Stay safe Soapy Friends!

To all my soapy friends who like to put their milk soaps in the snow:)I hope you are all OK over there. I saw on the news last night a shopping centre roof collapsing under the weight. Boy, are we all having dreadful weather lately. Thinking of you and hope you are safe.

Stay safe!

Well we are in Mackay and the winds are picking up now from the monster cyclone Yasi that is breathing down our necks, I hate to think how strong they are up further north.

To our family, friends, customers and readers who are in Townsville, Cairns and surrounds, my thoughts and prayers are with you. Please take care and stay safe!

Christmas Blessings to you all!

Well the end of the year is almost here and Christmas is nearly upon us. I wanted to thank my customers who have supported me during the year, because without you I wouldn't be able to keep selling my soaps:)

Thank you to those of you who take the time to read and very kindly leave much appreciated comments and lastly thank you to my soap making friends that I've made over the past year, your support, kindness, advice and friendship have meant a great deal to me, thank you so much.

May you all have a magical Christmas and a safe and prosperous New Year!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Angel Award to.......

I’ve been given a Angel Award by Maggie at Between Friends and I am truly touched and honoured, thank you so much Maggie, I really appreciate it.

I’d like to pass this angel award on to some soapers that have touched me with their words and encouragement and also because I love their blogs.

It's very hard to narrow it down to just a few and Maggie has already mentioned some well deserving blogs that I would have mentioned.

I'd like to give one to Becky from Soap Sister, I just love her blog and she really is an angel, well not literally but you know what I mean:) Ambra from Nakin blog and Anne-Marie the Soap Queen.

Long overdue!

I must apologize for being away from my blog for so long, BUT I've been really busy and had a lot going on, thank you so much to the lovely ladies enquiring if I was OK, you don't know how much it means to me knowing that I've actually been missed:)

I've been away on holidays to beautiful Port Macquarie and had a totally relaxing time while my hubby was out playing his beloved golf. Here's a view from our unit.

I've done a couple of soap swaps with some very lovely ladies from way over the other side of the ocean, I'm still waiting on one and can't wait till the parcel arrives, it's so exciting!! thank you ladies, I'll be sharing a bit more about these in the coming weeks:)
I've been making a few new soaps, here's one of them, not too bad if I must say so:)
and bringing back some old ones. Cedarwood and Spice is now back in stock for the people who have been chasing it:) Sorry the photo isn't great, I think I need some lessions from Jen!

I'll try not to leave it so long next time, I sure have a lot of catching up to do:)

Olive Oil Butter

Butter versus Margarine. What is better for us health wise, butter or margarine? It depends on who you listen to.

We are told butter is bad for us because it’s high in saturated fat and margarine is bad for us because of the trans fats they contain. Talk about confusing, who do we believe?

I think it really is a personal choice. I prefer butter myself, because it's a natural product. Margarine is manufactured and contains not only trans fats, which seem to be in just about everything we buy these days, but other undesirable ingredients as well.

A tub of margarine contains vegetable oils, emulsifiers, preservatives, food acid, flavour and colour.

A pack of butter contains cream, water and salt.

No comparison in my opinion. Natural has to be better compared to a man made product. As long as you don’t overdo the butter of course.

Now we all know how good Olive Oil is for us, not only for our skin, which is why I use lots of it in my handmade natural soaps, but it is wonderful for our inner health as well.

I like to make my own Olive Oil Butter as an alternative to our normal Butter and it’s very simple to make.

Find yourself a nice container that you’d like to use and measure how much it holds. For a 500 gram container you'll need:

250gram pure butter
250gram of light olive oil

You could use Extra Virgin Olive oil if you wish, but I find it makes the spread too strong tasting, but that’s just my taste, you might prefer that. You could even add some herbs if you’d like.

Melt your butter then add the olive oil. Place in fridge and stir every 30 minutes so that it blends well together. If you forget to stir, it could separate.

That’s it, an even healthier alternative to pure natural butter, it tastes great and it spreads well straight out of the fridge.

Cyclone Ului

Well, I've just been though my first cyclone, a category 3 and very scary, so I'd hate to think what a category 4 would be like.

I'm so sorry to everyone I wasn't able to respond to, but we've only just got our power back after 3 days, so please be patient and I'll answer everyone as soon as I can.

I've had to throw out all the things from my fridge and freezer that didn't quite make it, what a horrible job that was! I also found it very upsetting having to throw away food when so many people go without it every day.

But, we're all safe and only suffered minor damage and God willing I won't have to go through another one ever again.

First Sunday Club

You might remember last month I mentioned the First Sunday Club. This is where Rebecca Sparrow from the Sunday Mail names a cause that could really do with our help, all we have to do is donate a little $10 once a month.

This month the cause is Street Swags. Brisbane school teacher Jean Madden is on a one-woman crusade to help some of Australia's homeless.

I find it really sad that Australia has homeless people, but there are at least 100,000 Australians sleeping on the streets every night. So if you can spare just $10 to help this great cause, you can donate here. Come on everyone, $10 once a month, most of us can afford that, donate now and you could be helping someone else sleep a little easier tonight.

Happy New Year!

I just wanted to wish you all a very happy and prosperous New Year. Sadly, I know this will not be the case for everyone.

I’ve been reading the post by Rebecca Sparrow in today’s Sunday Mail and she’s put forward a brilliant idea. On the first Sunday of every month she is going to nominate a very worthy cause and ask everyone to donate $10 to it.

It could be global one month and local the next, but once a month she is asking you to find just $10 and give it to an organisation to help them make a difference.

Most of us can afford $10 a month, it’s a small amount but if enough people do it, it can make a real difference and even change someone’s life. This month she has nominated www.onethousand.org and you can read more about it in today’s Sunday Mail.

So come on everyone let’s change someone’s future today, I think it’s a great idea and I for one will gladly participate. I encourage everyone else who can afford $10 a month, to follow suit as well.

Thank you Rebecca for inviting us all to be a part of your venture, if we all join together and help, imagine how many life’s we can change today.

OK, I’m off right now to donate mine, how about you?

Christmas Gifts

Looking for pressies for Christmas?

What better way to pamper someone you love than with handmade luxury soaps?

Pure and Natural AromaBeauty offers you 100% pure and natural soaps that are lovingly made with pure olive oil and enriched with other nourishing oils, such as Shea, Cocoa, Avocado and Mango Butters plus Apricot Kernel, Rice Bran, Sweet Almond, Avocado and Hempseed oils.

You can be confident when you buy our soaps that you are getting the very best of ingredients, we use top quality aromatherapy essential oils to fragrance our soaps, no synthetic fragrance oils will ever find their way into our soap bars.

Our handmade soaps are extremely gentle and soothing with a luxurious lather that will leave your skin feeling not only clean but soft and silky as well.

Don’t want any beautiful soap? Well, how about some beautiful jewellery to treat your Mum, Sister or whoever else might be lucky enough to receive some. Check out Annette Piper Jewellery and Rocks Revealed if you’d like something a bit different to what you find in every other jewellery shop in town.

Annette very kindly gave me some of her beautiful jewellery to put in my Goodie bags, free for all soap orders over $50.

Have no idea at all? Just about ready to give up? I have the perfect lady to solve your problem. The lovely Miss Kirsty from Hamperific, you can go to her for any problem at all, well, to do with gift giving:) and she will come up with some really great suggestions to help you buy for someone really special or for someone who has everything.

Looking for a cute nappy for your little bundle of joy for their 1st special Christmas? Have a look at Widdle Wuns for some really cute ones. Now I can’t promise that you’ll find any left in stock because this lovely lady sells out as soon as she makes them. (she’s also my very talented Daughter, hi Darl! xxx)

Now, after all that shopping you really do deserve a nice cup of tea or coffee and be able to relax and have a great read. Check out the beautiful lady from Beautiful You for some great thought inspiring articles or more great reading from some other very talented ladies at Cherry Magazine and Her Business Life.

So ladies, if you'd like some top class service or some top class reading you can go to any one of these sites and be assured of received it.

Why not start your Christmas shopping right now, in the comfort of your own home?

Upset? you bet!

Don't you just hate it when people steal your work?

Is it only a coincidence when a competitor starts using the exact same wording on their website? I’ve heard that you should feel flattered when people want to copy you, but I don’t.

I've been making and selling my soaps for nearly 4 years now and my website has been up and running for 1 and 1/2 years and now I find another soap maker is using the exact same wording on their website, couldn't they have changed the wording a bit?

I know we are all fighting to get a little share of business, but there are a lot of people out there and surely there is enough for all of us without taking someone else’s work.

There are thousands of soap makers out there, all doing their own thing and getting on really well together and why not? We all share the same love of soap making; we share ideas and learn from each other. But why is it necessary for some people to blatantly use exactly the same wording that someone else has taken hours to get just right?

There are so many different types of soap available, some all natural, some not, some who use mainly olive oil, some who use mainly palm or coconut, some use essential oils, some use synthetic fragrances, some use melt and pour, some use glycerine, some budget, some luxury, some make big soaps and some make small.

The point is, there is a place for all of these different handmade soaps because there are so many people out there who all like different things (and thank goodness, the world would be a boring place if we all liked the same things). Different people like different products and have different budgets!

OK, now I've had my say and as you can probably guess, there has been a few things happening to lead up to this, what do they say about the straw that broke the camel's back?

Everyone is welcome to my ideas to fuel new ideas of their own, you are welcome to my words to give you inspiration for your own, but please don’t just copy mine because it took me so darn long to think of them myself:)

But wait, there's more!

Remember the baby guinea pigs we bought for my son's birthday only 2 short months ago? Well, one of our baby guinea pigs just had a baby guinea pig:)

A few weeks ago my son mentioned to me that one of his guinea pigs was getting fat and after a closer inspection I said jokingly “she looks pregnant to me”.

Now come on! you wouldn’t think that a baby guinea pig could get pregnant; I mean she’s only a couple of months old and living in a “all girls” apartment.

We were very careful (or so I thought) that we bought only little girls and they were all babies, two were 4 weeks old (I know, too young to be away from their Mum, but their Mum had died, so we sort of rescued them) the oldest was only 6 weeks. old, so no way she could get pregnant, right! 3 guinea pigs are enough, no really, we don't want any more!

I spent the next hour on Google trying to find a few answers and to see what the heck was going on and guess what? baby guinea pigs can fall pregnant at 4 weeks old. I'll repeat that, 4 weeks old.

Even more bad news followed, there is a big risk of death when they fall pregnant at a young age because of the size of the babies when they are born and they can have up to 8, of come on! she's only a baby!

So it seems one of our little girls was a bit more experienced in that department than we thought and it turns out she must have left a boyfriend behind somewhere when we bought her, oh dear!

Just thought I’d share some photos of our new beautiful baby guinea pig, hoo ray! only 1, yes only 1, and Mum and baby are doing well.

That's Mum in the middle and our little Shadow, yep, that's what my Son named her, here she is only 1 day old and soooo big, now all I can hope for is that our new baby girl IS A GIRL, Please! Please! Please!

How busy are you?

I was reading “The Word for Today” this morning and could really relate to the following article, so I thought I’d pass it on.

"When you’re constantly multi-tasking, important things can fall between the cracks. A lawyer who negotiated an unbelievable deal in favour of his client was asked how he did it. He replied, ‘I was the only person at the meeting that day who didn’t spend the whole time text messaging!’

A respected researcher says we’ve trained our brains ‘to constantly flit around the universe of messages and information, seeking brief hits of excitement. Grazing ceaselessly, we never dig too deeply before moving on to the next distraction... and it ratchets up our stress levels in ways we’re only starting to understand.’

Another expert says: ‘We get more information in 72 hours than our parents received in a month, and most people don’t have the skills to deal with it. They let new things in, but don’t red rid of old information they wanted to act on.’

When was the last time you enjoyed some relaxed, uninterrupted down time? Can you even remember? We’re so results-oriented that unless we’re doing something that can be quantified, we think it’s a waste of time. The fact is you need time away from the unrelenting onslaught of information to regroup, reflect and recharge. Jesus had a schedule to keep, people to minister to, disciples depending on Him, and a short time to do it all. Nevertheless, ‘He withdrew...into the wilderness, and prayed’ Jesus said, ’Come...apart...and rest a while’, because when you don’t come apart, you fall apart!"

The falling apart bit really grabbed my attention. It makes you think about how our lives have changed over the past 10 years or so. We are so much busier now and our computers and mobiles have for some people taken over our lives. I know I’m guilty of spending too much time on the computer. Just checking and answering emails seems to take forever, or I think I’ll just quickly do a bit of research and before I know a couple of hours have vanished, is there such a thing as 'computer time'?

No wonder we have so much stress, if we could just learn to take a step back and put some quite time in our daily schedule we’d all be a lot less stressed and a lot more happier. Now all I have to do is figure out how to do it! Yoga anyone?

Handmade soap giveaway

I just wanted to remind everyone there's less than one week to go before we give away some free organic soaps. So if you had intended to have a go, now's the time to do it before it's too late.

Now I know you're probably thinking, what the heck has these baby guinea pigs have to do with handmade soap!

Sorry, but they are new additions to my family. It's one of my son's birthday today and these little cuties were what he wanted for his present. I just wanted to share them with you because they are soooo cute. My son's a bit of a cutie too but he didn't want to make an appearance:o)

Would you like some FREE Organic Soaps?

First of all happy 1st July to everyone!

Now, down to business. I’d like to show you a photo of my Bath Bombs I made to sell at a previous market. I hadn’t made them before so I was quite proud of them really :o) I thought they looked pretty good and they smelt just beautiful.

It was quite sad really, not one of them sold (well, only one to one of my friends, so that didn’t count :o)). Now, I don’t know why they didn’t sell. Was it because:

• They are not pretty enough.
• Are people just plain over the cup cake thing? (that was one comment I overhead a lady say to her friend)
• Don’t people like bath bombs anymore?
• Are they the wrong price? (I was charging $6.00 for unwrapped and $6.50 for gift wrapped)

I’d really like to know! And I’d love to hear your comments!

I’m offering 2 FREE bars of my beautiful, well in my opinion ;o) Handmade All Natural Soaps to give away to whoever can come up with the best explanation for my Bath Bombs not selling.

I’m going to give you a whole month to get your thinking caps on and I’ll let you know who had the best explanation and wins the 2 FREE bars of Organic Soap on the 1st August, 2009.

So tell all your friends everyone! Happy thinking!

National Day of Thanksgiving

Today is National Day of Thanksgiving, so I just wanted to put a few things I'm thankful for in writing.

I’m thankful firstly for my family and our health and everything I’ve been given, as I’m sure everyone else is. I’m also thankful for a little magazine called "The Word for Today" that I start my day with most mornings.

The Word for Today is an Australian booklet that gives short daily bible-based guidance and encouragement, that I have found has helped me on many an occasion.

There is just so many times that I have read the word for that day when I feel that it has been written just for me with the help I need just at that particular time. If you're looking for a bit of inspiration or help at the moment it's a great place to have a look.

It is put out by UCB which also runs the Christian Vision Radio Network and is written by Bob and Debby Gass who are fantastic at the inspiration they put into everyday words that we all can understand. Thanks guys!