*New* $5 Christmas Item

Stocking

$5.00

Have someone you want to give a little something to for Christmas?  How about teacher gifts, something for the mailman, Sunday school teachers deserve gifts, co-workers, kids friends... This is a great "little gift" worth giving.

Inside this stocking I have stuffed one bath bomb and one gift sized soap.  The stockings measure about 7 inches high by 4 inches wide.  The front of the stocking may be different than shown in photo, have gingerbread, snowman, santa, reindeer, candycanes...and many more.  I will package with soap scents I have available in the gift size and bath bombs that compliment soap.

Shipping available and request that large quantities be made a week in advance of needing them.

Cyber Monday Sale

I have decided to give Cyber Monday a whirl and have an online sale beginning now through Monday December 1st ONLY.

Today with a $25 purchase you will receive 

FREE SHIPPING.

All soaps are $5 each.  Scents available are as follows:

Lavender

Green Tea

Ocean Getaway

Doc P.E.B.

Eucalyptus Lavender

Bare Naked (Unscented)

Milk, Honey & Oats (Unscented)

Lemon Poppyseed

Black Raspberry Vanilla

Chocolate Latte

Sandalwood, Rose & Patchouli

2 oz Bath Bombs are $1.50 each or 4/$5.  Scents available are as follows:

Sandalwood Rose

Bubblegum

Wintergreen

These scents available for pre-order ready by December 6th. 

Lavender Vanilla

Black Raspberry Vanilla

Lavender

Rose

Orange Cinnamon

Ocean

Coconut

Tea Tree Oil

Wild Passion

French Lavender Sachets are $1 each. Sachet contains 2 tablespoons of dried herbs and have several uses including room/drawer/car freshener, put into dryer to create a nice lavender scent on clothing, dip into bath water to create a calming bathtime, sprinkle on floor and vacuum up to make each cleaning experience refreshing, or tuck away in pillow case to help calm down for sleeping.  One customer even tied sachet to dog collar to relieve anxiety.  

Please make order by emailing soapsudstacy@gmail.com, by Liking me on Facebook and shooting me a message or by calling 814-299-6804.  I have a PayPal account set up to accept all forms of payments which I will share with you after I receive your order.

I look forward to giving your skin the 

"real soap" experience.  

All of my soaps contain the following ingredients:  Saponified Palm Oil, Coconut Oil, Olive Oil, Shea Butter, Water, Mica for coloring and either Essential Oils or Fragrance Oils for luxurious scents.

My bath bombs contain baking soda, citric acid, witch hazel, cornstarch, sunflower and olive oil.  After use your tub my be slippery so use caution when getting out of tub.

You can also click here for a photos of my soaps and click here for photos of my bath bombs.  Any questions are welcome and no question is a dumb question.

Lemon Poppyseed

Today let's talk fresh lemon scented soap. Oh if you like lemon this one smells terrific.  I was eating a lemon poppyseed muffin one day and thought "Hey I'm going to make some soap!".  My first batch sold out super fast so my second is sure to follow suit.

This bar is scented with Lemon fragrance oil, colored with a cosmetic vibrant yellow mica, sprinkled with some activated charcoal and topped with poppy seeds for some added exfoliation.

Soap is available locally at Kreative Kreations located at 17 North Brady Street Downtown DuBois.  If your not local but would like to get ahold of some lemon soap I am happy to ship some out at the actual shipping costs.

I do hand cut each and every bar of soap that I sell, there is variation in exact size but all soaps are at least 4.5 oz.  The price per bar is $5.00.  You can order some by emailing me at soapsudstacy@gmail.com, like my Facebook page and message me there or call 814-299-6804.

Giveaway Winner....

Thank you to all who entered my Facebook Black Friday Giveaway.  This giveaway took my Facebook page to over 100 likes and growing.  Thanks for helping me spread the word about my soaps and bath bombs.

The Winner was Dee Hanzely, she will get to pick out two bars of soap to try.

If you would like to order some feel free to email soapsudstacy@gmail.com.  I am more than happy to ship orders with the buyer paying actually shipping costs.

Look for more giveaways soon!!

Holiday Orders

Taking Holiday Orders now, shipping available.  Buyer to pay actual shipping costs.  Find a list of available soaps here: Holiday Product List

Also have Bath Bombs and French Lavender sachets available, Great Stocking Stuffer ideas!!!

Please email soapsudstacy@gmail.com with questions or orders.

Craft Show set up...and Facebook

I participated in my second craft show this past weekend.  It was a show to benefit the DuBois Area Marching Band.  Since I have a daughter who has been in the marching band for four years now I was excited to be a part of it.

The crowds were pretty good during the morning hours and then after lunch our area experienced freezing rain and it pretty drastically cut down the flow of people.  I took advantage of this and became a shopper myself :)

I had fun, met new people and got to share my soap with new eyes and noses!!

Surprise of the day.... this is my bath bomb mistakes.
I have thrown batches away, who would have known
Magic Fizzy Dust would have SOLD OUT at this craft show.
I will be making more of this for sure

Soooo... I have also decided to set up a Stacy's Soap Suds Facebook page so that I am not bombarding people on my own Facebook page with soap news if they are not interested in that.  Please LIKE!!!!!

Love Hate Relationship with Bath Bombs

Up until about three or four months ago I had never heard of a bath bomb. I could have walked past it a dozen times in a store and never took notice.  While browsing soap forums I belong to I kept reading people making bath bombs or bath fizzies.  I decided to give it a try and let me kids be the guinea pigs for me.  My girls loved them, the twins thought the fizzing was fun and I loved the way it smells up the whole house after a bath.  So when I think about it we ALL benefit from someone taking a bath in the house using a bath bomb.

What is a bath bomb you ask?  Its much like putting a alka seltzer in your bath water and watching it fizz away.  It does not create bubbles for a bubble bath but scents your water just right for a refreshing or relaxing bath experience. Wish I would have had these as a kid!!!

So why title the post a "love hate relationship"?  Well, they are buggers to get right with mixing them up. I have had several good batches and the next time all the batches are bad.  I have some mold up perfectly and set right up, I have others that mold perfectly and then crack and crumble apart when dried. Its a hit or miss I reckon.

As I prepare for another craft show I decided to wrap them up nice and take their photo to share.  I do not always have these items on stock but I am ready and able to make them upon request.  I already have several people who have ordered them for office Christmas gifts or stocking stuffers or paired them with soap orders.

Here is what I made over the past two nights:

Wintergreen, fresh and minty

Bubblegum, kids love it!

Ocean Getaway, who couldn't use that?

New Scent and its a KEEPER!!!

Price of bath bombs is $1.50 each or 4 for $5

(I will ship if requested)

And finally, thanks to my helper Camille who took the photos for me and made sure to take a photo of me doing all the work while she played on computer and took selfies....LOL Notice son in background watching his sissy being silly :)

Helping out the little crafters, like me

Its truly been so fun to meet other people who have a craft to share, especially with holidays right around the corner.  I have been meeting people out and about at local craft shows and online.  Today I joined a crafters co-op page on Facebook and realized WoW what the internet can do for a small business.  You can join here: Crafters Co Op

I am a stay at home mom.  I love being a stay at home mom, but I am a social being who WANTS to work.  Due to my family dynamics it's truly not an option for me to work outside of our home. Raising five children is lots of work, no doubt, but add twins with multiple special needs to the mix and it turns out to be a full time job.  Its been a blessing to do something I enjoy doing and making a little extra money on the side.

I plan to support crafters for my Christmas shopping, I urge you to do the same.  There are seriously some pretty amazing items out there!!

Holiday Orders/ Product List

Keeping a blog updated is not one of my strengths as you can see from my lack of posts.  As the holiday season approaches I have had more and more people ask me what I will have available.  The easiest way to spread the news is via the world wide web, so I have decided to jump back onto my soap blog and post some photos.

I did my first ever craft show last weekend and did rather well.  I enjoyed sharing my soaps with lots of new people and hearing the nice comments on how my table smelled so good as they walked past.

Holiday orders are already coming in.  To keep up with demand if you are interested in ordering more than 10 bars of soap please let me know ahead of time so I can be prepared.  I need at least two weeks to have a batch of soap ready to gift out.

I have been exclusively making "hot process soap" over the past several months.  It takes more time to make but the cure time is a fraction of the time needed for cold processed soap and personally I like the look of it better.

Here is a listing of soaps I currently have in stock:

*New Scent*... after researching all the beneficial properties of
this soap we decided to call it Doc P.E.B.   This all natural soap
contains Pine, Eucalyptus and Bergamot.  If you google the
skin benefits of each of these essential oils you will see this bar
is great for acne, eczema, psoriasis, oily and troubled skin.  And
an added bonus is that I added Activated Charcoal which is also
amazing for your skin.  This is already becoming a favorite bar
here in my own household with teenagers.

Need a good morning pick me up bar?  This will get your senses
awake and ready to tackle a new day. 

*New Scent*- this bar is scented with a Green Tea
fragrance oil.  Really has a nice calming scent that
is gender neutral, almost floral fruity.  I used actual
green tea leaves in upper portion of the bar for
a great visual effect.

Calming and Relaxing.  Who doesn't love Lavender?
This is an all natural bar scented just right with
Lavender essential oil and topped off with
French Lavender petals for some added exfoliation.

*New Scent* Great kitchen bar, great shower bar,
great bathroom sink bar.... basically you just
can't go wrong with this bar.

>>Best Seller<< for those with skin sensitivities this is the bar
for you.  Unscented and only use all organic natural
ingredients including raw honey.  Have heard
wonderful testimonies from people who have
never been able to find a soap that they can use
with their skin issues, worth the try. 

*New Unscented Bar* I myself LOVE scents, I tend to
even go overboard with some of my scenting.  I was
asked by several people if I made an unscented bar...??
WHAT? who wants an unscented bar I'd ask...
When I received the answer "I do" a couple of times
I figured I better add in an unscented bar to my inventor.
 This is it.
The black line is activated charcoal to add some kind
of color and extra skin benefit.

Even in the winter time the smell of ocean and coconut is
a pleasing getaway if only for a few minutes in the
shower.  A very popular scent with some of my
male customers.

*New Scent* Thus far this is my BEST SELLER and a
wonderful bar to become so.  I developed this bar with my
daughter Tristin as a fundraiser bar for her French class
trip to Paris in the summer of 2016.  All proceeds from the sale
of this bar goes to her trip expenses.
What is the scent you ask?
Black Raspberry Vanilla.... YUM

Purple on the bottom, Pink on the top.  My daughter
Camille helped me with this bar.  Very sweet and fruity
scent great for girls.  Use a Wild Passion fragrance oil.

*New Scent* last but not least... my personal favorite.  Not
to much sandalwood, a touch of rose and yet capture a tiny
wiff of patchouli. I love it!!  I can always tell when someone
comes and smells this soap, its topped with shimmering glitter
and those that smell it usually walk away with a glittery nose :)

New Item======>>>>>>>

I am excited to work together with my daughter Camille
to make Bath Bombs, also knows as Bath Fizzies.

If you are unfamiliar with these it much like putting an
Alka Seltzer in water.  Once you put one of these in your bath
water not only is it fun to watch fizz away but the scent
is soothing and a wonderful addition to your bath time.

Currently have several scents including:  Rose, Ocean, Samone, Black Raspberry Vanilla, Wintergreen, and Lavender

BUT adding some new scents for stocking stuffers for kids... look for Bubblegum, Vanilla Mint, and Tea Tree oil soon

Please be sure to review all ingredients in my products before using for any possible allergies, I would be happy to share that information with you via email if you wish.  If you've read this far thank you and you must have some interest in my soaps... Thank You!! 

The price of all my bars are $5 each. The bath bombs are approximately 2 oz each, the size of a golf ball and go for $1.50 each or 4 for $5.

Contact Information:

Stacy Hanzely

soapsudstacy@gmail.com

814-299-6804

Samone

Each time I make a new batch of soap it makes it harder and harder for me to choose a favorite!! This one by far is the most beautiful and since I am a scent freak... this ones smells fantastic... oh to describe the scent.... its a fruity floral scent that reminds me of the scent of lotion my daughter Camille loves to wear.

I have decided to make this whole soaping thing even more fun for my family by allowing my children to pick a scent they like and then name the bar of soap.  Since this one smells so much like Camille this is "her soap".  Her favorite colors are pink and purple so I swirled these colors together and it turned out quite beautiful.  Some who have seen my sample bar told me its way to pretty to use.  Well, I have to say that defeats the reason I make soap which is to use it, love it and smell good!!

Here is a photo:

Now as I said above this was a sample batch to see if I could get colors to swirl nicely and to test out how much fragrance oil to use.. I think I got it about perfect on the first try.  I only have eight bars to share from this batch but I will make a full batch sometime this week to get ready to sell.  If I do say so myself, this would make a great Mothers' Day gift!!!

The ingredients for this bar are as follows:

Saponified Coconut Oil, Palm Kernel Oil, Olive Oil, Water, Pink and Purple Mica for coloring and superfatted with Shea Butter for extra moisturizing benefits and fragrance oil.

I made this using the hot processed method so it will be ready in about two weeks.  I think I smell a best seller here!!!

Coming Next........The Boss Bar :)

Soaps are Loaded up and Ready!!

After alot of interest in my homemade soaps I have decided to "try" a local shop to display some of my soaps for sale.  This is an exciting journey for me to share my soaps with others.   I have four scents ready and packaged to take to Reynolds Primitive Decor & More in Brockway.

This shop is having their grand opening this Saturday.  Below is information from their flier:

Reynolds Primitive Decor & More

429 Main Street

Brockway, PA  15825

(814) 265-0174

GRAND OPENING CELEBRATION!

Saturday March 15th

10am - 8pm

Winery at Wilcox hosting wine tasting from 5-7pm

We will have dip samples, cookie samples and soup from our very own Jar Ladies.

There will be several giveaways to register for and 10% off entire store!

Over 25 vendors under one roof. Lots of gift ideas and home decor.

Soap Bar #3 Milk, Oats & Honey

I was inspired one morning as I sat and ate my oatmeal to make a Milk, Oat and Honey soap bar.  I have seen many beautiful photos online of this kind of soap and even a few recipes that I may someday try.  For this bar I stayed with my fabulous recipe base I learned from the soaping class I took from Quiet Creek Herb Farm.  When you sign up for the class there not only do you get detailed instruction you also get a little booklet written by Rusty Orner himself.  I refer to it each time I make soap.  He mentioned making a Milk, Oat and Honey bar and the fact that it reminds him of breakfast and could easily be called a breakfast bar.

One thing I have learned from parenting my twins with Autism and Down Syndrome is that I cannot label anything something it is not.. (ex. breakfast soap... they would eat it)

This particular soap is very good for people with sensitive skin.  I added no essential oil scents to it yet it smells amazing.  I love the coloring that came out and the oats you can see throughout.  They are ground up organic oats so you shouldn't end up with a bowl full of oatmeal at the end of your shower.

This is still on the curing rack and I am anxious to give it a try soon. The recipe is as follows:

Milk, Oats & Honey Bar

32 oz Organic Palm Kernal Oil
30 oz Coconut Oil
25 oz Extra Virgin Olive Oil
11.75 oz Sodium Hydroxide
32 oz water
1/3 c ground organic oats
1/3 c powdered milk
1/3 c local raw honey

Already have a few of these babies reserved for sale when they are done curing.  I think this will be a good seller!  You can get your bar for only $4.00, just shoot me an email at soapsudstacy@gmail.com.

Homemade Laundry Soap Day

About twice a year I make a five gallon bucket full of homemade laundry soap for my family of seven to use.  I started this over two years ago and will probably honestly never go back to commercial laundry detergents.  I love that I can change the smell up by adding different scented laundry enhancers with each batch to keep things fresh to the nose.  I personally am a smell freak and I love to smell my clothes.   I would not change a thing about the recipe as our clothes are very clean and deodorized.  None of us have sensitive skin so the ingredients work well for us.  If you have sensitive skin I have read to eliminate the OxyClean from the recipe.

For Christmas I usually give a few bags away as gifts so I find myself running low quicker than usual.  In case your wondering, this make a great gift that the receivers remember and are very thankful for.

I recently decided to step up and rent a spot at a local primitive craft shop to display my soaps and see if there is any interest.  I felt this laundry soap was mighty appropriate to put in the Stacy's Soap Suds display.

So if your wondering if I am going to quit gabbing and just give you the recipe already, I have to confess that I found this recipe on Pintrest so I take no credit in developing this great mixture.  I took the idea from the website www.howdoesshe.com.  Click HERE for the link to the laundry soap post.  I have enjoyed this detergent very much and everyone I've shared it with to this point loves it too.  I have a great testimony to this laundry soap as I have five children and two of them have special needs and are not potty trained yet at eight years old.  We clean lots of messy clothes in our household!!!

This was the starting point for me on making my own cleaning supplies and soaps.  It was a great first step and I am glad I took that first step!!

Soap Bar #2 Mint Chocolate Mocha

This is the soap that I have pictured in my header currently.  I love mint, I love chocolate and I love my coffee so this was a bar I selfishly did for ME.  I used a bit of a different recipe as far as the oils I used and I got the base ingredients and measurements out of a book I borrowed from the library called "Clean, Naturally - recipes for body, home and spirit" by Sandy Maine.  This is a really good book worth checking out.  There are several soap recipes as well as cleaners and creams.  I literally read this book from cover to cover.

These bars are still curing and will be ready for sale the first week of April 2014.  I can honestly say that they have my house smelling so wonderful just by sitting on a rack curing on my counter.  I personally can't wait to use it.  I keep thinking that this would be a great kitchen sink soap.  There are actual coffee ground in the soap so it will be a little exfoliating and the mint smell would  help wash off any stinky onion or garlic smells from your hands after cooking.  I of course will be using it in the shower to help WAKE UP in the morning.

I just love the looks of it:

Mint Chocolate Mocha Recipe:

24 oz Olive Oil

24 oz Coconut Oil

38 oz Vegetable Shortening (Crisco)

12 oz Sodium Hydroxide - lye

32 oz water

2 tablespoons cocoa powder for coloring

1/4 c expresso coffee grounds and juice squeezed through coffee filter

3 oz. Organic Peppermint Essential Oil

How did I get into soap making?

I have been asked how in the world I got involved with making my own soap.  The answer is simple...  I have been buying handmade soap from others for about three years now.  I love it.  The more scent the better for me.  I have shopped at craft sales, I have bought from Mother Earth News Fair vendors, I have purchased off Ebay and I have randomly shopped other peoples sites online.  I have never had a bad bar of handmade soap and loved them all..

The thing is, this kind of stuff is right up my alley.  I make my own homemade laundry soap, all purpose cleaners, laundry balls and crayon lipstick with my daughter Camille.  I enjoy doing things like this and I just decided to add soap making to my list of hobbies.  Thus far I am really loving the satisfaction of seeing a beautiful bar of soap emerge from fats and lye.

Each batch will be different and each scent will probably become my favorite.

So HEY YOU, yeah Y-O-U, why don't you leave me a comment on what scents are your favorite to inspire my future batches..

Soap Bar #1 Orange Cinnamon Spice

What a better way to track the soaps I make than to blog about each one.  This will show my readers what I have been making and it will help me to document what I used in each recipe for future bars if they become favorites.

The Orange Cinnamon Spice is already one of my favorites.  I am using it right now in my shower.  The lather is perfect, not to little, not to much.

Currently I am making Cold Processed Soaps.  I really like this method and I am becoming more comfortable making soap this way.  Through some trial and errors I am figuring out how to make my soap get to trace a little quicker.  I started by hand stirring with a spoon and it literally would take me an hour and a half of constant stirring and stirring and stirring....ugh!  Who has time for that??!!

I found an ancient hand mixer at Goodwill one day for $3 so I bought it to give that a try.  When I say ancient, I mean it:

So far I can honestly say that has been the best $3 I've spent.  Only thing is, I'm not sure how much life it has in it.  It seems like its overheating after about three minutes of use.  So I usually pulse and turn off and stir, then pulse and turn off and stir.  My trace time has pretty much been cut in half so for now this works for me!!

The Orange Cinnamon Spice soap turned out really nice.  I felt inspired to add some real orange peels to it since there just happened to be a big ole bowl of oranges sitting on my counter at the time and I thought it just might make the soap look pretty.  I wasn't sure how it would turn out but I was pleased.

You will notice that my bars are all different shapes and sizes.  I cut my bars of soap by hand thus giving it that made at home look even more, which I love!

Orange Cinnamon Spice Recipe:

32 oz Organic Palm Kernal Oil

30 oz Coconut Oil

25 oz Extra Virgin Olive Oil

11.75 oz Sodium Hydroxide

32 oz water

3 oz  Orange Cinnamon Essential Oil

1/3 c of dried orange peel finely chopped

Let the soaping begin.....

I have been making homemade laundry detergent for almost two years now.  Doing this has sparked my curiosity on making homemade cleaners and soaps.  I took a soap class last year at a local place called Quiet Creek Herb Farm.  It was the start of something really fun for me.  I was a bit nervous to handle the lye part of soap making and wanted to be sure to have a hands on live presentation on just how to do it.  Rusty Orner did a great job of teaching soap making and the chemistry behind it.

My first batch was completely given out as Christmas presents to school teachers, friends and family.  The response from this was amazing and thus created my desire to make soaps to sell at local craft shows and online for something to do and to perhaps create some pocket change for extra activities for the family.

I hope to keep this blog up and running to document my progress and show off my fun hobby.  Oh how I only wish I could share the smell of these soaps.

Keep checking back, I will be making soap frequently.

Below is the only type of soap that is cured and ready to sell.  Its basic cold pressed soap using organic palm kernel oil, coconut oil, olive oil, sodium hydroxide (lye) and organic Orange Cinnamon essential oil.. I also took an orange peel and chopped it and dried it to add color.  It turned out beautiful.  If your interested I am selling this for $4.00 per 4 ounce bar.  You can comment below or email me at pookeymom@msn.com with SOAP in the title of your email.