The Week in Soap: 1st Oct ’17 (Blogtober 2)

This last week has been incredibly tiring, if I’m honest. I’ve had busy days and evenings, and I’ve really seen the effect on my energy levels.  I’m hoping that adding Blogtober into the mix for the next month isn’t the crazy idea that I’m currently thinking it might be…

Monday has been become my regular soaping day (as I need to have a loaf ready to cut on Wednesday evenings for my Soapmaking presentation) and last Monday was no exception.  I made three double batches of Bewitched, Lemon Verbena Confetti & Christmas tree:

 

Bewitched, Lemon Verbena & Frosted Christmas Tree

And a close up of the Bewitched, because I can’t resist those swirls…

Bewitched in the Mould

On Tuesday I was out and about delivering stock to local shops and doing a bank run, then spent the rest of the day wrapping and labelling bars.  I’ve recently bought some shrink wrap bags to try, as I’m still not happy with my packaging, so I had a bit of a play with them too.  During the evening I was out at a meeting of the local Village Hall Committee meeting (of which I’m the Secretary)

Wednesday saw me at the day job in a local Pre-School, and in the evening I was out giving my weekly soapmaking presentation at a local hotel, and then on Thursday I was back at the day job again, and in the evening I had another meeting, this time for the Annual General Meeting of the Pre-School committee (of which I’m Treasurer)

Friday was again spent wrapping and labelling soaps and bathbombs, as I had the monthly Porthmadog Craft Fair the following day, and I’d realised that I didn’t have nearly enough stock ready to take. I also needed to cut all the soap which I made on Monday (which I really should have cut on Wednesday!) but I got halfway through and the wire snapped on my cutter.  Arrgghhh… Never mind, I was well prepared and had some replacement E strings ready for precisely this eventuality.  Except I’d bought E 1st strings, instead of E 6th strings. Who knew that there are two DIFFERENT E strings on a guitar?  Double arrgghhh… .  I swiftly ordered some of the correct ones, but they won’t be delivered until next week, and I have soap to cut, so I asked Dean to fit one of the thin ones with the idea of giving it a try the next day when I could get back to the office.

I did manage to get the Lemon Verbena Confetti cut before the wire snapped:

Lemon Verbena Confetti

THEN I remembered that I needed to print some new name/price cards for the fair, so Friday evening was spent wrestling with my printer.  I have an intense love / hate relationship with my super-duper wireless printer.  When it works, I absolutely flippin’ love it, but I’m essentially a hardware technophobe and when it doesn’t work, I’m screwed.  On Friday night it didn’t work, I was tired and frustrated and about to have a meltdown when my other half stepped in and sorted it out. Meltdown averted….

Saturday was the craft fair.  A fairly early start which didn’t help my tired state, and not a particularly busy day, but hey ho, you win some you lose some… I don’t think the weather helped:

My view from inside the Craft Fair – look at that rain!!

While I was there I took some photographs of all the other crafters’ stalls – there’ll be a post coming up about this local monthly event as part of Blogtober but for now here’s a little peek at my stall:

Cascading Bath Bombs

I got home around 3pm, and spent the rest of the day preparing for a visit from Dean’s parents who were coming the following morning and staying a few days.

Those six days were the busiest I’ve been in a long time, and I can’t even blame the business!  Sunday, by comparison, was a joy.  A lovely family day – breakfast out with the in-laws, a bit of biscuit making (Viennese fingers – recipe to follow) a relaxed afternoon in front of the fire, rounded off with a roast chicken dinner. Even the pounding rain couldn’t put a damper on it. Bliss.

I’ll be back tomorrow with a roundup of September’s goals…

Vickx