Thursday, April 30, 2015

Two are better than one and Be Scented tonight's sale notice



I loved this  rolling cart so much, I immediately ordered a second one!

The first one stores oxides, micas, glitters, natural and other powdered colorants. The second one is for tools and molds and a few other things. Now I just have to find the time and energy to make soap!

 
Now that the old fridge is in the garage and giving me extra space, I'm able to properly store my butters and some oils in there, freeing some space to tighten up my making supplies. My aim is to have the mobile carts and some kitchen storage for larger mixing pots and some of the longer storage oils,  The carts will live in my office until needed; but right now they're sitting in the kitchen area. I told my husband they'll stay there for a while. After all the Queen of England isn't expected to be visiting any time soon! :-)

My other project the past couple of days was to print out a lot of my Soap Calc recipes and get them in a three ring binder, and inside of plastic sheets to protect them. I also spent a lot of time using soap calc to create different batch sizes of some of the recipes, which is why it's taken a few days to get to this point. I love my new laser wireless printer!!!

Since my right hip is such a mess, and my right foot is still healing from a bad fall, I finally found the time for these sit down jobs, in between my normal household chores that require me to be standing.. I even manged to plant a couple of flower pots this week and will plant the last of the petunias out front this afternoon. Since I can't stand for long, I'm now starting to wonder if I can try to make a batch of soap this week, sitting down. It might take me all day but I think it will be doable.

I have a new, oval mold to go with the smaller oval guest mold. My husband likes the oval shape and loves the Nag Champa soap, so it's time to at least try to find the time to make some more bigger bars, since I'm down to my last guest sized bar!

Be Scented.com has a sale starting tonight, so you may want to check out Jenn's site to find the exact time. She's a great gal, who shares so much on her Facebook pages and her you tube videos. There's 30% off select molds, and sale prices on colorants and maybe other things. Check it out. You must register if you want to order because the newly debuted site seems to empty your shopping cart if you're not registered and try to get back to it! You can find our more by checking her Be Scented group on Facebook. She ships fast and if you watch her videos on you tube, you will see that she tests her colors and fragrances and you get to see and hear her assessment of the them. So you don't have to deal with unexpected surprises like soap seizing, etc.If it accelerates, she tells you and also tells you if it's workable, ricing, seizing, etc. I really like this girl and she deserves our business.

She also has two other groups on Facebook and on you tube for her own soaps. In addition to Be Scented. on Facebook, she has a destash group of there where other soapers can sell soaping materials and tools they no longer want or need. Her own soap making site on you tube and Facebook is called A&N suds and such.

Saturday, April 18, 2015

Great storage cart for soaping things

I'm so glad I bought this cart! I do love on line shopping. Thank you Amazon!

The drawers are 3" deep, which is the same depth of my 1 oz jars of colorants. The cart holds all my micas, oxides, botanical and clay colorants, silks, and glitters. I put the Titanium dioxide, silks, clays, botanical colorants and a few dried flowers in the top drawer,  yellows and oranges in one drawer,  reds, pinks and light lavender/lilac, in another, then  purples, blues and greens in the next one, and browns and blacks in it's own drawer, and glitters in the last drawer. And there's plenty of room leftover to add to all but the first drawer.

My husband is encouraging me to get another one and if I can make room in my office/meditation room for two of these, I will do that. I have a handyman coming out in a few days, hopefully, to help me re-position my office desk and big, recliner chair. If I can get rid of the big box of years of computer and audio and phone cables, in that office closet I think I might be able to fit one of these in there..

It would be nice to have another one for spatulas, gloves, whisks, pipettes, measuring spoons, little jars for mixing micas and other colorants, my smaller bottles of Fragrance and Essential oils, my embed and other low molds, etc. etc.When you don't have a basement or a large laundry room to use for soap making and tool storage, you have to get creative and mobile! My poor kitchen has already given up a lot of it's storage to soaping tools and ingredients, so I had to look for a way to spread out from there in a mobile way and this type of cart fits the bill.

This is a well made and easy to assemble unit, unlike the little laundry one I put together about a week ago. It needed a second set of hands; but I made do by leaning it against my bedroom dresser. What a pain and struggle that was; but it was only about $11.99 and is perfect as a soap drying cart, so I can't complain too much.

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Solving storage

Found this Savoy cart on Amazon and it's going to be perfect to un-clutter one of my small soaping supplies cupboards in the kitchen. I'll just store it in my office and wheel it out as needed. This will hold all my glitters, micas and other colorants.

They are other carts like this with more drawers but those drawers were only 2 1/2" deep, not enough for my 3" hi jars. It was shipped out yesterday but they gave me a date from the 16 to 21st as possible arrival, so I may have to wait till next week to get this part of organizing done.

Since we don't have a basement to allocate for soaping, the kitchen is it, and storage is scattered all over the house and garage. Since we got a new fridge and put the old one in the garage, I now have that one to store a lot of my soaping oils, butters and  fragrances and essential oils. It's amazing how fast you can fill up another fridge!

My new oval, silicone soap mold arrived yesterday and I have to find a place for that in my mold cupboard which is getting pretty full lately.  Now that it has arrived,  it will be time to think about making  more Nag Champa soap which my husband and I both love. My first batch of Nag Champa was guest size ovals and my husband has decided that he prefers that shape.  I have to admit I also love the feel of it in my hand; but I would get bored just making ovals since I do like making swirled soaps too much.

Right now I just take a few days to get the house in order and get some garden chores done. We had a couple of weeks of house guests and visitors, new appliances delivered and installed, a new printer that I had to set up and a couple of other electronic gizmos to setup up. I still have to figure out the new digital video camera that I bought to do soaping videos for you tube. 

Now husband wants lunch and then I need to continue printing out my soap recipes from Soap Calc and find some plastic covers and a ring binder for them. When I see all the things I have to do and want to do every day, I can't understand other retired people who complain of boredom. I never seem to have enough hours in the day to do all the fun things there are to do when you're retired - like gardening, making soap, reading, taking long walks in the woods, etc. etc.