One of the things that I get most excited about with the business is the opportunity to work with other small businesses and crafts people to come up with unique products.
It would in many ways be much easier to simply buy things in and resell but I don't think that I would get the same kick out of it if I sold the same as everyone else. It would become a case of watching everyone elses prices.
Last year Laura Capnerhurst of Lucky Cats Soap used my calendula flowers to make a fantastic gardeners' soap and this year we have been developing egg shaped soaps with a felted covering.
The idea began with my elder daughter's birthday party where all the children made vibrant felt coverings for pieces of Laura's soap - they work a bit like a flannel and soap combined. Laura had made felted soaps before but this was the first time that I had really seen them and they were a great success.
Then, at one of the Fairs before Christmas I asked Laura about making egg shaped soaps to go inside some chicken shaped topiary frames I have for sale. She suggested felting the outsides and to be honest I thought it might look a bit odd - I still had the image of the bright wool stripes from the birthday party in my head and thought that they would look too "tie-die" for the chickens.
Then Laura made me the prototype pictured above and I am in love. The wool is pure cream merino, it is soft as soft can be, it doesn't smell at all wet woolly, the soap inside is a lovely light citrusy bergamot, and it will look fantastic in the chickens.
I love being proved wrong.
4 comments:
Its cool to use loofahs as moulds too - then when the soap has set - cut the loofahs in half - and you have self soaping scrubbies.
Soap is such a flexible thing!
Heather
I have heard about the felted soap before and I have to say I am quite fascinated by it.
It is a funny thing - when I began blogging it was a direct result of hearing Heather talking on Radio 4, but at that time I hadn't really thought about using the herbs and flowers in the garden in any way other than as cut flowers and pot pourri.
Yet when I think back I didn't even bother to check out the sites of the other bloggers featured on the programme. I just really liked the way that Heather talked about things.
I do wonder whether I have been subtly influenced by the very focussed voice of the soap blog.
Of course there is also the fact that Laura has become a friend and it is therefore it is very natural and not daunting to collaborate even though I don't know much about the technical aspects.
I can't see the photo at the moment but the soaps sound really lovely. I've read a bit about felted soaps recently and they sound really facinating.
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