Allyson's Soapmakers blog (and other things)

22nd May 2008 We are now back in stock in Pebbles Art Cafe in Allendale, if you have not been there before you must go there to sample the wonderful coffee and the famous "dangerous" cakes, I've been there to re-stock  today, I had some carrot cake and a latte. It's more than just a great cafe, it has a lovely gallery upstairs and the work of 15 crafts people downstairs. Pebbles Gallery and its artists are Winners of the "North East Business Awards, cultural and creative business 2008"

 

1st May 2008 I've just come back from the select@bath trade fair and I must say it was a great success, I picked up seven wonderful new shops  all over the south West and one in London, check the stockists page for details. Plenty of wine was consumed in good company during the evenings and I fell in love with Bath all over again, what an amazing place.   Here's what I look like at a trade fair

26th April 2008 Spring has eventually sprung and the new lambs are looking cute,

 22nd April 2008 I've just finished updating the online shop, I've reduced the size of the soap bars to 100g and reduced the prices accordingly. I'm also wrapping them now, as I'm selling the range wholesale they need to have the ingredients on them to comply with EU law.

I'm sorry I'm out of Cinnabar for the next few weeks, I made some last week but in an act of fantastic clumsiness I dropped the lot, Can you imagine how much mess 8KG of barely set soap makes yeeeuuukkk!!! I've not been so cross since I dropped my cordless phone into a batch of soap I was stirring...still my workshop floor is very clean now :o)))

Incidently I've just had my whole range assessed (again) for safety by a cosmetic chemist, I'd made some little changes to the recipes so it had to be done...did you know it is illegal to sell soap and toiletries unless you do it? Needless to say I passed with flying colours, didn't have to modify anything at all.

 20th April 2008 It's a long time since I had time to blog, I've been busy making soap for Thompson Holidays new 5* resort on Crete, I'm very proud to have been chosen for such a prestigious project, the soap will be available in the world class spa and the resorts shop, take a look here Sensatori Crete there will also be an online shop later in the year.

22nd January 2008 View out of the window this morning, brrrrr!

21st January 2008  It was a lovely day on Saturday so we decided to chop wood for the Rayburn, we are trying to keep it going using only recycled biomass, as you know we get pallets and use the fallen wood from the wood around the house,  it's really hard work but so rewarding when you see that stack of wood all ready to use.  I drive my partner nuts by insisting it is stacked according to size...makes perfect sense to me! 

18 January 2008 I'm a little tired this morning, I stayed up to watch the led Zeppelin film "The song remains the same" that really flags me up as an old hippy at heart doesn't it? It's my daughter's 14th birthday today so I should be baking a cake but as I'm really busy with trade orders I'll be popping to the Haltwhistle co-op to buy her one, I love the co-op, who else would provide supermarkets in small country places so we don't all have to drive for half an hour into town for groceries (shafting our carbon footprint in the process) that's worth supporting even if they are not as cheap as Tesco.

 16th January 2008 In my relentless quest to live a more frugal lifestyle and not be so wasteful I decided to have a go with a paper log maker, I bought one from ebay at a reasonable price, my partner brings home old pallets from work to cut up for the Rayburn, this generates a lot of sawdust, in fact dustbins full!!!  We thought we should do something with it so we now add it to paper mache to make into logs for the fire.

15th January I've been asked to be a judge in a crafting competition, I'll be sharing the honors with Denice Purdie who is a Scottish soapmaker, it involves testing out lots of soaps made by other soapmakers...what a chore...NOT! I've been battling away with Vista and the home hub this evening, managed to get some changes made I hope you like them.

10th January 2008 Gosh! It's been hard to get back to work after the Christmas holidays, I hope you all had a wonderful festive season and are looking forward to the new year. I got a new laptop from my partner Derek, it is very chic and shiny but has Vista, the internet speeds are very slow and I'm having trouble accessing my email and uploading changes to this site, ho hum!

12th December 2007 I thought I should add something to this page, I've not had much time to blog recently with the Christmas rush and all. I'm just about to make a batch of my favourite moisturiser, I've bitten the bullet...had a chat with my bank manager and bought some Rose absolute essential oil, I just love the smell, it is utterly intoxicating, so first thing tomorrow morning I will be making my "Rose Absolute" cream, it is heaven in a jar, watch the shop for it's appearance. Stop press... Took the cream to Oxford for the "Big Green Market" and it sold out in four hours...yeeeah, Must make some more!!!!