TheBanyanTree: Just call me Bubbles

[NancyIee at aol.com]

Someone put the idea in our minds that we might try making soap. I think it 
might have been an ad in the paper from one of the hobby/craft stores. They 
offered soapmaking  kits at a reduced price. My roommate went out to buy one. It 
came with a block of plain soap, the size of a paving brick, a couple of small 
vials of color, one of perfume, and a plastic mold. All you have to do is 
melt the soap (the instructions said it could be done in the microwave), add a 
bit of color and scent, pour the liquid into the molds, and wait until it 
firmed. Easy. It took us only a few minutes to make a tray of nice "seashell" soaps.

The very same day we embarked on this little adventure, one of us decided it 
might be a good thing to rent a booth at an upcoming local festival.

We both realized that one block of soap and vials of color and scent were not 
going to be enough. We got online and ordered BIG blocks of various soap, 
more molds, more color, more scent. Then we set about making more soap.

The festival is this coming weekend, and we are frantic to make enough to 
have a good variety, We also try some new designs and color combinations, some 
successful, some coming out looking like mud. Our kitchen counter is piled high 
with soaps, the floor becoming a hazard with cartons of labeled soap ready for 
the festival. The house smells like a fragrance factory, and, for once, we 
don't smell dog or the cockatoo cage.

It's a true adventure.

"It's fun," my housemate said, after making a tray of soaps in the shape of 
roses. It's eleven o'clock at night, and we're still melting, pouring, tinting, 
 labeling, packing soaps for the festival. I'll let you know if it's fun 
after this weekend.


NancyLee