clever posing helps....the goats ruined my tiger stripes!  Actually, to be honest, the goats and a combo of my crappy fencing ruined my tiger stripes :(

So instead, I give you from the week before this:

This would be the one I mentioned - "City Slicker" - aka "Tiger Stripes UN-interrupted!"

So yes, I have been pouting and not soaping much, and yes...oh yes...I have one more reason why the "Big Cats" and I don't mix.  That story will come in a few days time I think....let's just say there's a VERY good reason I don't use glass when I soap...

AND YES, I made the black and white BEFORE I knew about the challenge and NO I don't care :P (I'm still a little pouty about spending a day fixing fences and what happened tonight...but that is another story all together...)