Thursday, May 29, 2008

New soap again!

I tamed the beast that was my soap, and now I have many wonderful and amazing soaps to show off!
First I g
ot to show you the watermelon soap. I love working with the PVC pipes I use for molds. I can do so many cool things with it! Like this:

The seeds are poppy seeds and they are just on the top of the soap, they are not inside of it. I wanted to make it look as much like a watermelon as I could. Each of these soaps weigh about 2 to 3 ounces each. Of course you can find them in Maylees Garden

I used food coloring (cheap I know) to color the green and pink soap and I rolled the pink into a tube and rolled the green out flat and wrapped it up. I squished it all in the round mold and cut it into slices once it sit for a little while.Soap is so fun. I just love playing with it! This one smells of course, like watermelon.



Then the other soaps are more generic but still cool! This one is the Dragonsblood soap.

It was made with some Moroccan Red Clay as a coloring for it on the top layer, and the bottom is
the plain creamy color. Pretty cool huh? And that top layer is gonna be so nice for your skin too. I love that clay!

This blue one is not colored from ground up smurfs, its colored with the same generic food coloring and boy is it bright! This one is scented with Pearberry. It smelled blue to me so we went with blue. There are small chunks of soap that I didnt get mixed up real good in it so its got a swirly look to it, like the ocean or something...pretty cool! The Pearberry dont smell like pears....it smells kinda like berries though. Its a nice fruity floral scent. I like it a lot.


This one is scented with "English Rose" Its just a plain ol white soap but smells real pretty like roses...Mmmmm.

I like rose scent, its hard to find in stores, but you can find it here!

Tyler is still working on his sticks for our new soap holder thingy's. I have seen these everywhere and they look so nice, but I figured we could do one too but a bit different. He is using sticks that have fallen off trees and carving the bark off, and cutting them to the right length so he can glue them together to make a soap dish that holds the soap and lets it drain real good. If it dont drain it gets soft and mushy on the side that sits in water and thats just gross. Hopefully we can get some of these listed this week.


All the soap you see here is in Maylees Garden!

Come check it out if ya got a minute!









Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Making soap again.

I am in the middle of another 6 pound batch of soap, and this one like the last one has tried and tried to escape from my pot! I stepped outside to check on Tyler who is as cute as a button sitting under a tree whittling some sticks he found so we can make some homemade soap dishes for the soap, and I came back in and there is was...the soap monster!

It was reaching up to the sky and out of my pot with the fury of angry soap. I grabbed my big spoon and beat it until it backed down. This soap I make isn't just soap...it has an attitude! BIG TIME! I think that's why it bubbles up so good...still a bit of that angry soap fury trying to break out LOL

Today I am making watermelon,Dragonsblood ( a new dragonsblood by the way) English rose, and Pearberry. The dragonsblood I had been getting was good, but this new one is droolingly good...its bootylicious in the best way. The Pearberry was a sweet lil freebie they threw in. I loves the guys at Brambleberry, they hook you up right when you order, and shipping is pretty quick too.

The watermelon soap is gonna be pink with a green edge...like a watermelon! I am gonna cut this one a bit different so it looks like a slice of watermelon, so it will be smaller but its gonna be too cute. Great for the kids to use too. Kids love my soap!

I have secret future plans for my soaps, they are going to take on a more "artistic" look. I have to gather some more supplies and such. Just keep an eye out cause its about to get colorful in Maylee's Garden!
Stay tuned, I will hopefully post pics shortly when some of the soaps are done...now I got to get my thinking cap on to figure out how to make the others look pretty and stuff...

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

New Soaps! New Bath Products!

I have been busy this weekend. Noor was off so we decided to have a romantic weekend by making soap and taking turns carrying Maylee around cause she is cryning all the time because she is on the verge of having teeth! Her gums are white...very white on the bottom where those teeth are getting ready to come in. I will be forever grateful to the mysterious force that makes Maylees teeth come in, if it will just do it while she is sleeping tonight..no more cryning baby...PLEEEEZE! LOL

OK about the soap...I got some Lime esential oil from the health food store along with a buncha other stuff, but I am hooked on the lime...and the hempseed milk but thats another blog!

I made peppermint lime, lemon lime, and I really want some vanilla lime but I am waiting on my vanilla oil to come in from Brambleberry.Thats a project for another day! I also made Geranium Bergamot...it smells nice. The bergamot is orangey smelling, and the geranium dont smell like geraniums but its nice anyways. Both are essential oils. I made a bunch of lavender too in the nice rectangle bar shape.

I made yet another change to the packaging. My buddy
Pren Suggested that I keep the wax paper wrapping to seal in the freshness so I figured why not have the best of both! I wrap the soap in the wax paper, and then put the pretty tulle stuff around it and tie it with some fancy yarn...I was using ribbon but I really fell in love with this yarn I seen so thats what I am gonna use now. I am also using fancy scissors to cut the tags with...



Cool huh?

Check this one out...you can see the whole package here:




I have to stop changing my packaging!!!! I think I have made enough work for myself and I like it the way it is...it keeps it fresh and safe from any water that may come around, and it looks fancy and pretty. Suitable for gift giving!


I also made some really super nice milk bath powders. Tyler is "testing" some now that I scented with bubble gum cause he likes that. I will let you know how he feels about it when he gets out....

I used some finely ground oatmeal, milk powder, and some sea salt, epsom salt, and a lil bit 'o bakin' soda to make the waters soft. Theoretically it should be awesome...we will see what Tyler says keep reading....



You can see the baggie of it in the pic...cool pic huh? I try to make the pictures look nice to lure you into
buying...I aint gonna lie! LOL

Another project I am working on and failed a little bit at over the weekend is body butter. I was doing great till I got impatient and added damn beeswax to the mixture...it was taking eternity (as in about an hour or more) to "set up" to get like the consistancy of whipped cream, so stupid me melts in some beeswax, whips it some more, gets disgusted and puts it in the freezer and goes outside to listen to some rap music for a bit (horrid neighbors!) and I come back in to find this butter stiff as a board...I whip it with the mixer and it fluffs up real nice, and I think I got it. I was doing my arthritic happy dance and everything. I put it in my little jars and was so tickled..then I went to use it about 6 hours later....it was very.very.very. FIRM.....its supposed to be light and fluffy...not.FIRM.AHHHHHH!!!!

So now I have decent body butter, but not perfect body butter. I dont feel right selling it so I am using some of it cause its freaking awesome, my skin is so soft! I am gifting the rest. I only made a pound of it. So now I know where I screwed up and no more beeswax!! I MUST be patient!!! I also feel like I need to use some almond oil or sesame seed oil instead of safflower oil too...so this wasnt so big of a loss, I learned a lot and I am well on my way to making the best body butter in the universe with no gross chemicals!! Thats whats so important to me. I am trying my best to keep everything "clean".

I am very close to being able to make some liquid soap which will open a bunch of doors to more bath and beauty products for me to make. I am dying to make my own shampoo for a reasonable price. I used to buy some vegan shampoo from someone on ebay and I paid 8 bucks for an 8 ounce bottle. I think thats pretty fair...packaging is so expensive! I have looked into it for my stuff and my goodness! (gasp) the prices!!

I have read it can take almost a full day and night to make liquid soap. You spend several hours preparing it and waiting for it to do its thing, then you mix it with water and let it sit overnight...its time consuming but if I can make it work then I will be ecstatic!! I need to score some potassium hydroxide and I will be in business...cant buy that stuff at Lowes though LOL Thats my goal I want to achieve in the next 2 months...liquid soap! I am sick of having to buy this chemical laden shampoo at the store...I want something as pure as my soap to put on my hair that will still allow me to actually get a comb thru my hair LOL I have used my soap on my hair when it was shorter and it was OK but now that its just crazy long...I dont dare! I know
better! LOL

OK Tyler is out of the tub and the word is....my bath bombs are better! OK so now we know kids dont like this stuff...it dont fizz or shoot flames so he isnt impressed basically LOL

Tyler says the water should be more milky...and he had no idea there was oatmeal in it...that could be a GOOD thing cause you dont want a mess in your tub but you DO want the benefit of having such a thing in there...OK I will add more milk to it and it should be good to go!

So go get you some already!!!

MAYLEE'S GARDEN!!!

PS...In case you didnt know I am taking RME....go sign up if you havent already! No need to register your bank account and for us sellers, its FREE!!


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