Hello from Parke Co Indiana

[Parke Co. Grapevine]

I have been on here a couple weeks, but have neglected to introduce myself. My name is Karen, loving wife to Larry - my hero who started our soapmaking journey. In 2007, as we entered the highschool years of homeschooling our children, he also entered a stage where he wanted to stop buying supermarket soap and start using homemade soap. He said, "Let's learn to make soap!"

The children and I spent a year studying the process and chemistry, collecting the tools and finding local suppliers. But my fear of the lye ...well. Larry would arrive home from work hoping to find our first, great batch of homemade soap. Every day I had an excuse for 'no soap'. When I confessed my fears, he stepped in as chemistry coach, donned the gloves and apron and goggles, and played the Professor while the children read the instructions out loud. What a blast we had! and the soap turned out so nice. We began using it and were hooked.

The children are all grown now and we are embarking on that 'part-time retirement income' stage. The longer we make soap, we know ... the more we have to learn. We have a lot of business questions also. This is a great forum with great discussions. I am grateful to find it.

 

[Sweetlily321]

HI!!!

 

[Badger]

Welcome to the forum Karen! There are many wonderful and knowledgeable people here I hope you have gotten over your fear of the lye, I know a lot of people that start out afraid of it but most of us learn that it is to be respected but not feared.

 

[kharmon320]

Welcome! This is a great community.

 

[Parke Co. Grapevine]

Yes, I've gotten over my fear of lye, lol! Actually, my husband now often reminds me to 'wear gloves and goggles' cause sometimes I will get in the mood and just jump right in. As we are doing soap more often, to build stock, and involving our adult children and extended fam more often, I am getting back into the safety-first mode. Working on developing a functional soap kitchen separate from any other family activities is my big project right now.

My hubby does grapevine crafts and we are sorta finding ways to combine the two, at least in our display and marketing. We make simple, humlbe, country soap with recycled containers and recycled paper wrapping. Here are some recent pics (I hope I can do the attachment right)

 

[Badger]

Very nice soaps, and a wonderful curing area, I could only wish for so much space!!

 

[ruby61]

Karen welcome! What a cute story and love your curing area. I love indiana! We bought a blood hound puppy there last october near indianopolis and loved the area.

 

[Parke Co. Grapevine]

Yes, Indiana is a nice place to live. I grew up here, but my hubby is a transplanted Texan. (His heart is still in TX, though. That's incurable! We travel back and forth often.)

Our house actually has *lots* more curing and storage space. That photo is just a 'slice.' Three large rooms have floor to ceiling cubbies/shelves that were built-in by a former-owner antique collector. As our children are done with homeschooling (big clutter all the time) and moving on and moving out (we are working on the clutter, ahah) ...

and we *are* addicted to making soap now, it seems natural to use all this space for something productive, like a soap business, huh?

(I will say, the curing rooms smell really really nice.