Yeeha! My supplies have all finally arrived. Well, almost. I'm still awaiting some essential oils, but I can get into making and creating again now the Christmas rush is over. It seems the suppliers have been busy too with the wait for deliveries. A few substitutions - I'm going for the natural look with the Fish Bar soap - yellow and orange goldfish not red, blue and green. Pretty.

My next big task is to work out exactly which fairs I want to attend. I should be at the Pennine Fairs at Sywell, and possibly one in Oxford and one in Cambridge, but I am sorely tempted by a couple of Folk Festivals. Should I? I can't find anyone who has ever had a stall at a Folk Festival so have no-one to ask. Will people really buy soap if they're there to listen to music? It's not like it's see the band, buy the t-shirt. You can't really wear a soap as an identity thing. Think I'll have to enquire more.

It's been a funny Christmas season. Busy too. The rush is now over and I'm picking up the slack with new ideas and waiting for new supplies to arrive. I'm still not happy with the skull and crossbones soap. I want to do 4 different colours and therefore 4 different smells. Red is Jellybean, which I think works well, Blue is Ocean scented, again, it works. But I want to do a Green one and a Black one. The green has had a number of varities so far, but none are quite right. Do I go fruity? It sells with the the male of the species, so an apple scented one? I don't think so. I think I'm erring on a lime/lemon citrus mix. As for the Black one - my current thinking is a hemp/patchouli mix. Liquorice would be perfect but I don't think people would be willing to smell like an allsort on the way to work. Blackberry - too girly. Spicy? Call it Black Tar scented and see?

Inventory this week and then start producing again. That's the whole best bit - seeing the recipes come to life.

Hope you all had a great Christmas and Best Wishes for the coming year.

One thing about this business, I'm learning new things all the time. Currently my challenge is building this website, and I'm also taking a photomanipulation course at the moment so hopefully my photos will very much improve over the next few months. I'm also learning that selling soap is not about having fun and making soap. It's about paying your money to get your recipes safety assessed. It's about completing the mountains of paperwork to comply with the safety assessment. The records you keep for monitoring etc etc The soap actually is very low down on the list on the business side. But, the soap is the fun bit :-D I have so many new recipes and smells that it's wonderful - and one thing always my husband likes the soap making because the house always smells gorgeous when I'm in experiment phase!

Blogs - not really needed but I can spout forth my nonsense here so at least you'll know what's going on. The site has not been abandoned - honest. I've been really busy, making and wrapping, posting and paperwork and this shop gets the last of my attention. The paperwork in particular is bad at present. So many new recipes and so much paper to complete before it's legal to sell!

Anyway, I'm progressing and also going to a photomanipulation class every week so soon there may be some half way decent photos too.