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I forgot to do the traditional birthday photo, so this is 52 + 1 day, no make-up, no filter (unless ‘studio light’ counts as a filter…?). People asked if I had a good birthday — I did, in the end, but to be honest, I woke up in a pretty mopey mood. It wasn’t about

As the kids get older and are off with their friends a lot of the time, Kevin and I are starting to think about how we’ll be spending our free time. It’s a little tricky, because ADHD me likes doing all sorts of things, with plenty of novelty, and Kevin…well, Kevin doesn’t have ADHD. So

Just some random moments from the last few days. Evening in the writing shed — the tempo of my days has shifted, with me mostly working in the morning and evening, and taking a few hours of rest time in the afternoon. Feels appropriate for summer. I am very not good at resting, but I’ve

The color may change a bit more when it’s done curing in a month, so this may not be the final photo. We’ll see! But right now, the faded tones remind me of autumn, so I’m tentatively calling it Autumn Rosehip Soap, which is an appropriate time for rosehips anyway. Will have 9 bars available

Got to un-mold the third cold-press soap experiment today — it’s fascinating how much the color lightened up in two days of curing. It was a light chocolate pudding brown when I poured it into the mold. We’ll see what it looks like when it’s done curing in 4 weeks…

Last cold-press soap experiment for a bit, I think — it’s feeling like time to switch to other projects for the summer. But experiment #4 was just fascinating — you take silk threads, and when you put them in water and add lye, the heat of the chemical reaction dissolves the threads. According to the

3 of 3. Last step is the fun part — decorating the new rosehip soap. Rose petals stirred in, rosebuds and pink Himalayan salt on the top. Next is the really hard part, though — waiting 48 hours before trying to unmold it!

2 of 3. I’m getting the hang of the whole ‘trace’ thing, which is nice — it was a little confusing at first, but it actually is just like when you’re trying to get your royal icing to the right consistency for outlining versus flooding. Not that you should eat the soap. Don’t eat the

1 of 3. I’m definitely still feeling my way with the cold process soap. Experiment #3 is a rosehip soap — it starts with making a rosehip tea, and mine came out quite a bit darker than the one in the recipe. Which affected things later on, but I don’t think it’s really a problem?