Making Soap

So, I've been making our laundry soap again for the past few weeks.  Instead of doing a liquid soap, I've gone to making it dry.  It's much more time efficient for me and I like using it this way, too.  I was worried, I must admit, that I might have clumping problems or something similar, because we don't have hot water to our washing machine, but no such problems have come about.  YEAY! 

As I've been using my MOSTLY homemade laundry detergent, I've wondered how much more enjoyable I might feel the accomplishment if I'd produced the soap for my laundry detergent.  I've wanted to make homemade bar soap for a while, but hever had all the equipment and got stuck there.  No equipment = no project realization.  Well, this is still a reality, but I've begun to invest in what I don't have, but need, to make bar soap at home.  My first investment purchase is lye.  I do hope, some day, to try my hand at making my own lye from hard wood ash... but I think that experiment is best saved for a day when more of my little ones are not quite so little!  :)  So, I've purchased some lye.  Along with the purchase, I've become an affiliate for the company that sells the lye I've purchased (which is food grade, so I could also make pretzels and bagels with it! Those should be some exciting experiments! ^_^).  So, if you have a desire to venture into the world of soap-making, not just melting and molding premade soaps, I hope you'll purchase the lye you'll need via my Affiliate banner!  :)

Savonara ROCKS

I mentioned a bit about Savonara, specifically Moonlit Snow Soap, a couple of weeks ago, but today is my official opinion of and feedback about the products I was able to get by trade with Sher of Savonara.

I ran across Savonara via one of the teams of which I'm a part. Her shop address is http://savonara.etsy.com/ and upon seeing her products and READing her descriptions I was hankerin' to try what she described. I learned in her profile that she might be willing to trade product for product with another Etsian. Well, that's what I am, so I decided I couldn't lose if I tried! Sher responded quickly. While she didn't seem TOTALLY keen on the things I had showing in my shop, she still agreed to make a trade. How cool is that, right?

So, we communicated a few times to determine what sort of figure she might be interested in and decided on an Angel Sheltering a Nursing Mother. That's what SHE got. I received, as payment:
Moonlit Snow http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=10417449
Backberry Sage http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=10386688
and Lavender Deodorant http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=10983576 shows the product most similar to mine.

Well, I'm going to start with the deodorant first. I would venture to say that any of her deodorants will be as wonderful, but I particularly enjoy the Lavender of the one I have. http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=10983576 It does NOT prevent sweating, which is key for me because I have sensitive underarms... like they get cysts if I use antipersperant or regular deodorant. I've found little relief for the scent of Tori using the crystal, so I pretty much was just going aunatural. Not nice when I'm really hot. But that's the way it is... was. :) Now I have a lovely waft of lavender instead of just TORI!!! The deodorant is easy to apply. It's a very light scent, which is VERY important to me because my nose is SO very sensitive while I'm preggie!! The deodorant is made with unrefined shea butter. This is a really awesome natural lotion that will leave your skin feeling conditioned. So, not only is my smell better, my underarms are getting softer! Basically, I LOVE my deodorant and highly recommend it and any of its "siblings"!

Next to Blackberry Sage soap. You can see this product at the following URL, but I would recommend visiting the shop to find it because her other soaps are SO beautiful to behold! http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=10386688 This is a lovely soap. The scent is, to my nose, mostly blackberry, but NOT too sweet of a blackberry scent. The soap glides on and rinses off very easily. It left my skin feeling squeeky clean and smelling yummy. I'm currently using it as handsoap in my main bathroom because being able to use it in the shower just wasn't enough! Even though we are using it pretty often it's still basically the same size as when it arrived, but with the edges smoothed over. So, it's lasting quite a while!! And what a special soap, handmade at home by a woman who has a great deal invested in providing a quality product for sensitive skin. You can learn more about why she's concerned with those things by reading about her products in her blog at http://savonara.blogspot.com.

I've saved my favorite for last. Moonlit Snow is just AMAZING! This is the soap I wrote about before, so if you read that bit you might just go check it out in Savonara's shop and buy some now! :) This is SUCH a beautiful soap. It's mostly blue with a creamy color swirled through it. http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=10417449 Across the top there are little partial circles that Sher describes as a cloudy grey moon, which is a slightly different shade of blue and adds contrast and interest to the block of soap. The scent is divine! It is called "fresh linen" but it doesn't smell like laundry to me! It's got a tiny hint of sweet and the overall effect is one that my nose is drawn to over and over. This soap only stays in my bathroom which means it isn't used as often, but is savored all the more! I use it in my shower. This is strange because I usually don't use soap. I learned, through research that soap isn't terribly good for the skin because it increases the need for alternate hydration and a few other negative things. So, I would, in the shower, scrub my body with the water and rinse under my arms until they didn't smell like me anymore! Well, even though I still believe those things I stopped using soap over, I'm using Moonlit Snow in the shower! It IS divine... okay, well, as divine as Earthly things can be. :) I actually hope to have money enough for this to be a Christmas gift to some!!! Seriously, check it out!

Savonara ROCKS!

Oh Where Oh Where Have My Pictures Gone....

I tried to add some today and it totally froze my computer... AGAIN. I'm going to try in a few minutes, but I'm getting really tired of not being able to do any work after trying to put pictures up! I may end up using my photobucket and flickr for pictures I would otherwise post here. Photobucket you have to be my friend to view because I'm going to use that for LOTS of my family pictures. My flickr account should be pretty open access. It's already got some shots from my work and other random old pictures. I'm using Torimade as my username. You could check it out already, but you won't see anything really pertinent more than you've seen here. Anyway, I'll include links at a later time, if the need arises (I guess persists is really more accurate).

The real reason I was writing again today was because I was feeling super impressed with Ria and wanted to share. I don't know if I've really shared with you how well she's reading. If I have, you'll have to forgive this pleased Mama for blabbering on about her precocious daughter.

Ok, so Ria and I worked really hard last year and a little bit early this year to finish How To Teach Your Child To Read In 100 Easy Lessons. THAT is an AWESOME book!!! I hightly recommend it as an AWESOME, perhaps even THE PERFECT way for a parent to begin teaching their child to read; whether you plan to homeschool or not. One note about describing letters, though: you should check your area's SOLs (Standards Of Learning), or whatever they are called where you are, to determined how they want you to refer to letters. For example, my area requires that the large ones are called Upper Case and the small ones Lower Case. When I was in school we called 'em Capital AND Upper Case, but whatever.

So, Ria and I finished the book well before her 4th birthday and she has been sky-rocketing ever since! I actually caught her on video reading to herself, but I cannot figure out how to get the video to change perspective, so I haven't tried putting it up here because you'd have to watch it with your head tilted to the side. Anyway, I haven't tested all her bechmarks (I've been doing a bit of research on teaching reading!), but I'm confident that she is solidly in the middle of expected reading ability for Kindergardeners. I would even wager that she's probably closer to a first grade reading level BECAUSE we've borrowed some reading lesson books from the library and they ARE for first grade reading level. I do have to help her with some of the more difficult words, but she astounds me with her ability to sound out some words that I think might be too hard, but give her a chance to try anyway! Her fluency (reference my research!) is not high, but she is improving daily. No, seriously... she's getting faster with words often referred to as Sight Words (many of which she has been sounding out). I'm totally okay with her Sight Words moving into that category for HER more slowly because it's strengthening her ability to decode.

Just as a sort of peak into Ria's love of reading I would like to share a regularly occuring scene AND a scene I was lucky enough to witness because the girls didn't know I was watching! :)

On a daily basis Ria picks up any number of books and sits down to read out loud to herself. She does have a few that are pretty much memorized. I think she "reads" them as sort of confidence builders. (See, she really IS smart. She finds ways to encourage her own love of reading!!) But she picks up books we haven't read together in AGES and wades through them ever-so-slowly. It's a really wonderful thing to see! I'm a VERY pleased Mama!!!

A few mornings ago I was late out of bed and the girls didn't realize I was out of my room. They were in their room and BOTH of them were on Ria's bed. Ria was sitting on the inside and Kat was lying down near the edge pulling the blanket over herself and trying to get comfy. All the while Ria was reading TO Kat! :) It was so very sweet to see!!! I was even able to snap a picture before they knew I was there AND I got a second one before Kat ran to give me hugs!!! This is a JOY for me because I love to read and feel that not only have I instilled that love in Ria, but by so doing she is helping me instill it in Kat!!!

~Switching gears and changing subjects~

I'm sure I've mentioned that I made a trade with another ETSIAN for some of her product. I made the Angel Sheltering Nursing Mother and Baby for Sher of http://savonara.etsy.com/ and she sent me three of her products that I specifically requested. I'll probably repost much of this in a later entry that will be ALL about her products, but I REALLY had to mention TONIGHT that I had my first experience with a soap I requested as part of the trade.

Ok, so this soap is GORGEOUS! I knew that because that's partially why I requested it as my part of the trade, but it's even prettier in person. (heeheehee) It's called Moonlit Snow. You really should check it out! I'd love to hear what you think about it as well as Sher's other products. Well, I wanted to take a shower the minute I got my package, but I didn't because it wouldn't fit my schedule and my girls aren't particularly good at letting me shower in the middle of the day!

Well, I finally took my shower tonight and it was blissful! I washed my hair with my coconut shampoo - just some stuff from the grocery store. But I love it because the scent it nice and sweet and sort of soothes me. I was almost worried that I wouldn't enjoy the soap as much as I hoped because I love my shampoo's smell so much. Well, that was utterly silly; I now know. Oh MY! This soap is WONDERFUL! (I'm NOT a big soap person since I learned the benefits of smelling like myself for my nurslings.) It is silky and rinses off very easily. The most amazing part is that I enjoyed the scent of my Moonlit Snow even MORE than my shampoo!!!!!!!!! Now, I'm the kind of girl who really loves sweet scents. When I was using Bath and Body Works my favorite was the Vanilla and/or Honey Almond. Savonara's Moonlit Snow totally blows them out of the water! When it was dry it didn't smell sweet in the slightest, but in the shower there's this soft almost not there sweet smell that titilated my nose. I actually used more soap than I really should have just because I wanted to smell it REALLY strongly more than just the one soap-up. I keep smelling my hands, even now, to have the scent in my nose! I LOVE IT!!!!!! I'm so excited to try my other soap AND the all-natural deodorant I requested. Updates about my experiences are sure to follow. And, if I can afford any gifts this holiday, I'm pretty sure it will be soaps by Savonara!!! ^_^ (By the way, in case you didn't already guess, I instigated/ requested the trade and Sher was sweet and consented. Luckily for me, she's very pleased with her angel, too.)