Christmas Baskets and Another Market

We are having a beautiful wet and lazy Sunday here in the stunning Upper Murray. It is one of those days where you just want to curl up with a movie or a good book. I thought about making some more soap after I got out all the hearts and cupcakes yesterday to see how many gift baskets I could make up with them and discovering that I did not have as many as I thought but I need to ring my neighour and on farm butcher to get some more fat to render down, I am also low on olive oil, and coconut oil. The coconut oil is easy it is in the supermarket fridge. The olive oil is a bit harder as Dot has been very ill for quite a while. Thankfully she is slowly recovering. Alan has been spending a lot of time at her bedside, I think this time has been harder for him than her. Hence I have not felt like chasing up olive oil. So no soap making for me today. But Kath decided, well I decided for her, that she should make me some recycled paper baskets for our soap gift packs. I already have an order for 5 of them, so I had better get moving. I did take some photos but I am not on my computer and this laptop does not want to load them. So they will have to wait a bit.

Next weekend is the Upper Murray Farmers Market, hopefully the weather will be fine for it. And I hope we see lots of visitors to it.

Markets

November is shaping up to be a busy month. We started with the Upper Murray Farmers Market on the 7th. I love doing the farmers market, meeting new people and catching up with friends and neighbours in a relaxed atmosphere. The weather was beautiful, and of course we forgot the camera. The local photographer was there as always, but I wasn't quick enough to ask him to email me some photos. Maybe next time. We also had a stall at the Weekend of Wonders, which is an arts, music and poetry weekend at Tintaldra, Walwa and Jinjellic, which are 3 tiny towns on the Murray. It would have been a wonderful weekend if the weather had been fine, but instead it rained and the forecast was for floods, so in light of the flooding we had already had this spring lots of people decided to stay at home. Mark and I also had to take a drive to Tumbarumba one day, so while we were there I could not let the opportunity pass to visit the farm where we buy our essential oil. Mick and Karen Clifford at Rosewood essential oils grow and distill their own Lavender, Kunzea, eucalyptus and peppermint oils. I have bought oils over the internet from them and had always wanted to visit but even though they are only an hours drive away it always seems to be in the wrong direction. We were not disapointed to see their farm, it is only small but it showed us how you don't have to have a big expensive set up to make a quality product. The Tumbarumba area is beautiful and well worth a drive and I highly recommend the bakerys pepper steak pie. Hopefully next time we drive up there we will male the time to see the Mannus Dam that burst during the last flood.

So because I now have restocked my oils, I have been busy making more lavender soap, see post below, and restocking the Aussie Bush soap which I made with goats milk this time instead of cows milk, I also made a small lot of plain Kunzea soap, just to see how it would sell. I'm not sure if I will continue that line as the Kunzea is very expensive. I'm also looking for some Sandalwood oil as I have had request for it, that will be a very expensive soap. But we will see if I am game enough to spend that much money, and then charge accordingly.

 LAVENDER

Finally I have managed to buy some more lavender essential oil from Karen and Mick at Rosewood essential oils. So now I have lavender soap again.
I have enricned this with milk and almond meal, and as always it is made with Alan and Dot Evans' Snowy Mountains Organic Olive Oil. So it is beautiful and creamy, and the almond meal makes it gently exfoliating.
$4.50 per bar, $3.50 per cupcake

 

 

 Aussie Bush Soap

Beautiful creamy, soap made with Cows milk, Snowy Mountains Olive Oil, Coconut Oil, Beef Render, and scented with Kunzea, Eucalyptus and Lemon Tea Tree essential oils. Colouring is green ultra marine, and fresh eucalyptus leaves.

100g bars $4.50 ea 

Cottage Garden

Goats milk soap that smells like a walk through a spring cottage garden.

Made with Goats milk, honey, Beef Render, Snowy Mountains Olive Oil, Coconut Oil, and scented with spearmint, mandarin, clove essential oil, and rose, dewberry, peach musk fragrant oil, colouring red and green ultra marine, titanium dioxide and calundula petals.

100g bars $4.50