Month: December 2022

Hello!
I’ve had precious little time to make batches of my own soaps… so my stock is dwindling with all the Christmas sales.

However… its not like I haven’t been making/supervising!
Three workshops…

Lots of lovely people coming to learn about soapmaking

I let people branch out a bit with designs since I am there holding hands

But I encourage them to go home and make a plain batch to get the hang of it on their first run solo

A lot of fun colourful stuff from this group!

People are enjoying having a go painting with the gold mica too 🙂

Another ‘Phoenix Rising’ demo soap… that one sells well so why not re do it?

Then I did a soap workshop for 4 friends at home.
Bit of a ‘thanks for supporting me and doing workshops’ kind of event.
Plus it was nice to hang out too

The hardest part of it all was clearing our dining room table!!!
Such a nice big convenient surface…

The ladies had a heap of fun choosing their colours and designs

I chuckled about the fragrance choice… three of the four chose Japanese Honeysuckle!
It is one of my favourites… and I don’t take that to my workshops. (Gotta have some secrets I guess)

We had fun with designs

I didn’t get a lot of ‘proper’ photos – things were…um.. a bit rushed that week

I think I had three workshops and one market within 8 days

It sort of felt I was continually loading and unloading the car with soap stuff

I didn’t get any snaps of the cut version, as I took it to the workshop for my friend to cut there!

And moving right along to the last workshop…

A mother and daughter team made their soaps with all natural ingredients – clays and essential oils.
So lovely and subtle and beautiful

To the complete opposite with some wild pinks

I really enjoyed this white and natural soap colour mix

And a beautiful one pot swirl with the purple!

In my demo soaps for cutting for the last two workshops I used patchouli ess oil. And just reversed the colours in the design. So now I have a nice matching lot curing (A bit groovy?)

And my last show-off demo soap.
Wanted some fun light hearted colours.
So there you go… a million soaps!!

Now… to carve out some time for me to start the big restock!!
Cheers!

Hi there!
Not long before Christmas!
I hope everyone has lovely plans!

Summer has been mild so far but has thrown in a few beaut days!
Nights are still cool

A few weeks back I gave up waiting for steady warm weather and chucked one lot of my tomato seedlings out into the big wide world.
Of course, at first they were total drama queens and fell over, but they did come good again

The weather dipped again and they were looking unhappy. Covering them with the bottles wasn’t doing the trick as they were too big.
My friend Jude, who I work for in her garden on Mondays, uses her old feed and compost bags to create easy little shelters.
So… I followed suit

They’ve enjoyed their little homes and I noted that they’ve perked up nicely
I had to dash down late tonight to cover them back up as I had forgotten so I got a quick snap

Ahhh… the garlic!

Couple of weeks ago I saw that the garlic was looking a bit manky.
I think they are basically ready for harvest

I cut off all the scapes though as I wasn’t ready to do anything with the bulbs yet

I think I used some of these in a spaghetti dish or something

I’ll see about pulling them up in a day or two. Then I can use that plot to get some beetroot in!

Carrot patch going along fine so far

We’ve also spent some more time yard cleaning…
Much to the chooks delight, we pulled up all the pallets as now that we are not cutting down massive trees we don’t need all that wood storage space.
And it was looking pretty bad.

Looking bad AND unorganised!

So, I set aside a spot in the ‘duck yard’ to put the pallets and store all the odd bits of tin we’ve collected.

And random poles and tiles

All neatly accessible.

Weather had dried up enough to burn the rubbish pile!

I put in some pumpkins… however… Nihon kept getting out and she’s pretty much destroyed this patch.
Sob.
So… will have to start again.

Jeff got out to the side garden the other day and proceeded to rip out all the insane paddock grasses and pulled the rock wall down and rebuilt with half the rocks.

Today was another nice day, so I continued in the area, digging out more weeds and smothering with cardboard and sawdust

I hooked the bore up to give the cardboard and newspaper a decent soaking

And…
Voila!

So much better and hopefully will help keep the weeds manageable.

I did a lot more in the back garden but its not finished so will save that when I have the properly finished ‘after’ photos!!

Cheers!

Hello!
Sorry to be so neglectful of managing to get back here to post!
I seem to be up to my eyeballs in markets, workshops and general around home stuff

I am not finding time to sort photos and write! (Or I am wasting time somewhere, which is a distinct possibility.)

I am working Mondays in my friends garden now too! They have a permaculture setup and its really interesting – nice to work outside and learn things 🙂

Above! Basket weaving today was lovely. We were outside with all the great stuff Adele had collected and made wreaths! I kept mine all natural and feel pleased with how it turned out. (Although I am itching to string some fairy lights through it!)

Nice to finish a full project in one session! Usually this is as much as I get done (in between socialising and eating cake)

That basket did get finished! The raffia style is faster than the straight flax

My friend dropped in the pressure washer and I’ve had a bit of a go at it and now want to wash everything in sight!

I just have to get through a few more days of commitments and I’ll be free to pressure wash my little heart out!

(Basically three soap workshops and a market within about a week, flanked by gardening days)(So I am running my tail off!)

Getting a few strawberries. A handful of raspberries too but I ate those before taking a snap

Getting a bit better at the sourdough bread too – although I need to be home to knead it the day before I want to bake it – I did a loaf for a workshop I did at home here for friends and it was very well received (proud moment)

Picked up some flowers from my friend Jude – she gave them to me at the end of the market the other weekend
It was a fab market. Sold really well!

Three of the four apple cucumber seeds I planted have come up

Its 11pm and I’ve just finished making a batch of soap as my demo to let students cut.
The next workshop is on Sunday but tomorrow is a market down at Sisters Beach. Happily its an afternoon to evening market so I will have time to prepare workshop stuff tomorrow morning.
Then later it will be home from the market and repack car with workshop stuff, fall into bed, get up and hopefully do a good job of the workshop!!

After that I’ve not got any more market or workshops scheduled or booked before the end of the year!
Will be time to prepare for family coming in January and pay attention to my garden

I’ll leave you with one soap photo that I was pleased with recently…
Hope everyone is doing well!
Cheers