White Tea & Wisteria - a match made in heaven!

Hi everyone,

I made a new soap a couple of weeks ago, and have just gotten round to putting up pictures and uploading it to my folksy shop - things have been a little hectic of late! Lots of exciting things going on at work at the moment.

Anyway, here is a new one for you - slightly out of my bakery theme, but it kind of fits. White Tea & Wisteria - it's punchy, it's floral, it's got lovely delicate undertones and basey notes that make you go "aaahhh" as you smell it. It's lovely, and it's exactly what I wanted! I wanted a soap to take into a bubble bath and help me relax even more, and this bad boy definitely does the job.

My description for my folksy shop is as follows: "White Tea & Wisteria. Bathe and relax in the heady exotic and alluring floral smell of Wisteria, coupled with the fresh and delicate fragrance of White Tea. With heaps of shea butter and lovely caring oils such as castor and coconut, this soap is the perfect accompaniment to your bubble bath. And it looks pretty to boot!" I really feel like I hit the nail on the head with this soap, it's just perfect. I love the top layer of glitter as well, that was a bit of an afterthought but I'm so glad I did it - it underlines the girliness of it all just beautifully.

Anyway, enough chat - here are some pictures!

White Tea & Wisteria handmade soap

Handmade soap - a top layer of glitter

White Tea & Wisteria - layers of pink and white

The layers came out quite well considering the white part completely seized on me - like wow, seriously, it was hard to get it in the mould. I scented the white part with White Tea and the pink part with Wisteria. The pink part was actually supposed to be purple, but it morphed in the mould as it set. The glitter is purple and irridescent white which was supposed to match the layers, but I think it looks quite nice all the same.

So there you have it guys! The final cure date is the 12th June, and it's already in my Folksy Shop if you would like to buy :)

Hope your weekend is going well!

Naomi

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Strawberry Shortcake & Lemon Cheesecake Lip balms

Hi guys!

Doesn't that title sound so edible?! Were you ever one of those kids who ate their lipbalm instead of putting it on their lips? Well, you definitely will be with these! Check out my first official youtube video, where I demonstrate how to use a lipbalm base from www.bathbomb.biz.

All my ingredients:

Vegan Lip Balm Base

Lip balm tubes

Flavour oils and lip safe micas

The lip balm is light and smooth, and like my un-eloquent ramblings in the video, isn't greasy or heavy. Here are some pictures of my finished balms, without their labels etc.

Vegan lip balm - home made from a base

Strawberry Shortcake and Lemon Cheesecake Lip Balms

Homemade lip balm

So there you go! Let me know if you decide to make any, I'd love to see!

Naomi

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More bespoke wedding favours!

Hey everyone,

Thought I would do another blog about my most recent project. I was approached before Christmas and asked to design 80 wedding favours for a wedding at the end of April. The colours were green and the couple were very keen on a his/hers theme. I met with the bride and she told me what scents she liked and what colours she was interested in, I went away and took some notes and worked out what I would need to undertake the project.

In February I ordered all the ingredients in and started planning the recipes. 

Here are the final versions:

Ladies' Choice - handmade soap wedding favours

Both together

Men's Choice - handmade soap wedding favours

So the ladies' soaps are a lovely light pastel green, scented with black raspberry & vanilla with extra added vanilla to create more of a deep vanilla punch. The top is textured and coated in glitter. I added shea butter to create a softening, creamy bar.

The gent's soap is my popular Mountain soap just in half-bar sizes. The scent is fresh, masculine and lingering. It has added ground apricot stones to make it scrubby, designed to help you wake up when you get in the shower early. The recipe also has cocoa butter, which makes a harder and bubbly bar for you to soap with. (Perfect for the shower!)

I was very pleased with how these favours came out - all my batches were spot on, the colours came out exactly as I wanted, and the labels look fantastic with the bride and groom's names. I boxed them up last night, and they're being collected today for the wedding on Thursday. I really hope they look lovely on the tables, and that they match perfectly with the green colour scheme.

I think personalised wedding favours are so lovely. They make that special day so much more special because it's something you've picked and someone has helped you create, making your day exactly how you want it.

What did you have as your wedding favours? Let me know what you think of these!

Naomi

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Continuing the Bakery theme with Lemon Meringue

Hey guys!

Just thought I would share a few pictures of my latest creation - Lemon Meringue. Continuing along my Bakery theme, I bought this fragrance on a whim to see what it smelt like and it was so amazing I had to use it straight away.

See the pictures below for how it came out!

Cold process soap - In the mould

Handmade Lemon Meringue soap - just cut!

Each bar is garnished with a slice of green lemon

I love, love, love how this came out. It's got a brown biscuity base with heaps of buttery lemon on top, formed into stiff peaks which will go white as it cures. The fragrance behaved impeccably, and it smells unbelievably lemony, sweet, sugary and delicious. You just know this is a fragrance that will be long lasting on your hands, and it'll look cute on the sink to boot!

You can order this in my Folksy shop or go on my facebook page to see what else I'm up to ;) As the final cure date for this soap is the 13th May, everyone who orders a bar will get a note for how to care for your soap whilst it's curing. It's totally useable, it'll just last longer if you let it cure ;)

Happy Wednesday!

Naomi

A new promo for a new month!

Hi everyone!

Just thought I would do a quick blog about my new promotion for April. I have 9 bars of a new soap I made, Green Tea, up for grabs. So whenever anyone buys a cupcake soap from my Folksy shop in the month of April, you will also receive a free bar of Green Tea! How awesome is that!

Green Tea handmade soap with soap cupcake

It's a lovely zinger of a scent, perfect to freshen up your hands or to take into the shower. It's lemony, fresh and tangy, but with lovely base notes that make it perfect to bathe with for a lingering smell. Like all my soaps it's packed with shea butter, and will leave your hands and body silky smooth.

Obviously as there are only 9 bars, this promotion is stock dependent.

See my video on my facebook page

Be sure to check out my Folksy shop to make your purchase!

Have a great weekend,

Naomi

Vanilla Spiced Latte soap

Hi everyone!

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. I've decided to focus a little more on bars of soap instead of cupcakes, and have created a bakery/cafe themed range. This is the first addition to my new range - a Vanilla Spiced Latte! Check out the pictures below.

Vanilla Spiced Latte handmade soap just poured in the mould

This is the soap just poured in the mould. I marked out on my mould where each bar would probably get cut, and positioned cinnamon sticks so when cut, each bar should have a lovely wafer. I was crossing my fingers a bit with this one, and was quite pleased with how it came out ...

A perfect soapy latte! Vanilla Spiced Latte

Handmade cold process soap - Vanilla Spiced Latte

I'm so pleased with how this one turned out, it looks exactly how I wanted it to. A lovely dark base with a fluffy white top - the perfect latte! When it was first cut, the lower brown part was not as dark, but due to the vanilla fragrance, it turned darker as soon as I started cutting it. For those of you who don't know - vanilla tends to darken soap, but as I wanted a nice brown colour, it worked quite well!

I stuck to my tried and true recipe of coconut oil, palm oil, olive oil and castor oil, but it's got a good hunk of unrefined cocoa butter in it as well, making it super good for your skin. I love using unrefined cocoa butter in soap; the entire time you're melting it, your kitchen smells like chocolate! Win!

The smell consists of a lovely buttery vanilla, with hints of ginger spice and a lovely mocha base. It smells divine, I can't wait till it cures! I will be putting this in my Folksy Shop even though it still has three weeks left to cure. Any orders placed before the 30th March (final cure date) will be shipped out after it's cured. This little beauty is sure to be worth the wait!

Happy Saturday!

Naomi

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Great Friends and Great Magazines

Hi everyone!

I've had a great week so far, and I've not written a blog in a few days and whilst I have a few ideas brewing - this theme couldn't wait! This week I have been featured in a blog and a magazine!

First things first! On Sunday all three flavours of my soap cupcakes were featured in a fabulous blog  by a very good childhood friend of mine! Liz always had a good eye for things, and her eye for all things awesome has grown only more so as she's grown up, so I feel very lucky and very blessed to be featured in her blog! You should definitely check it out, she took some lovely pictures - (and we all know I'm a sucker for a bit of soap eye candy!) Thank you Liz!

Secondly, I was contacted a few weeks ago by iPad magazine Gathered by Mollie Makes for pictures of my lavender cupcakes. To be contacted by a handmade magazine is unbelievable, and I literally squeeled for joy when I read their email. I sent them some high res images, and voila! Issue 18 of Gathered by Mollie Makes was sent out on Monday and here we are!

Gathered by Mollie Makes feature

How amazing is that! I'm so pleased the picture came out alright and that it works in the magazine. It was a feature on soap, and to be featured alongside such other beautiful things is amazing! Here's the front cover of the magazine if any of you spot it on your iPads:

Gathered by Mollie Makes Issue 18

Issue 18 is out now and on sale for a bargain of £1.48!! Grab yours now to get some awesome patterns and endless ideas for hours of afternoon craftyness! I can't wait to make this part of my feature for the craft fair in Chester on Saturday!

Have you ever read an issue of Mollie Makes? I think I might have to subscribe!

Happy soaping!

Naomi

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A beautiful bargain of a cupcake stand!

Hi everyone!

Like many of you (I'm guessing!), I love a good bargain. And I especially love to pose my soap cupcakes on fun cupcake stands. As I have a craft fair coming up soon - 23rd February at Upton Village Hall in Chester - I need a few new stands to make my table more interesting.

I went to Wilkinsons last night after work just for a wander as they sometimes have some things I like on the cheap (makeup, shampoo etc), and came across a wonderful cupcake themed aisle! It was right up my street! So I came away with this fabulous cupcake stand for a bargain of £5 - and it's heart shaped. It looks lovely on my table next to my other stand!

Heart shaped cupcake stand

(Sorry for the shoddy lighting folks!) There's lots of room for all my cupcakes, so my latest batches are curing away happily on it. The two tiers are heart shaped, so it's nice and different from my round stand, and the levels are slightly higher too so if I put my cupcakes in their little boxes, they won't get squished. Perfect or what!

Have you discovered the cupcake aisle in Wilkinsons? What did you buy?

Hope you're having a great week!

Naomi

Apple & Tree are one year old!

Hi everyone!

On the 10th February, Apple & Tree will officially be one year old! How exciting! It's really quite amazing to think how far it's come in a year.

So to celebrate, and to spread some birthday cheer, I'm having a bit of a give away.

One lucky winner will win 4 soap cupcakes - 1 x Sherbet Lemon, 1 x Lavender Dream, 1 x Peppermint Kiss and 1 x Limited Edition Dark Valentine. You can view all of these in my Folksy shop.

All you have to do it 'like' and share the related post on my Facebook page to automatically be entered into the draw. I will assign all participants a number and draw a number randomly from a generator at 6pm on 10th February (next Sunday)

The only terms and conditions I have are that all participants must be in the UK. If the winner is not in the UK, I'll have to draw again till I get someone UK based - sorry!

So there you go! Enjoy!

I might have to treat myself to a real cupcake! Happy Birthday Apple & Tree!

Have a great week,

Naomi

Lavender Dream Soap Cupcakes

Hi everyone!

Hope you all had a good weekend. I put a new product in my shop over the weekend, and thought I'd do a blog on them. I love a good excuse for a bit of soap eye candy!

A lady I know asked me to make her some purple cupcakes to match her purple theme in her house. I didn't have a purple colourant at the time, and had to wait to get some stocks in, but she was very patient with me and after playing around with pink and blue colours, I managed to make a lovely purple for the soap frosting.

Handmade soap cupcake

Handmade cold process soap

Handmade soap cupcake with lavender

Handmade soap

It piped wonderfully well, and as I was hunting through my soap drawers to find my sprinkles, I realised some heather flowers might look really pretty. So I tried it on one cupcake first, (after a good sprinkling of glitter) and it looked so good, I did it to them all!

The above pictures are about a week after I made them, all in their packaging so you can all see how they come. I've added the product to my Folksy Shop - and because I got such good feedback from the lady who ordered them, and from everyone else who saw them, I'll be making them a permanent feature in my soap cupcake range!

So there you go folks!

Have a lovely week,

Naomi

Gotta love free business cards!

Hi everyone!

Just thought I'd do a quick blog about my new business cards that arrived today.

Business cards from Moo - front and back

Moo are a company who make business cards, labels, stickers and all sorts of lovely little signage things for your business. I've wanted some business cards for a while, but when I signed up to Folksy, I was offered 50 business cards for free via Moo. All I had to do was pay for postage! Couldn't say no to that one, haha.

I found the styles of the business card to choose from were fairly free-ranging and gave you lots of options. The only thing I found quite annoying was that I couldn't change text that was on the card. So all I have on there is my website, but I'm pretty sure people can work the rest out from there if they visit it. As well as this, there's a nice big 'F' on my card which promotes Folksy, but I guess they're technically paying for it!

I ordered them Sunday and I got a 'your order has been dispatched' email on Tuesday, and they arrived today (Thursday), which is pretty cool.

All in all, I'd buy from Moo again, and I've got a hunch that if I was a paying customer I'd be able to alter my card a bit more and add text i.e. my email etc. But for 50 cards for about £3 for postage, I think they're pretty good! And I had mine printed on "green" paper which means they're nice and environment friendly (never a bad thing) and recyclable :)

I think I'll be slipping them into orders for when people order things, so be on the lookout for them when you order something from my shop!

Have you ever ordered business cards before? If so, where did you get yours?

Hope you're looking forward to the weekend as much as I am!

Naomi

Soap Cupcakes & New Blog look!

Hi everyone!

It's been a while since I've written a blog, I do apologise! It's not that I haven't wanted to, I've just been re-vamping my company a little bit. It's got a fresh new look courtesy of James who did a fantastic job listening to me and helping my brand look exactly the way I wanted it to. Thanks James!

December was quite a busy month for me, as I'm sure it was for all of you as well! One evening I made three batches of cupcakes one after the other. I went to bed pretty knackered I must say! But it was all worth it, because I've perfected my cupcake recipes now, and they look like this:

Lemon Sherbet Soap Cupcakes

Cold Process Soap Cupcakes

Soap Cupcake Closeup

My cupcakes are all made from scratch using the cold process soap method, and not with any nasty melt & pour soap bases. (blech!) I worked really hard to perfect the recipe and I think I've got it down now. It took me around 3 months of practising to get it right, and I finally got it in December. I also found some great jojoba wax sprinkles and cosmetic glitter to complete the look. So now they're ready for everyone, you can find them in my Folksy shop if any of you are interested!

 I wanted to make them because cupcakes are so fun to make anyway, but after a couple of days - they're gone! Cupcakes are such good eye candy as well, it's the kind of thing you want to eat, but don't want to at the same time. So these lovely soap cupcakes are a great way to have all the eye candy you want, and none of the calories! Plus, when you do come to use it, it'll make your hands super soft because I've added a big hunk of shea butter into the mix ;)

So there you have it! I promise to write more blogs on what I'm up to, and now everything is sorted brand wise, it'll be way easier.

Happy new year! (sorry it's so late!)

Naomi