Saturday, May 15, 2010

Garage Sales


This morning my son and I went to a few garage sales, and it was so much fun! I re-painted my kitchen last fall, and have been contemplating my dishes lately. What a hodge-podge collection of odds and ends. They really need to be donated to charity and I need to start over. Well, what do you suppose was waiting for me on this chilly, rainy day? A lovely set of strawberry dishes. Eight place settings! (minus one bowl, and one bowl with a slight chip) I really didn't think they would necessarily "go" with my new aqua-ish walls, but lo and behold....they do!

Oh, how I love a bargain...especially when it turns out so "right"!

As for soap, today is Lye Soap day. Lemongrass was yeaterday, as well as a new, awesome retail location for my lye soap.

All in all, it's been a great week!

7 comments:

Amy Warden said...

My mom decorated their kitchen with strawberries - she has them EVERYWHERE! No strawberry dishes anymore though, just plain white ones. :)

Ambra said...

That looks really pretty. I love strawberry design on tableware. I once saw absolutely gorgeous tableware in Italy. Was travelling on a bus an no way to take it with me. Still think of it to this day! I love your labels by the way.

Jennifer Young said...

Very nice dishes and how great that you found them at a bargain! I like your new packaging too! Can you tell me what you mean by lye soap? All of my soap has lye in it... Hope you batch turns out perrrrfect. xo Jen

TheSoapSister said...

Isn't that funny? I just got rid of my (very incomplete) set of plain white dishes! (Whick I loved, BTW) I'm proud of myself for not hanging onto them as I was tempted to do! Maybe I'll make some de-junking progress this year, after all!

TheSoapSister said...

Hi Ambra,Sorry to hear you weren't able to get the Italian strawberry dishes -I can only imagine how lovely they were! My all-white set (that I have in the back of my car, ready to donate) is Alfar Etrusco "Acanthus" Pontesa and says Made in Spain. I've always loved it...maybe I should keep the few big plates that are left, and the little dessert bowls...you can never have too many of those. They would, of course mix well with the strawberry pattern...what do you all think? P.s. Thanks for the positive feed back on the labels. I'm hoping to resist any further tweaking. I waste so much time that way!

TheSoapSister said...

Hi Jen,Sorry for the confusion. Yes, I use lye in making all of my soaps, too. However, around here, when folks say "lye soap" they are talking about a 0% lye discount, "laundry" type of soap, as opposed to a bathing soap.As a matter of fact, I was just explaining the whole "lye thing" to a really nice lady yesterday who didn't understand that the soap you and I make is gentle, moisturizing, and actually good for your skin. The word "lye" just conjured up all sorts of negative images in her mind. She actually motivated me to include a very basic explanation on my website!Many folks don't realize the precision that is involved in modern-day soapmaking, and how that helps us ensure a mild and moisturizing product. They just imagine (or even remember first-hand)Grandma dumping a "guesstimate" of lye in with her lard! So, after that long-winded rant, the new retailer is starting out just carrying my "old Fashioned Lye Soap" (labeled for laundry and housohold use) in their "Country Store", because it seems like a good fit to them.Does the general public in your area "get" the lye thing? If you said "Here, try a bar of my lye soap!" would they freak out or recoil in horror?This is so interesting to me!

Jennifer Young said...

Well... not really sure. Thanks for the explanation and story! Here a lot of the older ladies used to make laundry soap, some still do. Younger people seem to like my natural soaps and I haven't had to explain in such detail as you have... actually I wouldn't really know what to say! Look forward to seeing your basic explanation on your web site... or is it there already? I will go check it out! It may help me explain! Thanks