Archive for the ‘Crafts/Soaps’ Category
December 31, 2009 – Happy New Year!
One of our Christmas gifts was this bottle of wine from Italy.
Since Italian wines are not used to the cold Midwestern weather, the bottle came adorned with the absolutely darling cap and scarf!
one year ago…”Eve of Combustion”
December 5, 2009 – Gift Box Assembly
Today is gift box assembly day. Tomorrow we’ll post photos of this year’s offerings.
Martin brings up the jam from the basement.
The products get labeled, wrapped, and boxed on the dining room table – Emma is wrapping the goat milk soap.
one year ago…”2009 High Hopes Gift Boxes”
December 5, 2008 – 2009 High Hopes Gift Boxes
Once again, this year we are offering gift boxes for the holidays – great non-cluttering gifts ranging from $7.50 to $25. They are great for family, teachers, and others on your gift list. All the products are grown or made at high hopes gardens. The jams are from fruit from our trees, the soap we ...Read more.
October 28, 2008 – Soap Cutting
It was another round of soap-making this week-end. I thought it would be a good time to show the final stages of soap making.
About 12 hours after pouring into the mold, this batch was ready to cut. You can tell when it is ready when the soap barely indents to a strong touch.
The soap mold ...Read more.
May 29, 2007 – Soap Making Day 2
After the soap is poured, it needs to sit in the molds until you can make a small indentation with your finger with some pressure – usually within 24-36 hours. Then it’s time to cut!
Linda positions the cutter at the appropriate width and slips the soap cutter down through the slots on the mold.
Here’s a ...Read more.
May 27, 2007 – Soap-Making Day 1
Today was soap-making day with Morning Sun farm. We assembled all the basic ingredients (beef and pork fats, lye, rainwater) and went to work.
By far the most tedious part is cooling and stirring the soap back down to the temperature required to pour it in a mold. It’s a lot of stirring!
Finally the soap “traces” ...Read more.
May 23, 2007 – Gearing Up for Soap-Making
We’re getting ready for the first soap-making episode of the season this upcoming weekend. Last year I made a couple different styles of soap molds and the one with the hinges to open up the mold after the soap has hardened was a runaway favorite with the soap alchemists. So, today, I made a couple ...Read more.
October 15, 2006 – Soap
Today was another day to revive an ancient, somewhat forgotten task – making soap from scratch – in this case rendered beef and pork fat, lye, and goat milk. The folks from Morning Sun farm came over to finish what we had started a few months ago when the fat was rendered.
Everybody looks pleased to ...Read more.
August 6, 2006 – CSI: Melbourne
OK Sherlocks, here’s today’s “CSI: Melbourne” episode. Our investigators run across some deep red internal organs and what looks like the leftovers from a deep fat fryer. What happened here? Back at the lab the organs are identified as beef kidneys and the leftovers are beef fat that has been heated to ...Read more.
April 1, 2006 – Soap Poured
Our first batch of elemental soap, made from scratch, is sitting in the mold, waiting to be cut. It was a long way from raw beef fat to soap!
Here Linda is cutting up raw beef fat, straight from the locker – look how thick that fat is from that cow! This fat was ...Read more.
March 17, 2006 – Delayed Thingamajig Thursday #15
Here’s this week’s “Thingamajig Thursday” entry – a day late because of St Urho. Also check out last week’s answer.
A little different “Thingamajig Thursday” this week – Here’s something that goes for about 50 bucks on Ebay that I made for Linda with scrap lumber and a couple of small hinges.
As always, put your guess ...Read more.
September 30, 2005 – Gourds
Here is this year’s gourds drying down own the vine.
We’ve found that the best way to dry the gourds is to leave them outside over the winter. We’ve tried bringing them in the barn or house, but they just seem to rot. So outside they will hang.
See the August 26th entry for the gourds in ...Read more.
