HAPPY EASTER

I hope all of you have a very Happy Easter!

Soaping Again

My sis and I got together again yesterday and made some soap.

This is some re-batched soap. Some of the soaps we’ve already made in the past, we took and shredded up and made this from it. You can add some really good smelling stuff doing it like this and it smells soooo good. The lye doesn’t eat it all up because the lye’s gone in it when we re-batched it because this is aged soap.We made 4 one pound batches of re-milled or re-batched soap.

This batch below is the CP soap. It’s a fresh batch. It is Lemon Verbena. Notice what we used for molds. ;) We sliced them today and made 2 bars from each mold. Quite cute if I do have to say so myself. ;) I’ll have to run and get a pic of them cut to show you.

A close up.

Some more of the re-batched soap.

See how dark some of them are compared to the others? I had some bought soap scrapes I shredded up in some of them and it made them darker. To tell you just HOW SMOOTH ours is compared to store bought, bought soap is like shredding a carrot and isn’t smooth at all. Our soap is like shredding a VERY FIRM baked potato but a little harder, but yet smooth and silky like. It’s hard to explain but the homemade soap is soooo much better than the bought. When I shredded up the store bought stuff I had several brands of it and it all was about the same.

This is some of the soap shredded up. It feels soooo funny and looks like coconut. lol

Our soap making table. We had just got finished measuring everything. I measured the lye outside this time and it was soooo much better. I though we were going to make 2 batches but she didn’t have any coconut oil so we couldn’t because I used nearly all of mine in the batch. The tall large stainless steel pot to the back of the table is my soaping pot.

Here are the yogurt container cut soaps. They are ozzing with oil for some reason. I’m hoping they will be alright since they’re sooo oily because my skin should LOVE this soap!!!

Poor Plants

See how my plants do when I plant them to keep inside until it gets warm enough outside for them? This is garlic I bought and planted two days ago and they’re already this tall and already spindle e. I have them in front of a south facing window and it’s actually TWO windows and they are STILL weenie plants! Now WHAT am I going to do because they’re SUPPOSE to be wider and thicker than this? :(   I have NEVER been able to grow outdoor plants inside in the early spring. These things grew 2 more inches today after I took the pic of them. NO LIE! I can’t get over how FAST they have shot up!

I also wanted to show you my saucer magnolia a friend gave me. He rooted it and I planted it here last summer and it’s FULL of blooms this spring. I am soooo excited! NOW I am going to root me some of this one for other places in my yard.

It needs something and I’m not sure of what yet. The leaves aren’t a deep green so I’m wondering if Ironite might be what it needs. Going to do a little research and see.

This pic below is of some iris’s. The birdbath is turned upside down to keep it from freezing. Will turn it upright later on when I’m sure we’ll have no more freezes. The iris’s are out doing themselves this year!

Hope you enjoy what’s blooming in my yard right now. Well in fact I have daffodils and a hyacinths blooming as well that I didn’t get pix of. Will have to do that before they get too ugly. ;)

Large Plain Batch

Hubby and I made a large plain batch of soap yesterday. I am going to re-batch it to make some really oily soap for my poor dry itchy skin. This is a 8 1/2 pound batch and I used a plastic lined cardboard box lid for my mould. I used other cardboard lids for the cover on it so the towels and quilt wouldn’t come in contact with the soap because at this stage it is still caustic. You have to wrap it up so it can stay warm for awhile so it wont cool off too fast. You should feel how warm this stuff gets in under the beach towels or the quilt. It feels like an electric blanket under there. In this recipe I used plain old lard, coconut oil and olive oil.

Here it is cut.

I will shred it all up and make several soaps out of it now. I want to put some ground up oatmeal, some vitamin E oil, some shea butter, and cocoa butter, castor oil, and grapeseed oil in some of it. These bars should be a good moisturizing bar for me. That’s what I am hoping anyway!

I put the carrot peeler beside it so you could see just how large I cut these bars of soap.

As it dries out it should get a little whiter.

All of us that have used the soap so far really likes bathing with it.

I’m planning yet another batch with some left over shortenings, lard, and oils I have left.

Home, Home on the Range

Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam…….

yeah buffalo! Cindy needed to get her some lunches so we went to town. On our way home we took the back roads on hubby’s suggestion. Was riding down through there when all of a sudden this is what we saw. Needless to say we HAD to stop and take some pix.

I got out of the car singing, oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam. ;)

We stood there taking pix and they came right up close to us. I guess they thought we were going to feed them.

It sure is neat having buffalo in Mississippi! :)

We were taking pix and taking more pix and we kept hearing this really weird noise off to our right. I kept looking around for it trying to figure out WHAT was making that noise! When all of a sudden I FINALLY saw it….. Just don’t ask me WHAT it is ‘cause I can’t remember! LOL

There were a bunch of these things! It’s a large herd of them.

It was such a beautiful day today for taking pix.

Standing there taking pix, I couldn’t help but think of my Indian family many moons ago hunting these. Man it must have been something hearing them in a herd running through the woods!

More Soap

My sis and I got together again yesterday and made 2 more batches of soap. First batch was Rosemary, Chamomile Coffee soap, second batch was, Oatmeal Vanilla Pound Cake. That one smells yummy to! These are 3 pound batches.

Then DH and I got together today and made yet another batch. This one was an 8 1/2 pound batch. I am going to remill or rebatch it. You can shred it up and make several different kinds of soap with the one batch of basic plain soap. This pic below is of the one DH and I made today. I just used a box lid for the mold on this one. I have to cut it later once it sets up a little more. This batch will make several bars of soaps. I will soon be remilling it because I don’t have to wait for it to cure before I remill it.

This is the coffee soap my sister and I made on Friday. I cut it and now have to get it out of it’s mold so it can start curing. This soap is suppose to get odors off your hands when you peel onions or garlic. This is a kitchen soap.

This next pic is of the Oatmeal Vanilla Pound Cake soap. This stuff smells soooo yummy! We’ll starve to death when using it unless we take food to the bath tub with us! hee hee These last two are the 3 pound batches. We should have plenty of soap when we get done making all this soap. Man it sure is fun making it!

The plastic you see sticking out on all the moulds are the liner I put in the moulds. Instead of using freezer paper I just lined them with the plastic.

I hope you enjoyed seeing all our soaps. I will try to remember to post pix once I cut them. My sis has the  Oatmeal soap at her house. Maybe she will send me a pic of it when she cuts it.

Soap

I am ready to make some more soap. :) Bet you guessed that though didn’t you? I am feeling a little better now and have a little more energy. YEA!

I’m wanting to make some coffee soap. They say it takes the smell off your hands when you have to peel onions or garlic.

I also need to find me one of those wooden soap holders so our soap wont sit in water in the bathtub. DH took a bath with one of the bars today and came out of the bathroom saying how much he liked the stuff and how he loved the way it felt. It’s very silky feeling. The one he used was the Oatmeal Rosemary Mint ones. The smell isn’t as strong as it was a couple weeks ago when we made it. :( Sure wish it would hold it’s smell! But it’s STILL better than buying soap that doesn’t have the glycerin in it. My poor dry skin NEEDS the glycerin!!

I have quite a collection of recipes I have found online and on forums that I want to try. I wanted to put some vitamin E oil in the Oatmeal soap but wound up forgetting to do that. I also want to use some fresh aloe vera I have to. I found a book that tells just how to use it and the method on what to do. So I will be adding some of that in the next soaps I make really soon.

Just wanted to drop in a let you all know I am still around. ;) Hopefully I will keep feeling better and better.

Hope you all are well and getting along great!

Rose